NEW YORK: Catholic Archdiocese Opposes Sex Education In Public Schools

It may be hard to believe, but sex education is currently not available to all public high school students in New York City. Each school is allowed to decide whether to offer the courses and only about half do. Bloomberg wants to change that, much to the outrage of busybodies from the Catholic Church.

In the first serious challenge to the city’s mandate, which was announced on Tuesday, a spokesman for the archdiocese said the church’s position was that parents, not the schools, should educate children about sex. “Parents have the right and the responsibility to be the first and primary educators of their children,” Joseph Zwilling, director of communications for the archdiocese, wrote in a statement. “This mandate by the city usurps that role, and allows the public school system to substitute its beliefs and values for those of the parents.”

The Catholic League's reliably whacko Bill Donahue weighs in:

There is a sex-education program that could work, and it is one that is similar to the approach being used to discuss smoking. We don't tell kids not to smoke and then instruct them on the proper way to inhale. No, we show them horrifying pictures of a smoker's lungs. We tell them of the physical pain they are likely to endure by smoking. We tell them how it will shorten their life expectancy. We could do the same when discussing sexual experimentation at a young age. We could discuss how abortion affects the psyche of the mother who elects to terminate her baby. We could show pictures of what abortion does to the child being cut up into pieces. We could instruct them on the link between unwed motherhood and poverty. We could inform them of the greater likelihood of acquiring a sexually transmitted disease. In other words, we could teach the negative real-life consequences of sexual experimentation at a young age.

AUSTRALIA: 26 Suicides Blamed On Pedophile Catholic Priests

Even though 26 suicides have been attributed to the actions of pedophile priests such as Father Robert Best (above), local Catholic officials in Australia say that no inquiry is needed into the deaths. All of the suicides occurred at schools where Best taught. He has pleaded guilty to dozens of counts of child molestation.

Bishop Connors on Tuesday said not even revelations from Detective Sergeant Kevin Carson that 26 young men had killed themselves after being abused by priests and brothers in Ballarat convinced him that more would be learnt from an inquiry. "I think we've learnt a lot of things about what is appropriate behaviour and what's not appropriate behaviour," Bishop Connors said. "I think people are very well informed nowadays as to what's inappropriate approaches from a male." While conceding the abuse of children was wrong, he said that in the past it had not always been clear to everyone what was appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. "In the past a lot of ignorance was there on the part of lots of people. Parents didn't understand, sometimes bishops didn't understand. We have no excuse now."

BRITAIN: Catholic Anti-Pedophilia Staffer Busted For Producing Child Porn

An official with the Catholic Church has been busted for possessing and producing child porn. Ho hum, you say? How about if he was in charge of stopping people exactly like himself?

A child protection official for the Catholic Church has been caught with 4,000 pictures of child porn. Father-of-four Christopher Jarvis was arrested after uploading pictures of children being abused to a website. Married Jarvis, 49, a former social worker, was employed by the church following sex scandals about pervert priests. His job was to monitor church groups to ensure paedophiles did not gain access to children in the church’s congregations. But he was caught by police in March with more than 4,000 child porn images on his home computer and his work laptop. He admitted 12 counts of making, ­possessing and distributing indecent ­images when he appeared before ­magistrates in Plymouth and is likely to face jail when he returns to court for sentencing next month.

Archbishop: Maryland Isn't New York

The Archbishop of Baltimore, Edwin O'Brien, has a message for Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who earlier this week vowed to support the renewed push for marriage equality.

“Maryland is not New York,” wrote Archbishop Edwin O’Brien of Baltimore in a statement to LifeSiteNews Tuesday. “During the 2011 session, Maryland lawmakers chose not to redefine marriage because they listened to their Maryland constituents and stood by their deeply-held moral convictions.” “Government’s interest in marriage has been to promote the procreation of children, protect the best method of raising children and therefore protect society for future generations,” he said. “There are many ways to protect basic human rights; sacrificing marriage is not one of them. The successful coalition that upheld the time-honored definition of marriage in Maryland, which includes many leaders of African-American churches throughout the state, remains intact and will continue to be vigorously involved in upholding marriage in Maryland,” said the archbishop.

PHILADELPHIA: Catholic Archbishop Steps Down Over Pedophilia Scandal

Embattled Philadelphia Archbishop Justin Rigali resigned today after years of growing scandal over his alleged shielding of pedophile priests.

Rigali, archbishop in Philadelphia since 2003, has been struggling to contain the pedophilia scandal in the wake of a Philadelphia grand jury report issued at the beginning of this year. Three priests, a monsignor and a church teacher were indicted as a result of the report. "We would have assumed," said the grand jury in a report, "by the year 2011, after all the revelations both here and around the world, that the church would not risk its youth by leaving them in the presence of priests subject to substantial evidence of abuse. That is not the case." The grand jury said that it found 37 such priests who have been kept in assignments that exposed them to children.

Rigali will be replaced by Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver. The Philadelphia archdiocese has over 1.5M members and is the sixth largest in the country.

OHIO: Catholic Bishop Bans Raising Money For Breast Cancer Research

Toledo Bishop Leonard Blair has banned his parishes and schools from participating in any fundraising for breast cancer research. Because one day, maybe, some of that money might be used for stem cell research.

Toledo Bishop Leonard Blair sent a letter banning the fundraising for Susan G. Komen for the Cure to all priests and parishes in the 19-county diocese over the weekend. Cincinnati's archbishop earlier this year decided that schools and parishes in the 19-county Cincinnati Archdiocese cannot raise funds for Komen for the same reason. Scientists say research on embryonic stem cells, which are usually taken from discarded embryos at fertility clinics, may lead to cures for diseases. The Catholic Church maintains that the destruction of the embryo amounts to the killing of human life.

The Komen Foundation says it has never funded stem cell research.