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Sinead O’Connor Faces Off With Catholic Flack Over Pedophilia, Post-Pubescence

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Posted on Mar 31, 2010
O'Connor
gawker.com

Hey, remember Sinead O’Connor? Remember Sinead O’Connor’s beef with the pope back in the day? Well, now she’s a bit older and has more hair on her head, but she’s still up for a good tussle with the Catholic powers that be, as she demonstrates in this rather baffling clip from Tuesday’s “Larry King Live.”  —KA

Crooks and Liars via Gawker:

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By Jamie, May 17, 2010 at 1:18 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

this video seems to show 4 idiots… no one, at least in the time of this clip, is saying anything relevant. but i do in fact think for purposes of sex and law you have to distinguish between children and post-pubescent young people. And that does make blurry lines, and is not a legal point as it is different for most, but the same laws should not ruin the life of someone who had sex with a 16 years old girl he met when they were both doing shots at a party, as it would someone who raped a 5 years kid who lived in his neighborhood. i’m not standing behind what anyone in this video is saying though. it’s like they’re mis-stepping over a lot of issues we could talk legitimately about… oh well.
in regard to the catholic church… i don’t really care about that sinking ship.

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By melpol, April 4, 2010 at 6:08 pm Link to this comment

The Devil is sitting upon his throne howling in delight.  He watches as millions of
adults that were anally abused as children voice their anger at the Vatican. The
Pope and his 400 thousand priests have no choice except to admit their guilt,
bend over, and get the same treatment from the abused.

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By Ralph Kramden, April 3, 2010 at 6:06 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

To Sinead O’Connor: I vividly remember when you were booed onstage and only Kris Kristofersson came to your aid. Let me give you solace, a quote from Voltaire: “Lord, let me live long enough to see my enemies look ridiculous.”

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By Fever911, April 1, 2010 at 6:01 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I’m completely distracted by her appearance. She looks like one of those severe nuns that supposedly ruined her life ...

Meanwhile, can’t the church hire someone better for their PR work?

Billo the Second has got to go.

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By omygodnotagain, April 1, 2010 at 3:47 pm Link to this comment

All this Catholic hate…wonder why there is no outrage about child abuse in PUBLIC schools which is much worse, go read Carol Shakeshaft of Hofstra University. So its not about kids. Its about a bunch of secular capitalists that want to use slander and violence to destroy these superstitious religious types, so they are good for capitalism. Thats why we are a war in Iraq, Afghanistan. In the 20th century the battle was against totaliarian socialism left and right, now that it has been tamed, time to bury those pesky Catholics and Muslims. Guess they didn’t like the fact the Vatican spoke out against the War in Iraq while all our progressive ‘democratic” leaders were pretending not to know the truth about Saddams non existent weapons of mass destruction.
Well you Catholic haters hope your children like to be corporate serfs, and your sons and daughters cannon fodder to the capitalist elite, because when the Vatican is diminished and the Muslims nuked who will be left to speak out.

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By L2k4FC, April 1, 2010 at 3:34 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Melpol said, “
Alcohol might be responsible for otherwise normal minded priests seducing choir boys. It would not surprise me if statistics proved that most sexual abusers of children were drunk. There are many stories of young boys hiding under the bed when their drunken father returns from the saloon. Very few of these crimes are reported to the police for obvious reasons. “

Alcahol might be responsible?  Saloons?  Are you getting paid by the church or just totally off your rocker?  Alcahol is an inanimate object and totally harmless.  People and their lack of self control are flawed and in these cases they are Evil and deserve to be punished as severely as possible.  There is no excuse [drunk or otherwise] for betraying the innocence of a young person.  I would see these TRAITORS hung and that would be merciful.

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By melpol, April 1, 2010 at 2:08 pm Link to this comment

Stories about the thousands of sexual orgies that are taking place in the privacy
of the catholic church is more than a masturbators fantasy. They are real.  At least
ten righteous priests must come forward immediately and publicly point their
fingers at the guilty. Unfortunately it would be difficult to find even one priest to
cooperate unless given immunity from the law. At the present time any priest that
admitted he knew what was happening would be imprisoned for a lifetime.

