Barry Duke, the Angry Atheist

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1. 

   You get drivel about aliens, abduction etc from all sorts of people, not just Christians – there are atheists, agnostics…

2. 

   […] last time I had had occasion to write about Rowan County clerk Kim Davis, above, was three years ago…

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   Whatever is presented on the BBC, and I must admit I do not watch the TV, the fact is that…

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   “The curriculum had already drawn tensions among the county’s religious parents, with some worrying about appropriateness and arguing the material…

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   As someone who produced dozens of nativity plays as a teacher and a Sunday School leader, that title ‘A Gay…

ROGER Vangheluwe, above, admitted 14 years go that he abused one nephew for more than a dozen years and later a second nephew.

The Vatican’s response at the time was to allow the Belgian bishop to quietly retire.

But yesterday it was reported that Pope Francis, soon to make a visit to Belgium, has finally got round to defrock the now 87-year-old pervert because doing nothing “would have been an unwelcome and problematic distraction” during his visit.

Vangheluwe made light of his crimes, describing his abuse as “a little game” that didn’t involve “rough sex.”

Not only was he allowed to quietly retire after the scandal broke in 2010, but the head of the Belgian church at the time, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, was caught on tape asking one of his victims to keep his abuse secret until the bishop left office.

The Vatican embassy in Belgium said in a statement on Thursday that in recent months “grave new elements” had been reported to the Holy See’s sex abuse office that justified reopening the case.

It didn’t say what new information had been received. In recent months Belgium’s own bishops have grown increasingly public in their stated outrage at the Vatican’s refusal to take action against Vangheluwe.

In September, Antwerp Bishop Johan Bonny told Belgian broadcaster VRT that the Belgian bishops had asked the Vatican for years, in writing and in person, to defrock Vangheluwe but got no response.

In its statement, the Vatican embassy said that after Vangheluwe’s defence was heard, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith presented the case to the Pope on March 8.

Three days later, it said, Francis decided to accept the recommendation that Vangheluwe be laicised. It is the harshest punishment that the Vatican can hand down, but it just means that Vangheluwe is now a layman and cannot present himself as a priest.

He asked to be allowed to live in a retreat house “without any contact with the world” to dedicate himself to prayer and penitence, the statement said.

Lieve Halsberghe, a Belgian advocate for abuse survivors, said the belated laicisation brought no justice to Vangheluwe’s victims. He said:

The gesture of the Vatican today, after 14 years of charades with letters to and from the Vatican, is no more than a PR stunt of the Vatican, pressured by the Belgian bishops.

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