Denominations

Saints

To remove Hypatia from our collective memory the Church made up a new Saint: Catharine of Alexandria. ... For six hundred years, she had been one of the most beloved of all the saints, and many Christians revere her still. [Link, translation]

Many of the most popular Saints are non-existent. Many pagan deities and characters were turned into Christian Saints. Examples include St Bridget of Ireland, St George of England, St Demetra of the Greek Church, St Mercurius and many more.

... the martyrs in whose cases the Acta are considered genuine are such as Fructuosus, Augurius, Carpus, Papylus, etc., in whom even the Catholic is not interested, while the men and women who are popular - St. George, Catherine, Agnes, Laurence, Sebastian, Cecilia, Denis, etc. - the saints who are pressed upon children in all Roman and Anglican schools and even mentioned reverently in the Press, are fictitious.
... In some cases the martyr-makers used pagan deities
-- A Rationalist Encyclopaedia, by Joseph McCabe

By far most of the Saints and Martyrs of the Roman Persecutions in the first two centuries never existed (or were nothing like tradition makes them out to be, which is practically the same as non-existent) including:

Quiricus, Julitta, Paulinus, Torpetus, Vitalis, Ursicinus, Hermagoras, Thecla, Gervasius, Protasius, Denis, Areopagite, Domitilla, Linus, Clement, Felicitas and her sons, Agnes, Cecilia, Genesius, Gelasinus, Ardalion, Porphyrius, Philemon (-- Joseph McCabe)

The Sainted fathers of the Church: misogynistic, anti-semitic, pro-slavery and intolerant, they were frauds and self-confessed liars, despising civilisation and science. Examples include: St John Chrysostom, St Ambrose, St Cyril (a murderer to boot) and many more. St Jerome and St Augustine wrote about Devils appearing as Ethiopians - doctrines that would give rise to racism.

Saints of the Dark Ages: some of those Sainted were murderers, even inquisitors (Peter Martyr, Pedro Arbues) and master torturers (5th century Pope St Leo I tortured Manichaeans). St Stephen had Hungary forcibly converted, Pope St Urban launched the First Crusade, St Bernard of Clairveaux the Second Crusade. St Francis Xavier destroyed heathen shrines in Asia and called for Inquisitions in India.

Catholic Mystic nuns indulged in disgusting practises:

Saint Angela of Foligno (1248-1309) relished the washings of lepers; Saint Magdalena dei Pazzi wallowed in thorns, had hot wax poured onto her skin, and had herself whipped. [Link, citing Thurston, Die körperlichen Begleiterscheinungen der Mystik, 1956; Underhill, Mystik, 1928.]

Saint Teresa of Avila and other nuns were also into such bizarre behaviours.

Read details

Recently Sainted

Numerous criminal missionaries to China and Chinese converts, who tormented the Chinese, have been sainted

Fascists and war criminals: Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the founder of Opus Dei, a theocratic dictator, virulent anti-Semite and fascist sympathizer. Archbishop Stepinac, the 'Father Confessor' to the Croatian Nazi Ustashe has been beatified. John Paul II also proclaimed the beatification of another Croatian fascist priest: Ivan Merz associated with Hitler Jugend and was the founder of the fascist Association of Croatian Eagles

Pope Pius IX, an anti-semite who was also opposed to civil rights

Mother Teresa, a fraud and worse

Details of these and other Saints. And the forgeries that created the legendary Saints

Catholicism

Some early Popes were gay or bi-sexual and over a dozen were atheists. Others went beyond merely breaking Christian taboos, into the realm of vice. Countless early Popes were infamous for nepotism, simony and greed. Some were gluttons. Yet many Popes were downright criminals - besides instituting Crusades, Inquisitions, witch hunts, pogroms and other persecutions and holding slaves:

Facts

Some of the early Popes who committed:

• Murder: Sergius III, John XII, Benedict VIII, Benedict IX, Boniface VIII, Boniface IX, John XXIII, Alexander VI
• Paedophilia: Sergius III, Paul II, Julius II, Julius III, Leo X
• Rape and incest: John XII, John XXIII (the first - 1410-1415), Anacletus
• Rape: Benedict V, Benedict VIII, Boniface VIII
• Incest: Sixtus IV, Alexander VI, Paul III

Damasus I, Sixtus III, John XII, John XIII, John XXIII (the first - 1410-1415) were some of the many papal adulterers.