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By rjg1971, April 1, 2010 at 2:00 pm Link to this comment

What’s with the “long” hair Sinead?

Anyway, why should she have to share the television
screen with this old fart apologist for the Dirty
Old Men’s club in the Church? She was right on
about her criticism of the Church back in ‘92 and
everybody who booed her back then owes her an
apology. The sins of Church have turned out to be
much worse than we imagined back then.

All Donahue is pleading mitigating circumstances.
But that doesn’t change the fact that these priests
weren’t seeking out sex with consenting adults. If
you like your mates to be young make sure they’re
at least 18. None of this would be happening if
they were doing that. But what they were engaged in
was exploitation of children they had control and
power over. He is acknowledging that crimes were
committed. Rather than decry the cover up by the
Church he scapegoats law abiding gay men. What an
asshole.

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By Ralph Kramden, April 1, 2010 at 1:40 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Post-pubescent absolves the Catholic church of raping children? It goes to show the CC is desperate. How many men are rotting in jail for having sex with minors? These priests are criminals and the Pope is an accessory to the crime by having kept silent and harboring them. Please don’t fall into the trap of believing that 1)this phenomena is limited to the Catholic Church, 2) that celibacy is the culprit. Celibacy may be a contributing factor but the abuse of children is endemic in all religions.

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By diman, April 1, 2010 at 12:49 pm Link to this comment

Practicing homosexuals??? Are there non-practicing homosexuals?

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By Cynthia, April 1, 2010 at 12:18 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

First, a defender of the Catholic Church uses the excuse that the 60’s sexual revolution caused their priests to commit sexual crimes against children:

http://www.thelocal.de/national/20100331-26229.html

Then another defender of the Catholic Church comes along and uses the excuse that because the kids were post- rather than pre- pubescent, their priestly molesters were committing homosexuality, not pedophilia.

At this point, defenders of the Catholic Church are probably wishing that Catholics were also victims of the Holocaust, then they could accuse their critics of being Catholic haters. After all, anytime anyone mentions that “our special relationship” with Israel is doing more harm than good to the US or mentions that Israel is committing apartheid against the Palestinian people, they are accused of being Jew haters and then all criticism of Israel is censored from the airwaves. It goes without saying that being a victim of the Holocaust, as “Jews for a greater Israel” have proven, will get you off the hook for all sorts of crimes against humanity.

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By samosamo, April 1, 2010 at 11:46 am Link to this comment

So how does mr. catholick bigmouth think that puberty, for
boys, is age 12 or 13 and puts them on the table as eligible
homosexuals, then if girls mature faster and their age of
puberty is 10 to 11, does that automatically make them whores?

I say there is a lot more to ‘maturity by puberty’ than what some
clown wants to justify his or his ‘partners in crime’ for lusty
pleasure sanctioned by the ‘lord almighty’ for those PIC efforts
in doing the ‘lord almighty’s work’; but there is also a reason
why a law was created to protect those too young to understand
consequences of becoming sexually active.

If I were part of an organization with the likes of a bill donohue
as a mouthpiece, I would have to consider the likelihood of it
being something I wanted NO part of when he comes on screen
with that grumpy seriously stern face of an authority he has
come to cherish and being what he considers THE LAST WORD! 

And if I had to believe in the idea of bill donohue’s kind of god, I
would surely be able to say, ‘god’s gonna get you for this’.

