The Catholic Church raises stupid questions about freedom of speech. A family in New Mexico is suing the Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe because, at the funeral of their family member Ben Martinez, a priest declared that "the Lord vomited people like Ben out of his mouth to hell.” Apparently Ben was insufficiently pious and the church felt that his funeral was a good time to give him a tongue-lashing [link 1]. The Catholics are, of course, claiming that this is a first amendment issue. I'm interested to know how what happens in this case. I hadn't realized that funerals were open forums... "Family members say he was a practising Catholic all his life but was too ill to attend church in the last year of his life." Nevertheless, the priest claimed that Martinez was "livling in sin" and "lukewarm in his faith". "church officials deny the family's claims." [link 2]. At a time when the Catholic church is looking worse every day, they are doing an amazingly poor job of improving their image. Not so many years ago, a lot of people were sold on the image that the Vatican had moved beyond the dark ages and become a modern, enlightened church. Now they look like a cadre of corrupt, abusive pricks.