Penn & Teller’s Bullshit blasphemes the Vatican
September 6, 2009
As the first celebration of Blasphemy Day (September 30) approaches, a recent episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit took on the Vatican:
The half-hour show libeled the Catholic Church with impunity, blaming the Church for, as [Bill] Donohue put it, "every evil in history." Show host Jillette said the "intolerance, greed, paranoia, hypocrisy and callous disregard for human suffering" was the hallmark of the Catholic Church. Others on the show branded the Church as an "amoral" and "power hungry" institution that is just worried about its "cash flow." LifeSiteNews.com
Not surprisingly, the Catholic League claims the show was full of errors and lies:
Jillette lied about the Vatican’s reaction to Sabina Guzzanti, an Italian foul-mouthed comedian who staged an assault on the pope in 2008: the pope never sought to throw “her sexy ass in jail” and never once sought any punitive measure against her—it’s all a bald face lie! Jillette lied about a 1962 Vatican document—it was a statement about penalties for priests who used the confessional to solicit sex: it was not a cover-up for sexual misconduct! He lied about Pope Benedict XVI—he had absolutely nothing to do with overseeing cases of priestly sexual misconduct in the United States! And so on.
Spokesmen for Catholics for Choice, SNAP and Dignity—three anti-Catholic groups that lie about their Catholic status—twisted, distorted and ridiculed Church teachings on sexuality.
The National Secular Society reports that:
Keith Porteous Wood, one of the interviewees in the show, was unrepentant, saying he was proud to have to been a part of the programme. “Penn & Teller said something that was long overdue – that the Vatican has a lot of answering to do for its corruption, greed and disgraceful attempts to cover up child abuse by its priests. Even worse than that is the damage through its irrational and dishonest opposition to contraception. This is playing a major role in the population explosion that the planet simply cannot support, in unnecessary deaths from AIDS and in massively increasing poverty” he said. “What is truly shocking is that governments and international organisations are unwilling to take on the Vatican, which uses its position as a half church half nation state to maximise its power while minimising its accountability”.
[From NSS supports Penn & Teller’s right to attack the Vatican on TV | National Secular Society ]
You can view the entire show at Catholic League or LiveLeak
Comments:
#2 Alphonsus (Guest) on Monday September 21, 2009 at 6:47am
jlh, why not cite a recent scholar instead of a 19th century polemicist?
#3 jlh (Guest) on Tuesday September 22, 2009 at 3:18pm
OK, could you help me out? Michelle Goldberg? Jeffrey
Sachs (on the population issue)? RichardWebster.net?
His “A Brief History of Blasphemy”. ..Yes I agree probably a recent scholar is better but then how many scholars have FULL access to Vatican archives…?
maybe you know I don’t. Yes I was spilling only what I know from Gage’s book.
#1 jlh (Guest) on Saturday September 12, 2009 at 6:04am
You wanna hear REAL historical Blaspheming?
Read Matilda Joslyn’s Gage’s book Woman:Church and State. History of Catholic abuses and civil codes against women. Marquette (the right of priests to sleep with new brides.) The Ducking Stool (drowning witches)
etc…...tell Penn and Teller about Pope Joan and the
Pope’s chair. (the seat has a hole in it to determine if the papal candidate has “hanging goods” or not)...
Gage is on the Freethought trail in the Finger Lakes
near Ingersoll’s home. She’s the invisible and forgotten Suffragist.