Here’s George Carlin on the subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o

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johnnyfarout's avatar

By johnnyfarout, April 1, 2010 at 10:02 am Link to this comment

I was raised Catholic, and always struggled daily against them to keep some sense of well being about myself. They are the ultimate fascist organization: blind obedience is the expected norm. Torture and innuendo and scarification of the psyche and corporeal punishment are everyday stuff for these sad souls. They all think they can be like Darth Vader and live an atrocious life of secrecy and lies and evil, then say a last prayer, and go straight to heaven. Despicable! Just look at the Inquisition, which they also want some old time forgiveness for. This bullshit issue of celibacy must go by the wayside, and this nonsense about homosexuals…as if celibacy, the denial of sexual love and sexual education of the soul, is an easy thing to live through, because the sins with women are easy to stay away from because god stayed away from women…but Oh homosexual guys, wow!, now that’s like super hard (pun) to stay away from because men are oh so attractive and the power of men’s sexuality for each other is just too damn much. This is all a failure of this celibacy notion… It’s all just horrible bullshit…Paul of Tarsus was NOT an Apostle. Jesus Christ the church is so backwards and awful. I just can’t express my disturbance with it enough. Pedophilia is NOT a failure of the celibacy vows of homosexual priests; it is a failure of the church that has made violence acceptable.

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By Vivaz, April 1, 2010 at 6:42 am Link to this comment

This just confirms to me that the officials of the Catholic Church live on a completely different planet than I do. How can he say that with a straight face?! I think it’s an outrage.
<a href=“http://www.sony-ericssonvivaz.nl/”>Vivaz reviews/a>

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JohnMcD's avatar

By JohnMcD, April 1, 2010 at 5:20 am Link to this comment

A lot of people owe Sinead an apology smile  She was speaking out about the abuses of the Church long before it was politically correct to do so - she put herself and her reputation on the line to speak the truth.

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By bogi666, April 1, 2010 at 4:44 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

The church apologist is just reciting the pretend christian doctrine of “I’m not responsible, god told me to do it and /or Satan made me do it but I’m not responsible for my sins ‘cause Jesus told me so”. This doctrine, “i’m not responsible” is fostered by churches, businesses,people and governments which use it, with arrogant hubris, to deny being responsible, it is the institutionalization of “I’m not responsible….” that gives it legitimacy.The practice of of this doctrine is easily observable on TV, 24 hours everyday.

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By acbar, March 31, 2010 at 8:50 pm Link to this comment

Appalling.  The Catholic mouthpiece shows us the characteristic arrogance and intense hostility of a male chauvinist.  O’Conner stumbles into the essence of the matter: the guy thinks 12 and 13 year-old boys in the first flush of their sexuality, subjected to a totalitarian environment of priests and religious ideology, are responsible for their victimhood.  Don’t you think the mouthpiece knows PRECISELY the despicable cover-up he’s trying to perpetrate?  And here’s Larry King skating off with no time left to grasp this outrage by the horns, this trivial and vain old skeleton of a celebrity BS artist.  It’s OK.  They’re getting closer to the edge.  Milton:

“For who knows not that Truth is strong next to the Almighty? She needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious; those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power: give her but room, and do not bind her when she sleeps.”

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By doublestandards/glasshouses, March 31, 2010 at 8:33 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Catholics like to consider the big questions - how many angels can fit on the head of a pin?.... how old does a boy have to be for sex with his priest?.... what are the limits to moral disgust and outrage?

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By Jason, March 31, 2010 at 8:00 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Why should this distinction be made?  I thought the age of consent is 18.  No?

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By samosamo, March 31, 2010 at 7:49 pm Link to this comment

Damn catholick apologist, states as fact, that 12 or 13 years of
age is official ‘post pubescence’ time for boys(?) and after that
they are all homosexuals(?), who and when made this character
the ‘decider’?

Oh well, I can’t be surprise when all this is from fux news’ twin
station, cnn.

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By melpol, March 31, 2010 at 7:39 pm Link to this comment

Alcohol might be responsible for otherwise normal minded priests seducing choir boys. It would not surprise me if statistics proved that most sexual abusers of children were drunk. There are many stories of young boys hiding under the bed when their drunken father returns from the saloon. Very few of these crimes are reported to the police for obvious reasons.

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