Where's GI Jane when you need her?

You wanna know why the Catholic Church is in such trouble with pedophile charges? Tain’t nothing to do with forced celibacy. It’s all to do with failing to cull the herd.

In every situation of life, problems arise. People act wrongly. As the leader, you guide and direct, divide and protect, so that your people acting wrongly are refocused and your victims are not further harmed. Not so the Catholics. This story just broke earlier this month.

The Diocese of Scranton has been sitting on a case since 1999. Seems that the Rev. Albert Liberatore was doing the touchy-feely thing with an altar boy. Repugnant – yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s only the surface of the problem.

Three employees of the parish went to Monsignor John Bendik (you can’t make this stuff up, Ben Dick, or said quickly, Bend Dick; just pathetic) – anyway – the three employees tell the guy they think Liberatore (sounds like the brand name for a sex toy) is crossing the line. As evidence, they presented a pornographic GI Joe doll (GI Joe with an erection – the things you learn in Catechism, eh? Do they teach Sex Ed in Catholic Schools? Now, boys and girls, who wants to guess what this bulge is inside Joseph’s pants?) and pictures of men in “briefs” which the Man of the Cloth kept in his pajamas.

What was Bend Dick’s response? He said that he agreed that the items “represented a troubling pattern.” That’s a masterful understatement. But let’s see his actions before we judge.

He goes to Sex Toy Boy and asks if something was going on. “No,” comes the reply. “Good enough for me,” says Bendy.

Monsignor Dick never spoke with the child. Sex Toy Boy had been doing him for a year or two – and continued for another couple of years.

There will be no shortage of folks to conduct mass in Hell. Hey, Dick, will it still be in Latin?

Speaking of diving and eating where you shouldn’t, it seems dumpster diving is now socially acceptable, at least in Berkeley. Long a Bastion of the Beautiful People, Berkeley frequently makes headlines with noble causes concerning environmental and anti-war issues. Impeaching republicans, running raids on chicken farms, and receiving cold yogurt enemas are standard fare. So why not reduce solid waste by eating it? Seems consistent. Just stay away from the yogurt.

Speaking of leaving things where they should be, this article gets the exodus from California all wrong. The suggestion is that prices – home and otherwise – is the culprit. No. Wrong. I moved for one primary reason: the people. Violence is an issue in Oakland and San Jose, but it is as well in any well-developed urban area. It was the extreme liberalism of SF and Berkeley that made the decision. A program to give the homeless shopping carts solves nothing. The City became a place where you avoided certain streets and sections, and where you looked forward to see what was ahead. No, not like NYC, not at all. SF encouraged drifters and the homeless, junkies and the psychotic. “Come here! Our people will not condemn you!” Sorry, folks, but enabling dysfunction instead of trying to solve it leads to problems. I didn’t so much mind the gay float in every parade downtown – approve or not you had to admire their dresses (I could never walk that well in heels). But the large homeless man urinating on the sidewalk in the theatre district did disturb me. People are so reluctant to condemn anything but a republican that they live truly compromised lives. Some folks just are not willing to accept it.

Enough preaching.