134 Comments
User's avatar
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

When civil or penal trials are ongoing or about to start no bankruptcy filling should be accepted.

Expand full comment
Troublesh00ter's avatar

Hear-freaking-HEAR!!!

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

It's not different from deadbeat ex spouses who divest all their money and properties to not pay the alimony they have to pay.

Expand full comment
Fisherina's avatar

Plus howwwwww can the declare bk when there are literally unlimited funds in the home office???

Expand full comment
Guerillasurgeon's avatar

I think they claim every dioceses is separate to avoid this. Disingenuous. But that's the church isn't it?

Expand full comment
Bob Riggins's avatar

/pedantry/ You're misusing "literally." /English teacher mode/

Expand full comment
Guerillasurgeon's avatar

I think you replied to the wrong person. Judging by the little lines on the page anyway. I didn't use the word literally. Literally. 😁

Expand full comment
Guerillasurgeon's avatar

Or Alex Jones, and I think the courts have cottoned onto his shenanigans and put a stop to them.

Expand full comment
Troublesh00ter's avatar

Terrific. Yet another Catholic diocese goes into bankruptcy. Yet again, I have to ask:

𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗥𝗜𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗦?!?

When are THEY themselves going to be charged and arraigned and tried and convicted and imprisoned for their crimes? I've been waiting since long before 𝑀𝑒𝑎 𝑀𝑎𝑥𝑖𝑚𝑎 𝐶𝑢𝑙𝑝𝑎 or 𝑆𝑝𝑜𝑡𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 came out to hear that a thorough investigation of a diocese at minimum if not the entire Church was under severe scrutiny, that a grand jury was empaneled to examine the evidence and that charges were pending, not just against priests, but the bishops and archbishops and cardinals who were suborning and supporting their illegal activity. Someone needs to get on that.

Because I want to see their sorry asses thrown in the hoosegow and the key thrown away!

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

In the rare cases they had a slap on the wrist or real jail time, they were systematically released in appeal. See France and Australia.

Expand full comment
Troublesh00ter's avatar

Once again (for the millionth time!) because they are Men Of Faith™, supposedly upright and trustworthy ... and if you believe that one, I got this real swell bank in Santa Clara I'd like you to invest in!

Honestly, I'm so tired of these jackasses in dresses skating on this crap, there may not be the words to describe the emotion. I don't know how. I just know that this noise has got to stop, that someone has to find the will to put the screws to the RCC and make them not just understand the culpability they have, but to MAKE THEM PAY.

Expand full comment
Guerillasurgeon's avatar

In fact, because they are men of faith and abused positions of responsibility, they should get longer sentences not shorter.

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

Don't tell me you already sold the Montana mansion with sea view you promised me 🤬

Expand full comment
Troublesh00ter's avatar

Oh, hell, that one went weeks ago! I DO still have the bridge in Brooklyn, though, and it's a real deal! 🤪

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

I am not a troll, living under a bridge don't interest me 😝

Expand full comment
Zorginipsoundsor's avatar

I'm surprised Troublesh00ter doesn't know that hobbitesses live in burrows.

Expand full comment
OwossoHarpist's avatar

"..real swell bank in Santa Clara.."

I think you're referring to Silicon Valley bank that just collapsed, amirite?

Expand full comment
Troublesh00ter's avatar

Awww, darn, you guessed! 😁

Expand full comment
XJC's avatar

Did you mean, Make them Pray?

Expand full comment
NOGODZ20's avatar

Better they pray than prey.

Expand full comment
oraxx's avatar

The systematic sexual abuse of children has been the church's dirty little secret for centuries. The Catholic Church needs to be consigned to the graveyard of bad ideas.

Expand full comment
Guerillasurgeon's avatar

OT but – here we go again.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/13/three-year-old-girl-accidentally-shoots-sister-dead-texas

Pity she didn't shoot whoever let her get hold of the gun.

