1/15/2009

I Find Your Lack of Faith... Ah, Screw It, That Joke Is Old

From Pharyngula: Sins so heinous that only the Pope can grant absolution
Details of some high-level Catholic tribunal and how it handles the most grievous sins have been revealed. In a very strange overview, we learn that murder and genocide, while truly horrible crimes, can be handled by lower members of the hierarchy. There are a few that only this tribunal and the Pope are qualified to cope with. They are briefly listed: trying to assassinate the Pope, a priest spilling the beans about what is said in the confessional, priests having sex, and abortionists becoming priest. But there is one other crime, which the article dwells on:

Defiling the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is the body and blood of Christ, is also considered a sin of extreme gravity and one which is on the increase, the high-ranking members of the tribunal said.

(...)

In July last year an American academic, to make a point about freedom of thought and religion, drove a nail through a Communion wafer and then threw it in a rubbish bin.

Paul Myers, from the University of Minnesota, said later: "I pierced it with a rusty nail. Then I simply threw it in the trash. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your Lord."
Man, oh, man, how badass is that? PZ Myers is so evil that only Emperor Popeatine can deal directly with him. And if the Pope won't grant him a repreive, he's excommunicated - oh, such a punishment, considering PZ isn't Catholic.

What's really sad about it, though is in that first paragraph:
In a very strange overview, we learn that murder and genocide, while truly horrible crimes, can be handled by lower members of the hierarchy.
That's right, a pirest getting some is a worse crime than killing or attempting to kill entire groups of people. And folks wonder why it is I'm not Catholic.

Personally, I'd give just about anything to see PZ go to Rome to have the Pope "deal with him". If it were me, I wouldn't go there without a lot of Jedi training, mind you, and considering Yoda is off fighting nunchaku-swinging Elvis impersonators and bipolar teenagers with hula hoops of doom, I guess this is something that's going to remain firmly in the realm of fantasy.