jumping jesus on a pogo stick

(a doff of the cap to the dead milkmen, for the line above, from their classic, "stuart".)

whew. thank god the catholic church is modernising.

in romania, a 29-year old romanian catholic priest ordered a 23-year-old nun crucified because she was “possessed by the devil.”

yeah, you heard right. crucifixion's making a comeback. and people wonder why the former eastern bloc still has the rep for being a bit backward? let's hear it for romania, kids.

so what happened? the priest and four nuns had the possessed nun bound and gagged, sans food or water, for several days before they tied her, still gagged, to a crucifix. she was found dead, starved and dehydrated to her death.

turns out that corporal punishment is still widely practiced in the romanian catholic church. but when pressed for reasoning on why the priest said the young nun was possessed, no clear answer was forthcoming.

a parishioner did say, though, that she’d argued with the priest during a mass and then insulted him in front of his congregation. let me guess, this priest uses kool-aid in his chalice, right?

but here’s the kicker, taken straight from the original article.

Vitalie Danciu, the superior of a nearby monastery at Golia, called the crucifixion "inexcusable", but a spokesman for the Orthodox patriarchate in Bucharest refused to condemn it.

"I don't know what this young woman did," Bogdan Teleanu said.

he refused to condemn it? what the fuck? he doesn’t know what “this young woman did”? yeah, let's do wait for all the evidence to come in, because after all, crucifixions are such rational ways to deal with issues.

i mean, it sure worked well for that jewish carpenter, didn’t it?

fucking people.

oh, hey, i know. i know exactly what their next p.r. move should be in the catholic church: pick a former hitler youth officer for pope.