Expand full comment
Zorginipsoundsor's avatar

And yet this idjit wants to protect children from the imaginary threat posed by drag queens; and do nothing about the very real thing that is the number one cause of death of children in the US.

https://youtu.be/tCuIxIJBfCY?t=435

Expand full comment
RegularJoe's avatar

If only there had been a Good Guy With A Gun™ to prevent this senseless tragedy.

Expand full comment
Guerillasurgeon's avatar

Yeah, after all the only thing that stops a bad baby with a gun is a good baby with a gun right?

Expand full comment
RegularJoe's avatar

How did the "bad baby" get the gun? Black market? Theft?

Expand full comment
Zorginipsoundsor's avatar

The same way the "bad guys" get guns here in Floriduh, by taking the gun from a car that a 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙗𝙡𝙚 gun owner left unlocked.

Expand full comment
cdbunch's avatar

A gun inside a car in Florida? Why does that sound like a recipe for accidental discharge. Greenhouse effect is a thing.

Expand full comment
cdbunch's avatar

My grandfather kept .22 rifles leaned up against the piano in the living room. We all knew not to touch them that they were dangerous. I sometimes wonder if the fact that gun owners hide the guns rather than make the children aware that they're there and dangerous, added to the proliferation of toy guns, is why so many little kids think they are toys.

Expand full comment
Guerillasurgeon's avatar

NZ regulations say you must have guns locked in a cabinet or some such, and the bolts and ammunition in a separate locked box hidden somewhere. Mind you, I would do that anyway. Don't mind kids seeing the guns et cetera et cetera, even though my son's never shown any interest in hunting – damn computer nerd – but no way are they touching them without my supervision and express permission.

Expand full comment
Joan the Dork's avatar

That may be part of it. I grew up around guns as well, and while my parents kept them locked up, they didn't hide them. If us kids wanted to see them, we could... under supervision, with no ammo, and only if we observed the basic safety rules (every gun is loaded, even if it's not; never point a gun at living things, etc). We quickly figured out that handling real guns was less fun than playing with toys, and stopped caring about them until we were old enough to go target shooting. Knowledge disarms curiosity.

Same with household chemicals, electrical outlets, and every other potentially-lethal thing that might be in the home. Just pointing at a thing and saying "don't touch that" isn't good enough. Tell them why. Show them what it does, if you can. Demystify it so that it's not just another boundary to test, and you remove the lion's share of the danger.

Of course, there's also the third option: "𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘱𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺-𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘯, 𝘥𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘴!" ...but that's neither here nor there.

Expand full comment
Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

It’s not the law abiding gun owners, why do you have to punish them too? It’s the criminals who steal guns or get them off the black market, it isn’t the good guys who have lots of guns that are the problem.

Expand full comment
Guerillasurgeon's avatar

I don't want to get in to a huge discussion on this because we'll almost certainly end up talking past each other, but people who let three-year-olds get hold of guns should be considered criminals. Mine* have always been locked away, with bolts and ammunition kept in a locked box and the ceiling space. It would take very advanced three-year-old to get hold of any of them.

*Guns, not children 🙂

Expand full comment
Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

I was being sarcastic. Some of the common sense gun control laws include requiring gun safes and trigger locks.

When I was very young, my father had a handgun of some sort in a locked box, hidden away in a closet. I didn’t even know it existed until my parents caught my older brother playing with it. They found someone to buy it from them and never owned another one. I was maybe five, so he would have been eight. Apparently, I almost literally dodged a bullet.

Expand full comment
Guerillasurgeon's avatar

"I was being sarcastic." Whew! I thought so, but a lot of Americans wouldn't have been. 😁

Expand full comment
RegularJoe's avatar

No Good Guy With A Gun™ involved in this shooting.

Expand full comment
NOGODZ20's avatar

In some better news, the House in my state just passed a ban on assault rifles and has sent it on to the Senate. It's still going, as of this typing.

Expand full comment
Len Koz's avatar

It really is a sin that the RCC can limit being penalized for past crimes by compartmentalizing dioceses like franchises.

