This is the Least Worst Catholic Sex Scandal Ever

We're just happy it involved consenting adults.

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• If your kinks are voyeurism and communion wafers, I’ve got just the place for you. Louisiana’s hottest nightclub is Saints Peter & Paul Church in Pearl River, where a priest was busted for filming a sex scene, starring himself and two lady friends, at (on?) the altar of his church.
  
  Mind you, we’re only laughing because everyone involved was a consenting adult. (To paraphrase the pope, who are we to judge?)
  
  But the three people were later arrested for obscenity since a woman passing by the church that evening happened to witness the Holy Trinity.
  
  Rev. Travis Clark (below) was suspended from the church… and as chaplain of Pope John Paul II High School, a job he got because the previous chaplain was suspended for (wait for it) sex crimes.
  
  Act surprised, everyone.

  

  If you attend the church, maybe avoid the communion wine for a few weeks…

• I can’t believe this is the legacy this generation of evangelical Christians is going to leave behind:

  The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln

  That's some holy sh*t.

  

• The decision to have an abortion is not one that any woman takes lightly. The reasons are vast and personal. Imagine coming to your deeply private decision and moving on with your life… only to later find a gravesite with your name on it marking the burial location of your fetal remains.
  
  That’s the reality for some women in Rome, where Catholic anti-choice activist groups have been collecting the remains of abortions from hospitals “to bury fetuses regardless of a woman’s will,” which roughly translates to them feeling gratification for humiliating and shaming women who have had sex.

• Attorney Mat Staver of the Christian legal group Liberty Counsel is full-on panicking about the upcoming election and how it will change the theocratic direction of our country. He writes:

  The enemy wants God’s people silenced in every possible way.

  No churches, no outside worship, no home Bible studies and no mention of the Bible at all when offering social services or educational courses to more than a handful of attendees. No displays of the Ten Commandments or the birth of Christ at Christmas. No right for individuals to choose Bible-based Christian counseling and no devout justice on the Supreme Court.

  The enemy wants to eradicate Christianity and faith in our nation. America is the only nation in the history of the world, other than Israel, to be founded on the Word of God. The fact is, Judeo-Christian values are the foundation of our free republic.

  Because if Christianity isn’t being shoved down every non-Christian’s throat, he and his group feel their religious freedom is in peril.
  
  As we’ve said before, nothing scares conservative Christians more than religious neutrality.

• Imagine any scandal at Liberty University mattering anymore:

  Hemant Mehta @hemantmehta

  "There's no way Liberty University could ever have a bigger scandal than this," I said, taking a giant sip of water.

  

  Andy Rowell @AndyRowell

  Liberty University's Falkirk Center co-founder Charlie Kirk (who does not have a college degree) is caught paying teenagers to make fake accounts to support Trump. Turning Point ran the indoor Trump rally on June 23rd at Dream City Church. https://t.co/V8zxcLOLdQ

• A petition led by Presbyterian minister Richard Dawson proves New Zealand is about as bad as the U.S. when it comes to malcontent Christians who aren’t getting their way.
  
  This time because the Southern District Health Board is planning a new hospital that will include a multi-faith space. What’s the problem with that? According to Dawson and his co-signers, Christianity should be the primary religion of the hospital because it is the only faith that matters. And also: Christians invented hospitals.

  “Hospitals and the health systems in which they operate can largely be said to be *an invention of the church and they certainly rely on values espoused by the church throughout its 2000-year history.

  More than this, however, is the concern that the Christian faith will not be primarily represented within a city founded on Christian principles and a country in which, still, the largest group of people claiming religious adherence are Christian.”

  In reality, New Zealand is trending in the same direction as the U.S., with nearly half the population religiously unaffiliated. Maybe they’ll trade us their Nones for our Evangelicals and we can have a comparative study on societal well-being.

• This is definitely not what Jesus would do: Right-wing activist Bevelyn Beatty vented her homophobic rage in a video immediately after leaving court on charges of residential picketing at the home of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
  
  Beatty had just learned she may have to spend up to 180 days in jail for the misdemeanor.

  If Beatty’s face looks familiar, you probably remember her for defacing Black Lives Matter murals in NYC earlier this year.

• Of all the takes on the fly that landed on the head of Mike Pence during the debate, this may be the worst one:

  Right Wing Watch @RightWingWatch

  Right-wing "prophet" Hank Kunneman claims that the fly landing on Pence's head during the debate was a prophetic sign that Pence is anointed (the mic cuts out, but he appears to say "the flies obviously go after the anointing.")

  

• Finally, our latest podcast goes into why the Catholic Church may have collapsed on itself… thanks to logic.

• Have a wonderful long weekend, everyone! A perfect time to vote early, if you haven’t done so already.