EDITOR'S NOTE:  The following NOTE FROM WANZIE was indeed composed, typed, and emailed to the Wanzie World Headquarters in spite of Mr. Wanzie's kaput computer.  It seems our constantly clever Mr. Wanzie was able to convince his good friend, favorite director, and current college student Kenny Howard to interrupt his intense studying for the end of the college semester so that Kenny could find, dust off, and set up his ancient, ratty, old Dell computer, allowing the afore-mentioned Mr. Wanzie to meet his tough editor and web master's deadlines.

On Monday the Vatican issued  "guidelines" regarding how to deal with Catholic Priests who molest children, which for the FIRST TIME EVER directs senior clerics to report any such incidents of molestation by Priests to the local police department.

Isn't that nice?

A little too little and a whole lot too late, if you ask me.

Are we supposed to be impressed by this new hard line taken on the part of the Vatican? Are our concerns meant to be assuaged by a "guideline" that comes only after tens upon tens of thousands of known molestations went unreported as part of business as usual where the Vatican was unconcerned?

The signature on a 2001 Vatican order issued by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzenberger (now Pope Benedict XVI) has been authenticated by the Vatican itself. In this order the now-sitting Pope entreated Bishops to deal with all issues of sexual abuse "in secret". By that one communiqué alone, this Pope implicates himself as not only having been compliant in the outrageous cover up of such abuses against minor children by the very persons they looked to for moral guidance, he also implicates himself as having committed a felony.

Now the Vatican asks for forgiveness, but goes on to officially state that while Cardinal Ratzenberger did sign the afore mentioned directive, nothing in that directive prevented church officials from turning cases over to the police.  What a load of crap!  So the local bishop is left to decide on his own whether or not he wants to go against the wishes of one of highest ranking officials of the Church - go against a directive of the Vatican - and in reality, turn his back on his religion and its leaders to instead adhere to norms of a secular authority. Clearly any Bishop who might be concerned with his own path to the Vatican would understand that to go against the wishes of Cardinal Ratzenberger would surely mean said Bishop could not rise up in hierarchy of the Church. While the individual Bishop is no less accountable in taking steps to keep the sexual misconduct of Priests secret, the Vatican's current suggestion that any Bishop was free to do so, despite the directive of the now sitting Pope to do otherwise, holds no water with any thinking person whose mind is not predisposed to forgiving anything Church officials have done, or rather did not do, in the face of these unspeakable acts.

This is Vatican business as usual.

I have said it many times before, and I will say it again.

Pope Benedict the XVI is a criminal. He should resign his post, and he should face criminal charges.

To my many Catholic family members and friends I ask you - when is enough, enough?

What will it take before you will concede that the Catholic Church is an incredibly corrupt institution that has a long established history of ALWAYS putting the best interests of the clergy, and indeed The Vatican, above the best interests of the faithful.

Your belief in God need not be rooted in the bureaucracy of the heinous, harmful institution that is the Catholic church.

You can believe in God, and you can follow the teachings of Christ, without belonging to the Catholic Church...without supporting this grotesque institution which uses the money you put in the Sunday collection plate to finance the Church leadership living in palatial spender in enormous edifices filled with gold and marble and priceless works of art. Your collection plate donations pay for robes and vestments and costumes that costs thousands of dollars apiece, which the clergy wear while preaching about the fact that the most Christ-like thing a Christian can do is to forsake wealth and worldly goods in favor of taking care of the poorest among us. 

Hello! 

Is anybody home?  

What is wrong with this picture?!

I've said it before, but I guess it bears repeating since there seems to be a desire among most Catholics to defend their church and it's leaders at any cost, and no matter the proof of its criminal acts. I will once again insist that  the treasure trove that is the Vatican City Catacombs hold such an extensive inventory of valuables that the sale of these items alone, which never even see the light of day, could end world hunger, cure AIDS, and eradicate poverty on this planet. 

While Vatican officials live like Kings in palaces and are attended by servants, and partake of fine wine and food on a daily basis; while these church officials parade around in glorious vestments, wearing church-sanctioned jewelry, walking among priceless oil paintings and marble statuary, and drinking  the Blood of Christ from actual gold chalices - all paid for by the donations of the working class faithful - the world goes hungry and sick.

Again I ask, what in God's name does any of  this  finery and of the pageantry, the costumes, the palaces, the gold, the silver, the copper, the jewels - what does any of this have to do with - or rather, how does any of this even remotely relate to anything Christ purportedly taught?

