Asshat Timothy Dolan

Welcome to Another Asshattery Award.

This time we honor New York Archbishop-designate Timothy Dolan who said this past Monday that he will challenge the idea that the Roman Catholic Church is unenlightened because it opposes gay marriage and abortion. And he wants to restore pride to a religion rocked by a decades, or centuries, old sex abuse scandal, by simply moving on.

Tell that to the victims, Timmy; tell them to just "move on."

"One would hope that through education and through the joy that we give by our lives that people will begin to see that these fears and this skepticism we have about the church are unwarranted."

What fears? The fears of having your children molested by a person they trust? The skepticism that the Catholic Church would stand by it's followers and punish the abusers? The fear and skepticism you talk about, Timmy, is the fear and skepticism people have against an institution that does not listen to them when they talk of sexual molestation, and the idea that those men who committed these horrendous acts were not punished, but simply shuttled around from parish to parish in the hopes that a scandal would not erupt. The skepticism that arises when it's revealed that the church tried to buy the silence of the victims.

Your church, sir, the catholic Church and its leaders, is what brought about these feelings of fear and skepticism. It was your church.

Dolan also believes Catholics must defend themselves against bias, which he believes is deeply ingrained in American culture.

"Periodically, we Catholics have to stand up and say, `Enough. The church as a whole still calls out to what is noble in us....We need you. We love you. The church is your family. Please come back. We miss you. We're sorry if we hurt you. We'll listen to you. It's not the same without you."

People have left the church because of the sex abuse scandal that was mishandled from the start. How long did it take for the Vatican to even acknowledge the abuse had happened? How long did it take for the Vatican to apologize? And does anyone really believe that the church has solved the problem, or have they simply become more adept at hiding it?

People have left the church because it hasn't changed. The Catholic faith is still preaching from the quicksand of five hundred years ago; you are not progressive, but regressive; you are not welcoming, but condemning; you do not hope, you chastise, and abuse and blame, and hide.

But the the kicker? The reason Timothy Dolan gets the coveted asshat award? He planes to challenge any efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, but insists that his position was not anti-gay. In fact, he says of the LGBT community:

"We love them. We would defend their rights...[but]...If we let that definition of marriage go and begin to include other relationships, it will be to a detriment to the civilization."

So, Timothy Dolan, Asshat Award Recipient, you love us? You'll defend us? You want us to have our rights? But then you think that by allowing us to marry, civilization will come to an end.

Crawl back into the sludge from whence you came.