Details from the lives of some of the infamous early Popes.

Book suggestions, including:

Lives Of The Popes by Richard McBrien

Sex lives of the Popes by Nigel Cawthorne

The Incredible Book of Vatican Facts and Papal Curiosities: A Treasury of Trivia by Nino Lo Bello

Vicars of Christ by Peter De Rosa

The Roman Church has never erred, nor will it err to all eternity.
-- From the Dictatus of Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085)

Since the Reformation the popes have been obliged to live more decently, or at least to conceal their vices instead of flaunting them before the world.
-- Crimes of Christianity, by G W Foote and J M Wheeler

Then in 1870, the pontiff came up with the doctrine of Papal Infallibility - to ensure that whatever the Pope might do, his flock will always have to think it's right.

Recent Popes and the Vatican

Facts

Meddling with the sovereignty of countries by using its influence on Catholic populations:

Vatican abortion treaty brings down government - The Guardian, February 11, 2006:

The Vatican has inadvertently triggered the collapse of the government in Slovakia, one of the economic stars of the 10 entrants to the EU, in a row over abortion rights.

Telling Italy's Catholic population to oppose changes to harsh laws on fertility treatments, which has

stirred controversy over the role of the Roman Catholic church in public life and put a question mark over the scientific future of Italy.
-- Italians consider reform of harsh fertility law - The Guardian, June 11, 2005

The fertility law is seen by many as an attack on Italy's secular democracy by traditional Catholic-minded MPs. ...Medical experts and opposition politicians say it is a Catholic law that is "anti-women" and "morally disgusting".
-- Italians force referendum on fertility law - The Guardian, October 1, 2004

New Pope condemns Spain gay bill - BBC News, 22 April, 2005:

A senior Vatican official ... said Roman Catholic officials should be prepared to lose their jobs rather than co-operate with the law. ... the Church was making an urgent call for freedom of conscience for Roman Catholics and appealing to them to resist the law.

The "freedom" to give up individual conscience and side with the Church. There's no inquisition to enforce the Holy Church's wishes now.

New pope intervened against Kerry in US 2004 election campaign - Yahoo news, April 19, 2005
Ratzinger told his flock in the US to vote for born-again Bush rather than Catholic Kerry. This is reminiscent of how Pacelli (who'd become Hitler's Pope Pius XII) and Pope Pius XI had told the Catholics of Germany to dissolve the Center Party - Germany's parliamentary force - and let Hitler have dictatorial powers.

The Vatican (and all recent Popes) also

Protects abusive priests and criminalises the victims.

Pope Benedict XVI faced claims last night he had 'obstructed justice' after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church's investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret.
-- Pope 'obstructed' sex abuse inquiry news from The Observer, April 24, 2005

Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope) under Pope John Paul II covered-up sexual abuse by high-profile priest Father Marcial Maciel:

Maciel is the founder of the little-known but well-connected and well-financed Legion of Christ which has raised millions of dollars for the Church.
-- Priestly Sin, Cover-Up - ABC news, April 26, 2002

Apparently, money and the Church's public image are more important than protecting children

Attempts to whitewash Vatican support for Fascism and its complicity in the Holocaust

Avoids responsibility for genocide in Rwanda and its colonial genocide in the Congo. Near-apologies do not cut it

Supports inculturation of Catholics living in non-Catholic countries, like Orthodox countries, Africa and Asia

Refuses to learn from its past: continues to support and sponsor anti-Semitism in Palestine, calls for a conversion of non-Christian Asia like Christianity perpetrated in the Americas and Africa

