For God's Sake: Benny Rides the Line.

By “Benny,” I mean a man among my least favorite people in the world: The Pontiff Himself of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI.

And my “rides the line” I mean he stays the course he's stayed with from the start with this whole child abuse among the clergy thing: it's a sin.

Sorry God, please forgive us. Oh, and you people, sorry to you too, we sinned. AP reported that The Pontiff puked up another dose of sin-calling without a lot of substance behind it, which is – if not surprising – getting tiring.

I might state first:

- It is completely digestible and believable to read some reports that the incidence of child molestation and abuse among Catholic Priests is roughly equivalent to the secular world: they are people, after all, and the percentage reflects that fact with clear symmetry.

- It is also completely understandable, I might add predictable, that Benny says what he says about it: he's the Pope, for fuck's sake, and that means he's not just on the hook for his obligatory response to the world in regards to this mess, but he's responsible for a mitigating it – thus he's going to say it how he must. George Bush said “Mission Accomplished” not because the mission was accomplished, but because in the face of poll numbers headed for single digits he had to say something positive about that bloody fiasco. Bill Clinton said “I did not have sex with that woman” because, let's face it, even though we all knew he did it, the idea was repulsive. You Gotta say what the job requires in the spirit of the (job's) greater good , no matter what it is, and screw the rest of you.

Having said that: It is completely degrading to the world as a fitting place where humans reside for Benny to preclude the mention of the illegal traits and aspects of this sickening mess. Never mind the age of consent in Vatican City at the ripe old and experienced age of 12, which is foul enough. Never mind the clever special circumstances where a “dependency” relationship exists between an adult and a 15 year old makes sex a legal “go”.

Fine. Lets also never mind the Pope. I know he's the Grand Doo Doo, but he's not the one who did it, he's just the one blubbering this inane defense about sin in the absence of law. How it is that a common citizen of most countries can be hunted down like a foul animal (excluding Roman Polanski, who keeps scoring a creative bye, for the moment) yet priests tap dance away like the angels they aren't?

So I don't want to hear anything he has to say about it. I don't want to hear that snide, pedantic, asswipe CEO of BP spew any more of his asinine, regurgitative stupidity; in the same vein I do not want to hear the Pope talk about this. I want to hear the priests. The accused. They are the ones who need to answer, not their boss.

And I want to hear the judges as the verdicts are read. The issue of sin is irrelevant. The issue is about crime, and we simply can't call this anything else.