Lethal Dose

Download before they remove the link! Too late. Find it on 1010WINS site. Italics all mine, natch.

NYC Catholic Coloring Book Warns Kids About Predators

NEW YORK (AP) — A new coloring book being distributed by the Archdiocese of New York uses a cartoon guardian angel to warn kids against predators in what is apparently the first such effort by a Roman Catholic diocese in the United States.

But the head of an advocacy group for victims of abuse by priests said the book should say explicitly that trusted adults — including priests — may be the abusers.

In the coloring book the perky guardian angel tells children not to keep secrets from their parents, not to meet anyone from an Internet chat room and to allow only “certain people” like a doctor or parent to see “where your bathing suit would be.”

In a comic book version for older kids, a teenager turns to St. Michael the Archangel for strength to report that two schoolmates are being sexually abused.

Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said the books are new this fall and have been distributed to about 300 schools and 400 religious education programs to use as a resource.

“It’s to help young people to know situations they should not get into,” he said. “How to be safe — but to try to do it in an age-appropriate and sensitive way.”

Zwilling said the coloring book grew out of the archdiocese’s “safe environment” training program for adults such as coaches and parent volunteers who interact with children.

He said that as far as he knows, the coloring book is the first of its kind to be produced by church officials.

David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said he, too, was unaware of any similar effort.

Clohessy said that while he welcomes any attempt to teach children how to stay safe, he believes the coloring book should state more clearly that the predator is more likely to be a trusted adult than a stranger.

“There continues to be a bit of an overemphasis on stranger danger,” Clohessy said. “I think it would be most effective if it would say, ‘Not only strangers molest kids. Even adults you like and your parents respect — teachers, doctors, priests — can hurt kids.”’

Clohessy, who emerged as the most prominent victims’ spokesman after accusations of widespread abuse by priests shook the Catholic church in 2002, said the church’s steps to address the issue “were undertaken belatedly and begrudgingly and under external pressure.”

But Zwilling said the vast majority of priests are “good and holy men,” and he said it would have been inappropriate for the coloring book to single out priests as potential abusers.

“You don’t want to frighten children,” he said. “You also don’t want to stigmatize any group.”

The closest the coloring book comes to directly addressing the church abuse scandal is a picture of a second angel — not the guardian angel — grinning at a priest and an altar boy through a wide open door.

“For safety’s sake, a child and an adult shouldn’t be alone in a closed room together,” the text reads. “If a child and an adult happen to be alone, someone should know where they are and the door should be open or have a big window in it.”

Well, that doesn’t help - everyone knows angels can fly, stupid.

Taking some style tips from Chick Tracts?

ROME (Reuters) - If you are a Catholic looking for a saint in heaven to protect you, you no longer have to carry a small “holy card”. You can get the image sent to your cellphone.

A company in Italy started offering the service on Tuesday but ran into opposition from some Catholic Church leaders who think the idea is crass and commercial.

“We found a need and filled it,” Barbara Labate, who came up with the idea with her business partner in a cellphone services company based in Milan, told Reuters by telephone.

Many taxis, private cars and trucks in Italy have a small picture of a saint — known as a “santino” or little saint — taped to the dashboard. Millions of Italians also keep wrinkled and worn “santini” in their wallets or handbags.

“We are merely catching up with the times. I think this will appeal to young people as well as grandmothers,” Labate said.

The company started the service with 15 saints on offer and Labate said the hallowed catalogue will grow. The downloading service, done by sending a text message to a phone number, costs three euros ($4.42). The Web site is santiprotettori.com

Nearly every shop near the Vatican sells paper “santini” but not everyone in the Church thinks cellphones and saints are a marriage made in heaven.

“This is in really bad taste,” Bishop Lucio Soravito De Franceschi, a member of the Italian bishops conference committee for doctrinal matters, told the Turin newspaper La Stampa.

“It is a distortion of sacred things … selling ’santini’ for cell phones is horrifying,” he said.

But Labate, who is Sicilian and recalls how her mother gave her a “santino” to put in her luggage when she traveled, rejected the criticism.

“We are simply offering a service to the faithful. We are doing this with the maximum respect, dignity and professionalism for believers,” she said.

One popular saint in Italy is St Christopher, the patron saint of safe travel. Other favorites are St Lucy, patroness of good eyesight and St Pio of Petralcina, the 20th century monk who was said to have had the wounds of Christ.

Labate has also put “possible future saints” in her initial catalogue. They include the late Pope John Paul, who has already been put on the road to sainthood, as well as the current pontiff, Pope Benedict.

Jesus and the Madonna are also for sale.

Now, wait - didn’t they get rid of St. Christopher? What’s wrong with a santini on your phone? I’d get one … I put little saint stickers all over everything anyway.