Refuses to recognise that its stance on contraception and safe sex are vastly increasing the occurrence of fatal venereal diseases in Africa, Asia and elsewhere

Details

John Paul II

Saint factory:

Pope John Paul II has beatified 805 people and canonized a record number of saints - 280 - during his papacy. [Link]

Quite of a number of those sainted are criminals, fascist war criminals, and frauds

He did nothing useful to stop abuse of nuns by priests (who believed they were avoiding AIDS this way)

Inadequate apologies for the Native American and African genocides inflicted by Christianity. His advertised apologies to Jews were in fact non-apologies. Not even inadequate or non-apologies for past crimes of the Church in Asian countries were given. Since they are not yet Christian nations they don't deserve any.

Pretends concern for human rights whilst opposed to it, encourages superstitions, and cracked down on dissident Catholics

Pope Benedict XVI (Ratzinger)
Besides the other wrongs listed under Facts above, he has continued Catholic intolerance, offending Protestants, in his document

Dominus Jesus, in which he argued:

"Only in the Catholic church is there eternal salvation".

-- Papal hopeful is a former Hitler Youth - The Sunday Times, April 17, 2005

More on Catholicism and its central Popes

The Orthodox Church

Problems in America:

The head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America has resigned
... He was accused of financial mismanagement, covering up sexual harassment at the Holy Cross Seminary in Brookline, Massachusetts, and demagoguery.
-- Greek Orthodox archbishop resigns amid money questions - CNN August 19, 1999

Much greater scandals in Greece:

The Greek Orthodox Church suspended a senior bishop and an influential priest surrendered to police yesterday as corruption allegations involving bribery, drug dealing and sexual favours swamped the country's powerful clergy.
-- Corruption scandal hits the Greek Church - Telegraph News, February 5, 2005

The revelations are mind-boggling. Almost daily, men once revered as paragons of virtue have been exposed as lascivious money-grabbers. Recorded conversations of eminent clerics engaging in 'love talk' have been broadcast on television, secret bank accounts revealed, and malfeasance unearthed, with priests emerging as central players in activities as disparate as trial-fixing, antiquities smuggling and election rigging. Highlighting a raft of lurid sexual claims, one newspaper splashed what was purported to be a 91-year-old priest in bed with a woman across its front page.
-- Greece in revolt as scandals sweep the Orthodox church - Guardian Unlimited, March 20, 2005

Orthodox Church versus Catholicism

After the Schism, the Crusade against Orthodoxy and sack of Constantinople, after the wartime genocide of the Orthodox Christian Serbs by Catholicism, and bearing in mind the Roman Church's eternal goal to convert the Orthodox east, the Greek Church was right to fear the Pope's visit:
Pope Visits Greece Today on a Tough Mission of Reconciliation - New York Times, May 4, 2001:

Orthodox priests and monks have held protest vigils and marched under signs that read "the heretic pope" and "two-horned monster of Rome." Archbishop Christodoulos, head of the Greek Orthodox Church, has vowed not to pray alongside the Roman Catholic pope, who arrives in Athens on Friday.

...the most contentious issue for Orthodox believers are the Byzantine Catholics, who follow Eastern rites but are loyal to Rome. The Orthodox church views them as a kind of Trojan horse to convert Orthodox believers.

...inroads made by the Catholic Church in other predominantly Orthodox states in eastern Europe have earned it a reputation for conversion.
...Fr Nektarios, abbot of a monastery on the Corinthian Gulf:

"Popes have fooled the Orthodox Church in the past. This pontiff will not be allowed to repeat the trick. He has the burden of history on his back. He cannot be trusted. You don't honour a criminal, you put him in jail."

