The Catholic church is wrong. Again.

I swear I'm not purposefully picking only on Catholics. I find all religions distasteful. Catholics just make it easier to pick on them.

Last week, a doctor in Brazil performed an abortion on a nine year old girl. The girl was pregnant with twins after being repeatedly raped by her step-father over the course of a three year period. Though abortion is normally outlawed in Brazil, exceptions are made in cases of rape. An Archbishop for Brazil promptly excommunicated the Catholic doctor, the nurses and staff who assisted with the abortion, and the girl's mother. The girl herself was spared because the Vatican does not excommunicate minors. Also missing from the list those banished from the church over the incident: The step-father who raped and impregnated the young girl.

Now, I could easily make some tasteless joke involving the child-raping step-father, scandal ridden Catholic clergy, a pot, a kettle, and someone not wanting to call someone else black, but I'll refrain.

I understand the church's stance on abortion. Trust me- I have several Catholic family members who have made it disturbingly clear just what the church has told them to think. Regardless of what a person believes regarding abortion though, surely it is wrong to punish the doctor but not the step-father. I'm sure some believers will argue that the step-father will receive his punishment in the afterlife. Well that's bull. I doubt that argument will give much solace to the young girl who has been raped since the age of six.

Intent matters. And from where I'm sitting, the church's official position is that it is alright to punish a doctor who in his heart wanted to help a girl out of an awful predicament, but that no punishment is needed for the man who had nothing but evil in his heart (assuming he even has one). Even if you think the doctor's act was a sin, his intentions were at least far better than the young-child-raping, still-able-to-attend-mass step-father.

Get it together Catholics and pull your collective head out of your fourth point of contact. No wonder the number of folks claiming to have no religion has doubled since 1990. Us heathens are on the march!

Will Joseph Ratzinger be to the Vatican what George W Bush was to the White House?

Apparently enraging the entire Islamic world wasn't enough for this Pope. He has now moved on to the Jews. First, Pope Benedict XVI reinstated the Tridentine Mass, which calls for the conversion of Jews from darkness to Catholicism. Now, the BMOC at the Vatican has un-excommunicated four Bishops, one of whom is a holocaust denier.

If I may, Mr. Pope, allow me to give you some flippant advice. As the head of a church the leader of which (at best) turned a blind eye to Nazi atrocities during WWII, and who is yourself from Germany, and who was a member of the Hitler Youth (even if unenthusiastic about it), perhaps you should have given it a little more thought before rehabilitating a holocaust denier.

On a slightly more serious note, there is more to the title of this post than both Bush and Benedict XVI knowing how to stick in the collective craw of millions of Muslims. They both also followed an immensely popular predecessor (Clinton and John Paul II). And from what I understand Benedict XVI shares W's love of yes men. Recent reports indicate that the Pope has surrounded himself only with men of similar opinion and inclination. This has increased criticisms from many sources, surprisingly enough even from within the Catholic church. Several European Cardinals have publicly criticized the Pope, going so far as to call his decision "disastrous" and saying they have lost faith in Benedict XVI.

I know at least one Catholic reads these ramblings of mine. I would be curious to hear some lay Catholic responses to this situation. If I were one, I would be questioning whether Benedict XVI is the right man to have the power of making "infallible" decisions for the church.