You know, we've managed to avoid saying anything about this whole Foley/Page/Priest scandal that's all the rage in the mainstream media, and we've been pretty proud of that fact. But when we read a few of last week's articles, we couldn't resist setting aside our pride and mentioning a few choice tidbits.

It goes without saying that what Foley did was wrong on many levels. It also goes without saying that he pulled out just about every excuse in the book to try to focus blame on anyone and anything other than himself. Of course, the excuse du jour from the Foley camp was that the congressman was molested by a priest in his altar boy days. That's hardly a startling or unique revelation in this day and age, but the reaction of the priest was, to say the least, staggering. To wit:

An elderly priest acknowledged Thursday that he was naked in saunas with Mark Foley decades ago when the former congressman was a boy in Florida, but denied that the two had sex.

The Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 72, speaking by telephone from his home on the Maltese island of Gozo, said a report in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune about their encounters was "exaggerated."

Okay, let's stop here for a moment. Two men being naked in a sauna together is certainly common, but when one of those men is a 30-year-old preist, and the other is a 13-year-old boy...well, that's, um...not so great. What does our intrepid man of the cloth have to say about this?

"We were friends and trusted each other as brothers and loved each other as brothers," Mercieca said in the AP interview. Asked if their association was sexual, the priest replied: "It wasn't."

Oh! Well, okay, then. And what were the hallmarks of this "nonsexual," "brotherly" relationship? From the articles we linked to above, we can gather the following:

• Skinny dipping (that would have to be in the nude, Bob);
• Naked massages;
• Naked sauna excursions;
• Nudity on overnight trips;
• Naked fondling ("once, maybe" says the priest);
• And a drug- and alcohol-induced stupor during which Mercieca couldn't clearly remember what happened.

Sure, on the surface, this may seem like some pretty inappropriate stuff for a priest to be doing with a 13-year-old boy, but we're sure that Padre Mercieca has a reasonable response:

Mercieca described Foley as "a very happy person and he knew how to do things."

Yeah, we bet, Father. It all seems quite innocent..."happy" just means "gay," and "knew how to do things" means "gave head like a coked-up Hanoi whore with silicone lip implants." Nothing untoward about that.

Moving on...

"It's not something you call, I mean, rape or penetration or anything like that, you know," he told the TV station in a telephone interview. "It was just fondling."

Right. You know, not sexual fondling. Brotherly fondling. C'mon, you guys out there who have brothers — we're sure that you and your brother fondled each other naked all the time, right? And hey, what's wrong with a 30-year-old man engaging in a little fraternal naked fondling with a 13-year-old? Sheesh, you scandalmongers, take your prudery somewhere else.

Of course, none of this hand-waving was ever meant to divert attention away from Foley's wrongdoing, or to paint Foley as a victim. No. Clearly not. Not a bit. In case you're not sure about that, this statement from Foley's attorney should clear it up for you:

Earlier this month, [Foley's criminal defense lawyer David] Roth said: "Mark does not blame the trauma he sustained as a young adolescent for his totally inappropriate" e-mails and instant messages. "He continues to offer no excuse whatsoever for his conduct."

Hey, good thing someone explained that, because if we were left to judge for ourselves, we might have mistakenly thought that all of these excuses about Foley being a gay, alcoholic victim of childhood molestation were actually meant to be...er...excuses. But no, really, it's just exposition. You know, character development. Why, thank you, Mr. Roth!

Not to be outdone, the Catholic Church leapt boldly into action as well:

A Roman Catholic diocese has opened an investigation of a priest who said he fondled and shared saunas while naked with Mark Foley when the former U.S. congressman was a boy in Florida.

Um, not to jump to any conclusions, but isn't it pretty clear that what this guy freely admits to doing is both unethical and illegal? Seriously, it's right there in the sentence above — the priest said he fondled and shared saunas while naked with Mark Foley. We're all for investigations, but when the bad guy says "Sure, I fondled the kid...so?" — that's usually when the defense attorney starts fishing in vain for plea deals, and the police officers start changing into street clothes and making dinner plans.

This entire fucking goat rodeo leads to an interesting but ultimately tragic question: which is worse — the current Republican Party, or the Catholic Church? Politics or religion? Boy, that's tough. And people actually wonder why we're supposed to have a separation of church and state? Even separately, these institutions will fuck you up the ass (literally, but fraternally); teamed up, these bastards can ass-rape you for generations.

An elderly priest acknowledged Thursday that he was naked in saunas with Mark Foley decades ago when the former congressman was a boy in Florida, but denied that the two had sex.

Anyone else getting flashbacks of "Yes, but I didn't inhale"?

ummmmmm no?

A Roman Catholic diocese has opened an investigation of a priest who said he fondled and shared saunas while naked with Mark Foley when the former U.S. congressman was a boy in Florida.

Oh thank Heavens. For a moment there I thought the American legal system was going to let an admitted child molester go free purely because he's a minor religious figure. Good to see he's in such warm, loving, fondling brotherly hands.

So the priest was in the States so he could be "fraternal" with Foley and now he's in...where the fuck is he again? The Maltese island of Gozo? Fuck me, I knew the Catholic church moved molesters to other areas, but Gozo?! This guy must be a weirdo. I wonder how many parishes and obscure islands he's been moved to in the 40 years since he fingered...sorry, "fondled" Foley?

Goddamn do we ever need to get rid of religion.

Yep.