-- Pope's visit to Greece infuriates Orthodox Church - Telegraph News, April 29, 2001

So too in Orthodox Ukraine:
Pope's visit fails to heal old wounds - The Guardian, June 28, 2001

More on Orthodox Christianity

Protestantism

The Reformers

The Anglican Dean Inge, of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, did not hesitate to say:

'If we wish to find a scapegoat on whose shoulders we may lay the miseries which Germany has brought on the world, I am more and more convinced that the worst evil genius of that country, is not Hitler or Bismarck or Frederick the Great, but Martin Luther.'

[Link]

Free will after the Fall is nothing but a word. Even doing what in him lies, man sins mortally.
-- Luther in 1518 [Link]

Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his Reason.
-- Luther [Link]

Besides writing the booklet On the Jews and their Lies on why and how the Jews ought to be persecuted - which inspired the Nazis - Luther also wrote on:

the uprising of the peasants, instructing the German nobility to brutally crush them. This directly resulted in the deaths of 100,000 of them [Link]

how disabled children were "true devils" and those with mental disabilities were possessed. Robertson's History of Christianity tells how Luther advocated throwing a possessed child into the river to be killed or cured. These Lutheran teachings also got Nazi Germany's Evangelical institutions for the disabled to have their wards murdered [see here]

He advocated torture of prostitutes and persecution of religious minorities [Link, partly translated here]

Next to referring to the Fall to blame women for men's errors, Luther also confirmed the place of women in Christianity:

"Even though they grow weary and wear themselves out with child-bearing, it does not matter; let them go on bearing children till they die, that is what they are there for."
-- Works 20.84 [Link]

The other Reformers were no better:
The Reformers in England, through a statute of Henry VIII, forbade "women and others of low condition" to read the Bible.

In Switzerland, John Calvin created a vicious theocracy in which morality police were employed to control people's behavior. Citizens were harshly punished for a wide variety of moral infractions, including dancing, drinking, and generally being entertained. Theological dissidents were summarily executed, like Michael Servetus who was burned for doubting the Trinity. [Link]

Thousands of people were imprisoned, tortured, and burned to death during Calvin's reign, but he never attended the final Autos de Fe. [Link]

Zwingli was an "inveterate adulterer" who "had marked militaristic tendencies":

"Zwingli had gone the length of declaring that the massacre of the bishops was necessary for the establishment of the pure Gospel ..."

The Protestants were as intolerant as the Catholics:

As soon as they had the power to persecute they did."
-- Preserved Smith

Under Elizabeth, Presbyterians, for example, were "branded, . . . imprisoned, banished, mutilated and even put to death. A few Anabaptists and Unitarians were burned alive."

"The Reformers themselves . . . e.g., Luther, Beza, and especially Calvin, were as intolerant to dissentients as the Roman Catholic Church."
-- Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church

Link

Much more on Protestantism, the Reformers and their intolerance

Modern Protestant Churches including Fundamental, Evangelical Churches

Racism and intolerance

4 major American Churches split over the issue of slavery, forming northern and southern factions, including:

The Methodist Church.
In 1861, the North Carolina Christian Advocate wrote of "the demon spirit of abolitionism" and how Southern Methodists had "tested it fully, and found it to be heartless, inhuman and Christless."
Although the two factions reunited in 1939 as the Methodist Church, they retained racial segregation.

The country's Presbyterian Church also split into two.

The Baptist Church:

The Southern Baptists are the largest and most reactionary christian denomination in the USA. They split away from the Baptists in 1845 over slavery, because they thought that slavery was okay. After the civil war, some Southern Baptists founded the Ku Klux Klan.
In the 1960s, the Southern Baptists supported segregation laws and opposed the black civil rights movement. In 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention issued an apology to all African-Americans and asked for their forgiveness.
In reality, though, only the target of hate has changed, from black to gay. [Link]

The apology has not wiped away the lingering racism.

More

Pious Christians: rich televangelists

Pat Robertson:

Publicly called for the assassination of Venezuela's president, and then stated that's not what he said. Finally, he admitted he was wrong for having said it (out loud, that is).

