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Apparently the Vatican has finally decided that the best defense is a good offense.  According to a bellicose statement issued Monday, the Catholic Church doesn’t have a paedophilia problem, it has an ephebophilia problem, thankyouverymuch.  Plus this:

The statement, read out by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the UN, defended its record by claiming that “available research” showed that only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse.

He also quoted statistics from the Christian Scientist Monitor newspaper to show that most US churches being hit by child sex abuse allegations were Protestant and that sexual abuse within Jewish communities was common.

Only 1.5-5%!  Not bad!  And anyway, Protestants and Jews are doing it too.  So there.

Admittedly, I’m not a theological expert, but to my ears this sounds only slightly more sophisticated than something you might hear from a red-faced five-year-old.  Augustine must be spinning in his grave.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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