The poor, poor Catholic Church. The Los Angeles diocese is having a bit of trouble. They have to pay out all this money for aiding and abetting child rapists, and they don’t know who to turn to.

Amid continuing anger over the poor handling of sexual abuse cases by Catholic Church officials over several decades — and still deeply in the red from settlements with victims — the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is considering the launch of a massive fundraising campaign, according to the website of a Catholic fundraising organization. The non-profit Guidance in Giving lists the Los Angeles-area Catholic Church among its “diocesan accounts” and says it is exploring a campaign to raise $200 million for the diocese to meet “a variety of needs,” including “priests’ retirement, seminarian education, Catholic schools, Catholic Charities and parish needs.”

Euphemisms are fun. “Priests retirement” kind of sounds like “retirement for the families of the children our priests raped”, but not quite.

If only there was a guy who controlled vast amounts of wealth and who, himself, had attempted to cover up the indiscretions of child rapists…

But no, the Catholic Church can’t just take financial responsibility by paying the ordered amount to their victims out of the church’s own coffers. It’s time for a fundraiser. To spread the word of god? No, silly – because yet another priest, imbued with morality-enhancing True faith, decided to fuck some of the children in his charge, and the church that is the source of all morality would like you to pick up a large part of the check. Because the Catholic Church is hurtin’ right now.

Think of it like original sin: humans get punished for the sin of someone else. Now Catholics get to pay the price for the Catholic Church’s crimes. To test if this is a weak con or really how the Catholic Church really views justice, the next time you get a speeding ticket send it to the Catholic Church and ask them to pay the price for your misdeeds. I’ll bet they find it hilarious.

Speaking of hilarious…

“I cannot undo the failings of the past that we find in these pages,” Gomez said in his letter. “To every Catholic in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, I want you to know: We will continue, as we have for many years now, to immediately report every credible allegation of abuse to law enforcement authorities and to remove those credibly accused from ministry.”

Yeah, the Catholic Church is going to turn over a new leaf, just as soon as all you chums in the pews cover their bill. Sounds a lot like “C’mon baby. You know I’ll never hit you again. I mean it this time. I’m a new man. Now why don’t you buy me a steak dinner?” The Catholic Church doesn’t belong in gilded halls, it belongs on Jerry Springer.

And then…

Just a few days after the documents were made public, The New York Times reported on watchdog allegations that many names in the files that should have been made public were redacted, and that parts of the personnel files were missing.

Yeah, about that turning over a new leaf thing. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 12389767912340 times…