Blames Israel's Sharon for having troops withdrawn from Gaza, insisting that division of Israel (not a Christian country) is against God's wishes:

Pat Robertson suggested Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which Robertson opposed.
-- Robertson suggests God smote Sharon - CNN, January 5, 2006

Knowing his Bible well, he defends the vengeful nature of God, justifying the Biblical slaughter of the Midianites.

A misogynist, who's as intolerant as other Christians before him. Also anti-constitution, ignorantly insisting that state-Church separation is not constitutional [Details]

Friends with criminal dictators: Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko (see Pat's diamond mining project below), Charles Taylor of Liberia, Guatemalan President Jorge Serrano, Zambian President Frederick Chiluba (-- Robertson in gold mining deal with Liberian strong man; part of "Christian ministry" exploitation?)

Robertson redirected charity funds and resources to his African diamond mining project, after having raised money in the name of his charity Operation Blessing "to help Rwandans".

Robertson was chasing diamonds in Zaire with Mobutu's blessing as early as 1992. The Virginia Beach-based broadcaster ratcheted up the effort in 1994, the same year that eastern Zaire was flooded by more than 1 million refugees fleeing the bloody civil war in Rwanda.
-- News from The Virginian-Pilot, April 27, 1997

Africa is all about the money for Pat, he doesn't care a hoot about its people. And he's a racist. His 1992 statement on Apartheid in South Africa:

"I think 'one man, one vote,' just unrestricted democracy, would not be wise. There needs to be some kind of protection for the minority which the white people represent now, a minority, and they need and have a right to demand a protection of their rights."
-- Robertson in his televised program "The 700 Club"

Pat was deservedly sued by his African-American employees, as he had been:

forcing them enter its offices through a back door and eat in a segregated area
-- Pat Robertson's Katrina Cash - The Nation, September 7, 2005

Benny Hinn is a con-artist like Robertson and others, but Christians keep donating:

The flamboyant Pentecostal preacher offered the crowd a multimedia tour of his proposed $30 million shrine to faith healing and solicited donations to pay for it. ... Mr. Hinn's "World Healing Center" never materialized.
-- What happened to Hinn's promised healing center? - Dallas Morning News, June 23, 2002

Where does world-famous televangelist’s money go? - Dateline NBC News, December 27, 2002:
"Benny Hinn has millions of believers and millions in donations"

Pentecostal Churches and Benny Hinn are duping Africans:

"Four million dollars down the drain," he [Hinn] shouted into the microphone from the huge rostrum.
... The Pentecostal faith in Nigeria is a veritable goldmine, judging by the opulence of most of its pastors.
-- Pastor Hinn in Nigerian money row - BBC News, June 27, 2005

Fact

Dark Ages: Gullible Christians paid a lot for fake relics
Today: Gullible Christians donate a lot to televangelists, fraudulent Christian charities, and to multi-million dollar ministries

The money-making Evangelical Baptist and Pentecostal, Charismatic Churches make a tidy buck even from poor people and in impoverished countries.

Jerry Falwell hates feminists, homosexuals and atheists. Like Robertson and Hinn, Falwell loves the money:

In 1994 Falwell quietly accepted $3.5 million from Korean cult messiah Sun Myung Moon [Link]

Fred Phelps, popular Pastor of Westboro Baptist Church is virulently anti-gay and like a good Southern Baptist is racist. He is well-versed in the Bible:

"You can't preach the Bible without preaching hatred."
-- Fred Phelps [Link]

Being black won't get you to Heaven. But promoting [homosexuals] will take you to Hell.
-- Nov 1996 Westboro Baptist Church press release [Link]

Billy Graham, being a True Christian, is an anti-Semite. In a taped conversation with President Richard Nixon, he said that Jews have a "stranglehold" on the American media. He told the President:

"This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country's going down the drain" ... "They're the ones putting out the pornographic stuff."

Rather like how Hitler blamed the Jews for causing "degeneration" of Christian German society. Graham later apologised - probably he was sorry that his Christian beliefs were caught on tape.

