Eurovision 2011: Belgium's Witloof Bay

Don't think I've ever seen an a capella + beatbox Eurovision entry. Very Manhattan Transfer. I like this.

Not This Year's Nobel Peace Prize Winner

In the midst of a campaign to see him nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, Belgium's revered Father Francois Houtart has confessed to child molestation.

The confession was published in a Belgian newspaper Wednesday and confirmed by the organization the priest founded, deepening a sex-abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in the country. After a spate of accusations this year, the church in September published the harrowing accounts of more than 100 victims of clerical sex abuse, some as young as 2 when they were assaulted. In October, after supporters of 85-year-old Francois Houtart began working to nominate him for the Nobel, a woman contacted the nonprofit organization he founded and said the priest had abused her brother 40 years ago, according to its director, Bernard Duterme.

The committee to nominate Houtart for his anti-globalization work has disbanded.

BELGIUM: Archbishop Andre Leonard Hit With Pie Following AIDS Remarks

Days after comments in which he declared that AIDS was God's punishment for being gay, Belgian Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard was struck with a pie as he stood at the altar during a service.

Footage of the incident released Saturday showed a young man approaching Archbishop Andre Leonard on Monday and smacking him with a pie. A church official says the archbishop will not press charges against the unknown attacker. The incident came amid growing turmoil within Belgium's Roman Catholic church, which faces an investigation into hundreds of cases of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. Leonard himself shocked Catholics by sympathizing with priests accused of pedophilia and by saying that homosexuals deserved to get AIDS.

On Tuesday the Archbishop's spokesman resigned, saying, "Archbishop Léonard has sometimes acted like someone who’s driving against the traffic and thinks everyone else is wrong.”

PhoboQuotable - Belgium's Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard

“When you mistreat the environment it ends up mistreating us in turn. And when you mistreat human love, perhaps it winds up taking vengeance. All I’m saying is that sometimes there are consequences linked to our actions. this epidemic is a sort of intrinsic justice." - Belgian Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, saying that AIDS is God's punishment for being gay. Leonard also said that seeking vengeance on pedophile priests was "inhumane," a remark from which he later retreated.

This Week In Holy Crimes

Over the last seven days...

California: Pastor Leonel Pelayo charged with sexual assault of a 14 year-old girl.
Ottawa: Father Robin Barrett convicted of possessing tens of thousands of child porn videos and images.
Florida: Pastor Steven Rowe charged with molesting four students at the Christian middle school where he is headmaster.
Texas: Father Chester W. King arrested for lewd behavior in a public park.
California: Pastor Carlton F. Hammonds on trial for sexual assault of two teenagers.
Florida: Pastor Gregory Sims pleads guilty to embezzling $800K from the union benefit fund he managed and funneling the loot to his church.
Britain: Reverend Alex Brown sentenced to four years in prison for conducting 360 sham marriages between EU citizens and undocumented immigrants. Each couple paid up to £15,000 for Brown to marry them.
Louisiana: Father Alejandro Flores convicted of child molestation.
Connecticut: Father Martin Federici sued by convicted rapist who claims his molestation at Federici's hands turned him into a sexual predator.
Massachusetts: Father Thomas M. Curran once again accused of child molestation after being cleared by his Archdiocese in 2007.

This Week's Winner
Belgium: An independent commission has released a report documenting the cases of over 500 victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests and officials of the Belgian Catholic Church. Two-thirds of the victims are male and 13 suicides are linked to the assaults. Cardinal Godfried Danneels this week admitted wrongdoings and apologized for the cover-up. Belgium has no law requiring church officials to report sexual crimes to the police.