I am begging my Catholic family members and friends - PLEASE STOP FINANCING THESE VATICAN CRIMINALS!

You do not need to attend a Church or ascribe to any religion to follow Christ.

If you really want to consider yourself a Christian, then simply do as Christ taught :  "That which you do onto the least of my brothers, you do onto me."

I can't find one instance in the Bible wherein Christ asked that expensive edifices of granite, and gold, and marble be built to his glory. These are things of mankind's making. Where in the Bible is the justification for the fact that the average person is asked to pay the tab to maintain a lifestyle for the church leadership, the lifestyle of which is akin to that of the most greedy and loathsome Kings to ever reign? How in God's name does the palatial lifestyle of those who reside in Vatican City figure into the teachings of Christ? There is absolutely no basis for any of this nonsense in the Bible, while the good book has volumes devoted to living a modest life and giving all that can possibly be spared to help the poorest among us.

To those of my family and friends raised in the Catholic church, I am begging you, step away from it and take a good, long, hard, inquisitive, look at it. You have brains and minds of your own. USE THEM! 

Can you not see that almost nothing about this institution - with which you are comfortable simply because you were born into a Catholic family, and thus the Church is familiar to you - nothing about the way this institution operates relates to the teachings of Christ. In fact, if you could just divorce yourselves from the doctrine the Church created on its own - if you could just refuse to drink the Kool-Aid for a short while and really scrutinize that with which you are so familiar - I have to believe you are intelligent enough that if you would just allow yourselves to SEE what is right in front of you, then you have to realize that familiar or not, the entire concepts of celibacy among the clergy, nuns, the building of cathedrals and monuments to Christ and God, the use of all the ornate vestments, jewels, and such, and indeed the Vatican itself, have absolutely no basis in the Bible, and in no way what so ever relate to the teachings of Christ.

Please do not give another penny to the Catholic Church. Take the money you give that goes to support  the lavish lifestyle of the Pope and instead buy groceries for a needy family in your own city. Take the money that the Vatican uses to facilitate cover-ups of the misconduct of Priests and give it instead to an AIDS service organization. Take the money you would normally put in the collection plate and give it to an organization that is dedicated to getting good information and services to third world countries - because that is not the Catholic Church. When you have a Pope who refuses to allow any talk of condoms among the faithful in developing Africa while two thirds of  the population is dying from the spread of HIV disease, you cannot seriously think the Church is doing good there.

The Church is out of touch. The Pope is out of touch. The Church is big and fat and wealthy beyond comprehension, yet it closes the doors of inner city (mostly poor) Parishes all over America where the mostly senior citizen Catholics who built those churches through their hard earned Sunday collection plate donations, can no longer get to Mass - because the Vatican says they can't afford to keep the churches these poor souls help raise up, open. 

Here's a suggestion to your criminal Pope:  sell a couple of paintings on e-Bay and keep the Churches open for those people who are likely too old to change or don't want to know the truth about your criminal activities, but do want to make their confessions and take communion before dying, in the church in which they grew up and supported. But that's a silly pipe dream. That's not going to happen, because that would be the Christ-like thing to do, and the Vatican has demonstrated time and time again it is anything and everything but Christ-like.

Now to add insult to injury; on Tuesday, one of highest ranking Vatican officials publicly stated that there is no correlation what so ever between celibacy and the pervasiveness of the child molestations by priests. He went on to declare that science has proven there to be a correlation between Homosexuality and pedophilia - a statement which is, of course, patently false and baseless. In other words...a LIE.

In conclusion, I'll say it one more time - Pope Benedict XVI is a criminal. Half the bishops and cardinals in this country are likely criminals, as well, for their complicity or direct involvement in the sexual abuse of children inside the walls of U.S. Catholic Churches. The Pope is a homophobe. The Pope has no real compassion for the elderly parishioners of this country. The Pope is uniquely unqualified to speak on the subject of AIDS. The Pope is the leader of an antiquated institution that should no longer be relevant in our society. The Pope is dangerous. The Pope is a felon. The Pope belongs in jail!

The Catholic Church is indeed an abomination that has caused more harm to people the world over than any good it may have accomplished during its often tyrannical, bloody, and always self-serving rule. 

PLEASE, please STOP SUPPORTING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH!