St. Hedwig Call Your Office

OK we didn't set out to make this poop on the pope week here in the marbled halls of IM Central, but just as we were getting ready to write abut David "Depends" Vitter and his merry band of misogynists this headline floats across our screen:

Pope's German Ally Is Accused of Beating Orphans

How odd, thinks us. First of all, why does the pope need and ally--particularly a German one? Oh, heck, are you guys planning to invade Poland again?  You rascals! And beating orphans? What's next, kicking puppies? Pushing old ladies down? What have you got to say for yourself there padre?

Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg has denied the accusations made by four women and two men, and threatened legal action to protect his reputation. "At no time and in none of his functions has Bishop Mixa ever maltreated children," said a spokeswoman for the Bishopric of Augsburg. "[These allegations] are absurd, untrue and evidently concocted with the aim of personally discrediting the bishop."

Oh it is so on heathens. Trying to soak up a little of that sweet sweet pervert cash, huh folks? Not gonna happen. Why, we bet lawyers from the vatican are already on the way to put the legal dominus vobiscum on your lyin' buttocks, right popey?

The pope told a German bishop who resigned amid accusations of physical abuse, sexual harassment and alcoholism that he must take time for silent prayer, treatment and reconciliation if he wants to return to pastoral work.

 Ha! How you like us now, pagans? Think you can push the church around just because we got caught shuffling pervs around like...wait, resigned?

Benedict laid out the terms for Bishop Walter Mixa's rehabilitation during a private audience with the 69-year-old prelate, during which Mixa again apologized for his mistakes.

Mistakes? Padre! What happened to protecting your reputation? What happened to legal action? What happened to your buddy the pope?

The pope accepted Mixa's resignation on May 8, but last month the bishop said members of the Augsburg diocese and two German bishops had forced him to resign against his will, and that he had written to the pope seeking to rescind the resignation. Fresh allegations later surfaced in the German media, including that Mixa was an alcoholic and had made sexual advances toward two priests.

 Sweet Jebus on whole wheat raisin toast, can't you guys do anything without sexy time in there someplace?

"Once he took a wooden cooking spoon and beat me until it broke," said Markus Tagwerk (not his real name), now 41, who lived in the church home between 1972 and 1982. "Then he used his hand. He would shout, 'Take this punishment, child of God!' and 'I'll soon drive Satan out of you!'"

 Um...not quite what we had in mind. Bene, can't you talk to the brother? After all you guys go back a ways, right?

The close links between the pontiff and Mixa are sure to add to the embarrassment felt within the Vatican over the ongoing child abuse scandal. In 2005, the pope appointed his old friend the Bishop of Augsburg. Together with a cluster of high-up conservative Catholics from the pontiff's native Bavaria, Mixa has offered his wholehearted support for Benedict's most controversial decisions, such as revoking the ex-communication of Holocaust-denying English bishop Richard Williamson.

 Yeah, uh...let us get this straight. Whacking the urchins? Take a hike. Denying the Holocaust? Come on down! Criminee bishop Whackmaster, you could be the good guy in all this.

Mixa said he recognized that he had made mistakes "which caused a loss of trust and made his resignation inevitable." He again asked forgiveness, but also asked that "all the good that he had done not be forgotten."

 So right, padre, so right. Can we get an amen from someone? What about you Hildegard Sedlmayr?

Hildegard Sedlmayr, 48, another former resident, told Sueddeutsche Zeitung that when she was 15, the bishop dragged her from her bed and beat her. "He grabbed me by the nightshirt, pulled me up out of my bed and punched me repeatedly on the upper arm. Afterwards it was covered in bruises," she said. 

 Yeah, well at least you weren't raped Hilde dear. Take your victories where you find then, huh?