More on these and other modern Protestant denominations

Mormon Church

Similar to how the Biblical Curse of Ham made up an origin for the pre-biblical people of Africa, the Book of Mormon has invented similar "cursed" ancestry for Native Americans and Polynesians. The Book of Mormon teaches that:

the ancient inhabitants of the Americas ... descended from the Israelite patriarch Lehi [Link]

However, DNA evidence as documented in (ex-Mormon bishop) S.G. Southerton's book Losing a Lost Tribe has forced the Church to change its unscientific and racist doctrines. Mormon scholars have now started pretending that they never claimed that the Native Americans were Israelites. Yet,

In Mormon theology, Lamanites are understood as both chosen and cursed: Christ visited them, yet their unrighteousness left them cursed with dark skin. The Book of Mormon says Lamanites will one day be restored to greatness through the fullness of the gospel. (The original 1830 version of the Book of Mormon said they would become "white and delightsome;" in 1981, the passage was changed to "pure and delightsome.") Though not mentioned specifically in the Book of Mormon, Polynesians have been taught they are a branch of the House of Israel descended from Lehi. In 1982, the church's then-President Spencer Kimball told Samoans, Maori, Tahitians and Hawaiians that the "Lord calls you Lamanites."
... Southerton's book details how these teachings have helped LDS efforts to convert new members, especially among Indians in Latin America and Maoris in New Zealand.
-- DNA research and Mormon scholars changing basic beliefs - USA Today News, July 26, 2004

More racism, as always originating with the biblical Curse of Ham:

The Book of Abraham has a rather unpleasant side. Until recent years, it was used to justify the racist policies of the Mormon church. Blacks formerly were not allowed to hold the "priesthood." ... Verse 24 ends with a reference to the biblical "curse of Ham": "From Ham sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land."
The head of the Mormon church -- the "Chief Seer and Revelator" -- a few years ago got a message direct from his god to change this policy. The change came just in the nick of time, too, since civil rights legislation was making it harder for racist organizations to feed at the federal money-trough. [Link]

Racism in Mormonism is nothing new either, as the Church's 2nd president and pioneer leader Brigham Young

asked the legislature to give legal sanction to slavery throughout the territory [of Utah].
-- The Mormons and Slavery – A Closer Look, by Newell G. Bringhurst

Mormons, imagining an Israelite ancestry for themselves, are baptising dead Jewish people, including Holocaust victims, to ensure these people go to heaven:

"We have proof of thousands and thousands of Jews, including holocaust victims, who have been baptized…" [said Jewish leader Ernest Michel]
-- Jewish Leaders Say LDS Baptisms for Dead Jews Continue Despite Agreement - KUTV News, April 8, 2005

The fundamentalist Mormon Church, which broke away from the now-mainstream Church still holds to the Mormon tenet of polygamy.

the Mormon Church officially banned the practice back in 1890 but it still occurs among more fundamentalist sects... According to a 2005 report there are between 20,000 and 40,000 people currently practicing polygamy in the US.
-- MSN news New Zealand, 25 August 2006

Paedophilia, incest and polygamy abuse in the Mormon state of Utah have long been protected under "religious freedom".

... the Kingston group, one of four large fundamentalist Mormon sects that practice polygamy, arranged marriages and ... sanctioned incest.
-- Charges of abuse and polygamy roil Utah - Newsweek, 8/10/1998 [Link]

Last year alone, nearly 1,000 teen-agers 14 to 17 years of age were married in Utah, including a 14-year-old girl who slipped a wedding ring on a man of 37 and the marriage of a 15-year-old girl to a groom older than 45.
-- Older Men Finding Teen Brides in Utah - The Salt Lake Tribune, December 14, 1997 [Link]

More recent news: [Mormon] Man who had 80 wives and 250 children arrested on rape charges - Daily Mail, August 29, 2006

Fundamentalist Mormon terrorism is investigated in the book Under the Banner of Heaven : A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer

The origins of Mormonism: its invention and its scripture

More on Mormonism