Expand full comment
Fisherina's avatar

This needs to be challenged in court -- the church overall has literally unlimited funds

Expand full comment
XJC's avatar

Much like how Trump's business connivingly did this to wrap up losing businesses and declare paper losses, so he never paid any taxes for decades. One can see how diehard Catholics also love Trump so much.

Expand full comment
XJC's avatar

Maybe the Russian Mafia can bail out the Catholic diocese, too?

Expand full comment
Len Koz's avatar

Nah, the Russian Mafia prefers the Eastern Orthodox church.

Expand full comment
Boreal's avatar

Totes OT:

An Ivermectin Influencer Died. Now His Followers Are Worried About Their Own ‘Severe’ Symptoms.

Danny Lemoi took a daily dose of veterinary-grade ivermectin and told his thousands of followers to give the drug to children. He died of a common side effect of the medication.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3mb89/ivermectin-danny-lemoi-death

Expand full comment
NOGODZ20's avatar

Fucked Around, Found Out.

Quack cures. Alternative medicine. Wanna know what they call medicine that actually does the job it's supposed to do? Medicine.

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

I am shocked it didn't happen earlier.

Expand full comment
NOGODZ20's avatar

Wonder why Bildo hasn't mouthed off about this yet?

Even if it's just to spew "It wasn't rape and they weren't children!"

Expand full comment
Bagen Onuts's avatar

Fucked by priests as kids. Fucked by the church s adults.

Expand full comment
Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

Same as it ever was.

Expand full comment
NOGODZ20's avatar

For almost two millennia.

Expand full comment
NOGODZ20's avatar

Gomez argues the law is unconstitutional? Since when did the RCC give two hoots about the law of the land?

Expand full comment
Guerillasurgeon's avatar

Er ... When it suits them? 😁

Expand full comment
NOGODZ20's avatar

Even though that document nowhere mentions Christianity, the Bible, God, Jesus/Christ, Holy Spirit, divine, etc.

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

When they appointed themselves kingmakers. It obviously backfired when Kings decided to become popes makers instead.

Expand full comment
larry parker's avatar

They still have a church building they could sell. Move to a strip mall. And I'm sure someone would give a couple bucks for that silly hat.

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

A tent in a tornado corridor.

Expand full comment
Guerillasurgeon's avatar

I don't know about the US, but the NZ Catholic Church has a fair bit of property – by that I mean buildings worth millions of dollars, not just churches either. If it's the same in the US they should all be seized – bugger any bankruptcy proceedings.

Expand full comment
jomicur's avatar

Holy Mother Church holds real estate worth uncounted hundreds of billions here. They are wholly unaccountable--pay no taxes, have to reporting requirements--so their true worth is known only to themselves.

I know for a fact that the Pittsburgh diocese owns a whopping 37 office buildings (including several of the "prestige" addresses) in the downtown business district and the university section of the city. They also own a profitable downtown restaurant, a theater and Christ knows how much other real estate. And they hold multi-billion dollar stock portfolios on top of that. Yet they're constantly whining about how poor they are and how badly all those nefarious abuse victims are hurting them.

Religion is only a front operation for them. Their real business is...business. And they make all their profits exactly the same way secular businesses do. The big difference is that they pay NO taxes. None. Zero. Zip. Bernie Madoff at his most corrupt never concocted such a cushy scheme.

Expand full comment
Guerillasurgeon's avatar

Come to think of it ... they could sell hospitals? Win/win.

Expand full comment
NOGODZ20's avatar

Because that's what it's all about, isn't it, RCC?

Protect the church. Protect the money. The victims can go hang. Holy Mother Church needs to die. It is broken beyond saving. For the women, LGBTQs and especially children, the RCC needs to go.

Expand full comment
Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

“To pay those amounts, they had to sell off property and borrow money. Vasa says there’s no more property to sell, very little insurance coverage available, and over 160 cases that are brand new. They have nothing left to give.“

Maybe you can ask the Vatican for help rather than the US legal system. Pay up. Put the perpetrators on the chopping block. Step away from education, healthcare and even charity. Let the people who know what they’re doing so that stuff rather than force your incompetent and criminal selves into these institutions.

