I've recently read about the nun in Rwanda who was sentenced to 30 years for her part in the Rwandan massacre. She was directly responsible for hundreds of deaths. She would meet with army officials and send people outside to their deaths. She threw a baby in a latrine. She was a fucking nun. I thought that the Roman Catholic Church had moved beyond things like the Inquistion. It just sickens me. This woman took sacred vows to serve people not to massacre them.

I read about it on MSN.com a couple of days ago. I found a link and will try to post it. http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_27269756.shtml
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=47578

Unfortunately, you'll have to cut and paste. The nun's name is Sister Theophister Mukakibibi and one of the articles I have is from the Catholic World News. I will cut and paste part of that article below:

Rwandan nun sentenced on genocide conviction

Kigali, Nov. 10 (CWNews.com) - A traditional court in Rwanda has sentenced a Catholic nun to 30 years in prison for her role in the 1994 genocide. Sister Theophister Mukakibibi was convicted by a traditional Rwandan court of helping ethnic Hutu militiamen to kill Tutsis hiding in the National University Hospital in the town of Butare, where she worked during the time of the genocide. She is the first nun sentenced by a Rwandan court for crimes committed in 1994. The president of the local Gacaca court in Butare said that the nun selected Tutsis sheltering in the hospital and threw them out for the militia groups to kill. The Catholic hierarchy in Rwanda has been accused of having close ties to extremist politicians and aiding Hutu militias in the weeks leading up to the mass killings. Last year Father Guy Theunis, a Belgian missionary priest, became the first foreigner to face a Gacaca court on charges of genocide. After strenuous international diplomatic intervention, he was released by Rwanda on the promise that he would face the same genocide charges before a court in his native Belgium. Two other Catholic nuns were found guilty by a Belgian court in 2001. Rwandans are using the traditional Gacaca courts to speed up the process of bringing those responsible for the genocide to justice. Some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in the 1994 genocide. Many of these people had sought refuge in churches.

It shouldn't suprise that clergy people would be just as messed up as everyone else, but something like this was so unbelievably horrifying.

That's a good point, Coyote Moon. Ultimately religion should be between an individual and deity but I think that clergy can fill an important role as far as guiding people. A certain amount of organization keeps things from becoming anything goes. I think that people should be brought up within some kind of tradition even if it only serves as a base to rebel against. Clergy should never be held above the law and I am glad that the people involved in this case (she was not the only one) are being tried and sentenced. But I am really saddened that there are people that need to be tried for such heinous crimes.

It does seem as though the evil deeds of Christian clergy are what the media loves to report about. Most of the Christians I know are decent people. A few are too narrow minded to have any kind of discussion with, but not all. I think it might be a good thing that she wasn't sentenced to death, not because she doesn't deserve to die for her actions, but because putting her to death might only serve to continue the tribal hatred between Tutsis and Hutus. I just wish the church would join the new millennium and allow women to be priests and for priests to marry. That would cut down on the freakin' perverts and instead of nuns who took out their sexual frustations on everyone else (I'm thinking more of the ruler wielding ones, Theopister was more like a Nazi with her tribal hatred) they could serve because they wanted too.
One other thing that came to mind when I read your last post. Perhaps the reason that people are afraid of the Pagan path isn't because of polytheism (people don't freak out around Hindus) or because of Satan (You hear more about Satan in some churches then during a black mass) but because Pagans are so independent. Just a thought.
I hope that the people of Rwanda find some peace.

— RaevynKiss

Well, I wasn't going to post here and start ranting again about how much this sickens me, but... I cannot understand "killing in the name of God". OK, here I go! These people who believe in an omnipotent God, yet think they are right to torture and kill... what the hell?! An omnipotent God would not need human beings to do this killing if this omnipotent God found such killings necessary or justified!

CM, I used to argue with my dad about the inherent good in human beings when I was younger. I still want to believe in it. Believe me, I know what you're talking about, though. With some people, their "good" is so far overbalanced by their ignorance, hate, intolerance, ego, greed, etc., that it just seems hopeless. Out of the gene pool? I understand this feeling really well in my middle age. It's not really my call to make, though. But I do agree that this just shouldn't be tolerated or thought acceptable, or overlooked, forgotten, and ignored.

I'm not naive enough to think, "Oh, can't we all just get along?" But I am hopeful that we can stop repeating the past mistakes of history. I'm hopeful that we'll all wake up and realize that we're destroying ourselves if we don't learn balance and harmony.

Now, on a lighter note, if we were to worship dog poop, I wonder if people might not think "Hey, the dog poop told me to do it" sounded utterly ridiculous! Just as, to me, killing "in the name of God" is ridiculous. Excuse me, but if I were the creator of something, I wouldn't be commanding anyone to destroy it. That makes absolutely no sense to me. Benevolent dog poop, fertilizing the earth.... yeah, well, then there'd be those who would complain about the smell... But this stinks, too! This killing in the name of God. No easy answers here. We're just not all supposed to be the same! What would be the point???

Blessings )O(

She wasn't killing in the name of God, she was killing in the name of tribal hatred. She wasn't killing those people because they weren't Catholic, she was having them killed by the military because they were the wrong tribe. As a Catholic, I was horrified because of the respect for life I expected the clergy to have. Catholics aren't just opposed to abortion, they are also opposed to the death penalty, and assisted suicide. We are also supposed to be all about helping the poor and oppressed. This is the religion I was raised in, so to read about a nun committing such crimes, was horrible. In my mind, nuns were little old ladies who instructed children to always hold the door for the next person in line. (To my grandmother who spent time in a Catholic orphanage, they were fire breathing bitches and were she alive, she would probably say that there are more nuns like Theopister than not.)

Then I had to realize that the true horror wasn't from the fact she was a nun, clergy are no more exempt from evil than any of us, it was the fact that these people were massacred. It was from the fact that they thought they could find refuge in a church or a church run hospital and they couldn't. It really didn't matter that Theopister shook up my idea and beliefs, it mattered that those people died for no good reason. I hope that the church starts looking harder at people who want to join the clergy so that the people who need safety under the church can find it.

As for worshipping poop, well, no thanks, but how about a blessing for it. Some people says prayers before they eat, but never after they poop. (Or if they do, they don't talk about it.) However, a lot of senior citizens are very concerned about their poop. I work in a doctor's office, so trust me on this one. Why not add a little injuction while saying grace asking for Deity's assistance in getting the food out as easily as it went in. I think that should be especially good for annoying Bible thumpers who have to pray loudly before each meal.

The earth will balance itself, that is true. Hopefully we can help out by fixing things before all hell breaks loose. If not, well then things will get fixed either by the weather, a new plague, something.

It also seems that atrocities have been committed in the name of every religion. What it really seems to boil down to is politics and greed. What better way to take from someone then to really convince yourself that he is your enemy in the eyes of God.

I truly think that some excellent birth control and easy access to abortion (yes, the Catholic girl is pro-choice) would probably reduce more suffering than anything else. I am personally opposed to abortion and have never had one myself but I don't think it's right to bring a child into the world just to let him/her get a little bigger before killing him/her slowly. I'm thinking of Lisa Steinberg when I write this.