Vatican: Priests Have Been Raping Nuns to Avoid Hookers with HIV

Let us take a moment to recall Pope Benedict’s view of what caused the Holocaust:

As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a reductive vision of the person and his destiny.

It was a ballsy statement coming from a man who was once a member of the Hitler Youth and now leads the Catholic Church, but the argument is not uncommon. ‘What is morality to a Godless atheist?’ is a common refrain among ‘radical clerics’ of every faith.

Anyhoo …

The Catholic Church in Rome made the extraordinary admission yesterday that it is aware priests from at least 23 countries have been sexually abusing nuns.

Most of the abuse has occurred in Africa, where priests vowed to celibacy, who previously sought out prostitutes, have preyed on nuns to avoid contracting the Aids virus.

Confidential Vatican reports obtained by the National Catholic Reporter, a weekly magazine in the US, have revealed that members of the Catholic clergy have been exploiting their financial and spiritual authority to gain sexual favours from nuns, particularly those from the Third World who are more likely to be culturally conditioned to be subservient to men.

The reports, some of which are recent and some of which have been in circulation for at least seven years, said that such priests had demanded sex in exchange for favours, such as certification to work in a given diocese.

In extreme instances, the priests had made nuns pregnant and then encouraged them to have abortions.

I don’t get how they could be so sleazily predatory without the moral relativism.

Cross-posted at AlterNet and on my butt-ugly personal blog.