Too bad the courts can’t deny the bankruptcy. Just say “no, find a way to pay for your criminal behavior. You don’t get bankruptcy anymore to avoid the consequences of your criminality.”

Expand full comment
Joan the Dork's avatar

Oh, how 𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 it would be to see the Sistine Chapel auctioned off. Along with all of the RCC's other ill-gotten wealth and property... and to see the Pope trade his silk robes in for a burlap sack, and his throne for a cardboard box.

Expand full comment
NOGODZ20's avatar

I'd like to purchase the Popemobile dirt cheap, repaint it and stick it in the next Pride Parade, filled inside and out with hot hunky guys bumping and grinding.

Expand full comment
NOGODZ20's avatar

Not even a funny hat to his name.

Expand full comment
xenubarb's avatar

Being able to declare bankruptcy due to an organization's own malfeasance should not be allowed. The world's longest running pedophile club needs to pay for its crimes, not slither out from under them and continue business as usual.

Why parents continue to trust this group with their children just boggles my mind.

Expand full comment
jomicur's avatar

If you're going to sue Walmart, say, or Target, you don't file suit against just your local store. You file against the corporation, the body that oversees and sets policies and standards for local outlets. But Holy Mother Church somehow gets away with hanging individual local outlets out to dry when abuse cases come to light. Enough. It really is time for someone to go after the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which sets policy and administers rules and regulations (and exercises a measure of financial control) for dioceses.

But suing the USCCB, a national-level organization, would require a federal suit and there is one big problem with that: The Republicans in congress would erect as many roadblocks as possible to prevent a successful lawsuit against any christian church. And I daresay a lot (if not most) Democrats, probably including our devoutly Catholic president, would aid and assist them. And of course when the suit gets appealed to SCOTUS, snowballs in hell would have a longer shelf life.

Still, it would be just divine to see someone try.

Expand full comment
RegularJoe's avatar

Maybe it's more like dealing with a local McDonald's or Subway or the like - franchises. 🤔

Expand full comment
jomicur's avatar

But they're not franchises. The church sets the rules for them and the standards they enforce. The church tell them who they can let in their pews and who to exclude. And each church and each diocese has rigidly set financial obligations TO THE CHURCH, and the church sets rigid guidelines for hwo they can spend their profits. Individual parishes can get away with being mavericks, if their bishop is sufficiently lenient. But the bishops themselves are kept on a fairly tight leash. If they tug at it too hard, they get smacked HARD with a rolled-up copy of canon law.

Expand full comment
RegularJoe's avatar

It would be interesting to see how the various bits are set up legally. Is it an international pedophilia corporation headquartered in Rome, or is it a franchise-esque monstrosity with local "ownership" and corporate oversight & support. It seems a mess.

Expand full comment
NOGODZ20's avatar

More OT goodness...

"Bestselling author" Ted Cruz just made a very big announcement and literally nobody gives AF"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/bestselling-author-ted-cruz-just-made-a-very-big-announcement-and-literally-nobody-gives-af/ar-AA18zEuw

Texas turning blue (and not from freezing to death because of its lousy power grid)? One can but hope.

Expand full comment
cdbunch's avatar

They've been saying that since I moved here in 2006. The Sahara will freeze over first.

Expand full comment
Guerillasurgeon's avatar

I can't see how anyone could vote for him once he took off to Cancun in the middle of the freeze. If one of our politicians had done something like that they would have been crucified – probably by their own party. But certainly by the press and the opposition.

Expand full comment
cdbunch's avatar

They haven't *yet*. His last election was 2018. The freeze was in 2021. He'll be up for re-election in 2024 presuming he doesn't resign for another run at POTUS. If he doesn't, I expect he'll win another term unless, by some miracle, he's primaried.

Expand full comment
Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

Starting with cdbunch.

I just hope this crap will not be published on 15th November 🤬

Expand full comment
wreck's avatar

Grifters gotta grift.

Expand full comment