Joe Ratzinger, AKA Pope Benedict XVI, has issued a formal statement condemning child abuse by Catholic priests. So what! The staggering amount of sexual abuse committed by these criminals is only now starting to come to light. The Catholic Church has been abusing children since its inception. Meanwhile everyone just looks the other way. The lip service form the Pope is just that – lip service. In the United States, a victim support group called Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests called the statement “meaningless and self-serving.” These priests should be treated like any other criminal and sentenced accordingly. As to the huge sexual-abuse scandal in Ireland, the Pope has done nothing than issue his meaningless statement and accept the resignation of one priest. It is typically the practice of the Catholic Church to “buy off” anyone making a claim against the them. All we can hope is that more and more people will continue to come forward and perhaps  inflict enough financial burden on the church to get them to curb their criminal behavior.

No matter how hard you hope it will just stop and go away you just cannot seem to escape the fact that Christians care about no one but themselves and will hurt anyone, especially children for their own selfish agendas. And in Haiti – of all places!

I really thought that perhaps most religious organizations would put aside petty self interests and provide some much needed relief to the people of Haiti after their devastating earthquake. You know, forget the religious stuff, let’s just be good people and help. But then, we get this. A group of ten American Baptist missionaries have been detained for attempting to kidnap 33 children and smuggle them into the Dominican Republic. Not much is functioning in Haiti, but fortunately the border police are. The alleged kidnappers have stated that they meant no harm and were only trying to do God’s will. Let’s see, God’s will by rescuing orphans by inculcating them into their Christian sect and stealing them away. I guess they figured in all of the confusion no one would miss a few (33) children. Some of the children do, in fact, have parents and are not orphaned as the kidnappers claim.

As of this morning the missionaries have not been formally charged and the children have been temporarily placed in a Haitian orphanage just outside of the capital city. The missionaries’ Baptist pastor in Idaho has said that they went down to Haiti to help and not to kidnap. We’ll it looks like they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. You want to help? Send money to organizations that provide food, water, and medical care. If you are a trained health care professional, then go down and treat the sick. If you are nothing but an ignorant, arrogant Christian missionary who is only capable of proselytizing – stay the hell away! Haiti does not need you type of help.

These missionaries are Americans. Stupid acts like this reflect poorly on our entire nation. At a time when the entire world is watching relief efforts in this most unfortunate country, we get American Christian zealots blatantly trying to steal children. In the event that the missionaries did get consent from parents to take their children, they still failed to do it properly. Their covert act is one typical of religious organizations. In the guise of offering a better life elsewhere, the religious will deceive naïve parents and convince them to abandon their children without realizing they will be converted into mindless religious Christbots. If the missionaries are found guilty, they should be punished to the full extent of Haitian law rather than deported where they will most likely go free.

The saddest thing is that these people probably truly believe that they did no wrong. Once again religion has blinded people into acting irresponsibly with the outcome of hurting the innocent. I should have known better. A religious organization that actually does something unselfishly to help people – not in this world.