The official Vatican newspaper has declared that beer-swilling, doughnut-loving Homer Simpson and son Bart are Catholics — and what’s more, it says that parents should not be afraid to let their children watch “the adventures of the little guys in yellow.”

I’m just saying, let’s keep our perspective regarding the importance of the various crimes by religious institutions against society.

Catholic Priorities – Ordaining Women a Crime

When Scott Roeder shot Dr. George Tiller in church last year, media accounts described him as a lone wolf. Roeder acted alone on the day of the assassination, but he was part of a community of career anti-choice terrorists, as Amanda Robb reports in Ms. Magazine.

A nun in Phoenix, Arizona was excommunicated for approving a lifesaving abortion. Sister Margaret McBride‘s role in the sacramental life of the Catholic Church came to an abrupt end after she approved an therapeutic abortion at St. Joseph’s Hospital Medical Center, Robin Marty of RH Reality Check reports. She was swiftly transferred to another job at the hospital.

“Stinky Smoke” links two very different — or very similar — stories. One is about the Pope’s responses to those saying priestly pederasty is a bad think, the other a story from China with neither sex nor priests.

This Easter Sunday, the group that brought you the inquisition and the crusades (imagine how those little pageants would have played out in a nuclear era) gives you a man who presided over- and gave his blessing to- decades of institutionally approved rape and pedophilia: Pope Benedict.

If you are, like me, confused about the answer to this question, please raise your hand….or better yet….ask your Congressperson, Senator and the President: Why is a pedophilia-ridden, pedophilia-hiding, child-abusing Church allowed to write laws controlling women’s rights?

Written by Jodi Jacobson, editor of RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.

The still unfolding horrors of pedophile priests and Church coverups now includes the Pope himself, for at least the period in which Cardinal Ratzinger was the head of the Church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. But we’ve seen this story before.

3-1 odds against Pope Benedict’s resignation.