Since his death, Father Mike's heroics have hardly gone unsung. No less than New York's archbishop, Edward Cardinal Egan, officiated at Judge's funeral, where the 2,000 mourners included former President Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. New York Fire Commissioner Thomas von Essen's newborn boy was named after the father, as was a stretch of West 31st Street and a Hudson River ferry. And last fall, a contingent of firefighters even presented Father Mike's helmet to the Pope, who gladly accepted it...Gay people "just cannot be ordained," Joaquin Navarro-Valls, Pope John Paul II's spokesman, told the [New York] Times. "You cannot be in this field."
John Aravosis, Cardinal Sins & The Pope's Gay Card, About.com

For decades, within the US Catholic Church, sexual misbehavior by priests was shrouded in secrecy - at every level. Abusive priests - Geoghan among them - often instructed traumatized youngsters to say nothing about what had been done to them. Parents who learned of the abuse, often wracked by shame, guilt, and denial, tried to forget what the church had done. The few who complained were invariably urged to keep silent. And pastors and bishops, meanwhile, viewed the abuse as a sin for which priests could repent rather than as a compulsion they might be unable to control.
Church allowed abuse by priest for years, Boston Globe, January 6, 2002

Mueller, according to her deposition, summoned her three other sons and learned that Geoghan, while purporting to be taking them out for ice cream, helping them with their baths, and reading them bedtime stories, had been raping them orally and anally. Also, Mueller said, Geoghan was insisting they tell no one. "We couldn't tell you because Father said it was a confessional," she said one of her sons told her.
Church allowed abuse by priest for years, Boston Globe, January 6, 2002

Other churches have their problems too and have been much more hesitant in dealing with them. The Jehovah's Witnesses, who face a string of court cases in the US, decline to investigate allegations unless there are two independent witnesses and advise parish elders to burn any complaints set down in writing.
Stephen Bates, Archbishop pays for Catholic church's complacency, Guardian Unlimited, October 26, 2001

The Boston archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church acknowledged today that its insurance policies would not cover an estimated $100 million in settlements of lawsuits against priests accused of sexually abusing children. It also said it would have to sell church property, take out loans and ask for special donations from wealthy benefactors to cover those costs.
Fox Butterworth, Insurance Won't Cover Suits, Archdiocese Says, The New York Times, March 13, 2002

Today, more than ever, Catholic couples need the grace of God to live out their marriage vows because contemporary Western culture is toxic to children, families, and marriage. The world preaches the values of the anti-gospel: praising sexual license, careerism, and various other forms of selfism. What is more, the West, despite its rhetoric, is in many ways anti-child—committed to a program of contracepting, aborting, and sundering those children who survive from their mothers and fathers.
John O’Connell, The Sacrament of Marriage, The Catholic Faith, January/February 2002, Vol. 8, No. 1

The White House expected church-state separation groups to object to the program. But it didn't expect a chorus of doubts from religious conservatives such as Pat Robertson and even Marvin Olasky, one of the program's early architects. They worry that churches would be corrupted by government regulations or that objectionable sects would be rewarded.
Bush to Delay Faith-Based Initiative, NewsMax.com Wires, Monday, March 12, 2001

The new director, Jim Towey, is a friend of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother.
Dana Milbank, New Director for Faith-Based Office: Bush Taps Jim Towey, a Veteran of the Hill and Mother Teresa's Ministry, Washington Post, Friday, February 1, 2002

The centerpiece of compassionate conservatism is the "faith-based initiative" for social services. Mr. Bush wanted to engage religious groups more fully in solving social problems - and to do so by allowing them to receive federal funds without having to create a separate entity for that purpose to satisfy the demands of separation of church and state.
Jane Lampman, Warning to states on funding faith-based charities, The Christian Science Monitor, January 17, 2002

And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, "You helped this happen.
Rev. Jerry Falwell regarding September 11, 2001, quoted by John F. Harris, "God Gave U.S. 'What We Deserve,' Falwell Says," The Washington Post, September 14, 2001

Shout 'Allahu Akbar!' [God is Greatest!] for this cry strikes fear in the hearts of unbelievers. God the Exalted said [in the Qur'an] 'strike their necks and their fingertips' Know that Paradise has been most beautifully decorated for you and that the maidens of Paradise are calling you to meet them, oh devotee of God, and they have put on their most beautiful clothes.
Translation of the letter believed to have been written by Mohammed Atta who flew a plane into the World Trade Center

Fellow citizens, we'll meet violence with patient justice -- assured of the rightness of our cause, and confident of the victories to come. In all that lies before us, may God grant us wisdom, and may He watch over the United States of America.
Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, United States Capitol Washington, D.C., September 20 2001.

You don't have to be a Jew
To disapprove of murder
Tears burn our eyes
Moslem or Christian Mullah or Pope
Preacher or poet who was it wrote
Give any one species too much rope
And they'll fuck it up
Roger Waters, Too Much Rope, Amused to Daeth, Released August 26th, 1992