Great.  Now I've a mental image of the pope saying the immortal line "I'm going to make him an orifice he can't refuse"

I am not one for conspiracy theories, but I like this one.  The rich taste of hypocrisy with a mellow undertone of schadenfreude  makes for a lovely combination.

My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Pope Benedict pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.

So priests being gay with each other is considered worse than priests buggering altar boys?

Nice Church you have there, be a shame if something were to happen to it.

Therion: So priests being gay with each other is considered worse than priests buggering altar boys?

Nice Church you have there, be a shame if something were to happen to it.

Do as they say, not as they do. Typical hypocrites.

Therion: So priests being gay with each other is considered worse than priests buggering altar boys?

That's the message they're trying to push. They want people, or stupid people, to believe homosexuality automatically means pedophila. They're hoping more hatred, controversy and violence will go towards GLBT people as a diversion from the truth.

That way they can have their fun without outside interference.

I always thought that relationship between Palpatine and Vader seemed a little sketch.

Fark probably skipped the most interesting aspect of the whole thing.

The last meeting the Pope had before announcing his 'retirement' was with the Knights of Malta. He skipped a funeral for a bishop he was supposed to attend at the last minute in order to attend the meeting.

/just puttin' that out there

This is the most only plausible one I have heard so far.  Considering the Vatican rent boy scandal from a while back, it is possible.

thornhill: Eh, I think the most likely explanation is that he wants to be able to have some influence over his successors so he can insure that his policies will live on for many more years. Even Popes think about how to best preserve their legacy.

But that explanation is no fun to speculate about.

And, ultimately, I hope untrue since I think the Church needs to go in a different direction, and even then, it probably wouldn't matter since the College of Cardinals is loaded with people he more or less hand picked.

Okay first things first: I am Catholic, and i've been "wired in" to church poltics through various friends for a long time so let me just say this to this part of TFA:
The Vatican has a Velvet Mafia - and the Velvet Mafia is being blackmailed.The dossier alleges that a gay lobby exists within the Church, and has some sort of control on the careers of those in the Vatican.

OF COURSE there are a lot of Gay Priests, it's the lack of them recently that directly led to the pedophilia scandal.   Back before Stonewall, the celibacy of the priesthood offered a safe haven for those who found themselves horrified by their own sexuality, and a lot of "vocational callings" came from kids who were apalled to be sporting wood when changing witht he boys at thier all amle Catholic HS.  The church knew it and depnded on it to keep up the supply of priestly candiadtes , particularly in America where, as the Irish and Itallian immigrants moved into the solid middle class they stopped having such giant families and the tradition of "one for God" (ie having at least one child in every family take Holy orders) fell out of practice.

The whole mess the church is in right now is that since the 70's vocation have dried to a trickle in the US-where most parishes had three regular priests and a pastor back in the day, the current priestly shortage means that many of those churches now maybe get one full-time priest, and he's just as likely to be from Africa or Asia as to have grown up in the neighborhood these days.  Just like the US army during the gulf war, as recruitment dropped off the cliff, so did standards for enlistees.  Many of those pedophile priests would have been  washed out thanks to the rigorous psych screening the Church does on seminarians.  Now however, a lot of the sail right through.  It's not totally clear to me whether they just stopped screening, or if they KNOW but figure since the guy is taking a VOW of celibacy that he'll be fine no matter how twisted he is (and because otherwise they might have years where they make exactly zero new priests).  Either way, the church knew this was coming for a long time, and the effort at the top to blame this on the gays is not only sickening, but wildly disingenous

Magorn: Okay first things first: I am Catholic, and i've been "wired in" to church poltics through various friends for a long time so let me just say this to this part of TFA:
The Vatican has a Velvet Mafia - and the Velvet Mafia is being blackmailed.The dossier alleges that a gay lobby exists within the Church, and has some sort of control on the careers of those in the Vatican.

OF COURSE there are a lot of Gay Priests, it's the lack of them recently that directly led to the pedophilia scandal.   Back before Stonewall, the celibacy of the priesthood offered a safe haven for those who found themselves horrified by their own sexuality, and a lot of "vocational callings" came from kids who were apalled to be sporting wood when changing witht he boys at thier all amle Catholic HS.  The church knew it and depnded on it to keep up the supply of priestly candiadtes , particularly in America where, as the Irish and Itallian immigrants moved into the solid middle class they stopped having such giant families and the tradition of "one for God" (ie having at least one child in every family take Holy orders) fell out of practice.

The whole mess the church is in right now is that since the 70's vocation have dried to a trickle in the US-where most parishes had three regular priests and a pastor back in the day, the current priestly shortage means that many of those churches now maybe get one full-time priest, and he's just as likely to be from Africa or Asia as to have grown up in the neighborhood these days.  Just like the US army during the gulf war, as recruitment dropped off the cliff, so did standards for enlistees.  Many of those pedophile priests would have been  washed out thanks to the rigorous psych screening the Church does on seminarians.  Now however, a lot of the sail right through.  It's not totally clear to me whether they just stopped screening, or if they KNOW but figure since the guy is taking a VOW of celibacy that he'll be fine no matter how twisted he is (and b ...

So you're saying that all the Irish priests just did it for the lulz?

Magorn: the celibacy of the priesthood offered a safe haven for those who found themselves horrified by their own sexuality

I find it more likely it was used as cover for those who wanted to do evil deeds, like all the serial killers and such who enjoy the image of being Church going and god-fearing. Pure evil is more skilled at appearing good than actual good people.

But to tie in my previous comment with all this sexual stuff, Jimmy Saville was a Knight of Malta, and perhaps with him being exposed as a pedophile the investigation led back to the Vatican, and this 'Velvet Mafia' is in fact the Knights of Malta.

/sometimes i hope i'm wrong because i don't want them to send people after me

Magorn: Okay first things first: I am Catholic, and i've been "wired in" to church poltics through various friends for a long time so let me just say this to this part of TFA:
The Vatican has a Velvet Mafia - and the Velvet Mafia is being blackmailed.The dossier alleges that a gay lobby exists within the Church, and has some sort of control on the careers of those in the Vatican.

OF COURSE there are a lot of Gay Priests, it's the lack of them recently that directly led to the pedophilia scandal.   Back before Stonewall, the celibacy of the priesthood offered a safe haven for those who found themselves horrified by their own sexuality, and a lot of "vocational callings" came from kids who were apalled to be sporting wood when changing witht he boys at thier all amle Catholic HS.  The church knew it and depnded on it to keep up the supply of priestly candiadtes , particularly in America where, as the Irish and Itallian immigrants moved into the solid middle class they stopped having such giant families and the tradition of "one for God" (ie having at least one child in every family take Holy orders) fell out of practice.

For hundreds of years the priesthood has been the place for Catholic parents to dump gay sons.  It's kind of the only place they had to go.  Of course there is a "velvet mafia" in the church.  It probably goes back centuries.

Godfather III was easily the best of the trilogy.

Sir Not Sure The Unscannable: It's 2013 and people still care about homosexuality enough for the media to focus on it... People, I am disappoint.

/if you want good conspiracies, follow the money, not the abuse

Nah, we need to tie in the Russian meteor, lizard people, and Barack Obama's Kenyan birth certificate somehow.

There were two things I loved about The Godfather III - the papal subplot, because I think that's an interesting part of recent history, and the fact that Connie turned out to be the most vicious member of the Corleone family.