LMAO jesus freaks calling out boxing

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=2191103&type=story ESPN.com: Boxing Friday, October 14, 2005 Jesuit magazine calls boxing 'attempted murder' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Associated Press ROME -- Immoral. Ruthless. Tantamount to legalized murder. That "punch against prize fighting," as the newspaper Corriere della Sera called it, came from an unusual corner -- an influential Jesuit magazine close to the Vatican. Civilta Cattolica (Christian Civilization), in its edition scheduled to come out Saturday, called professional boxing a "legalized form of attempted murder." The article, titled "The Immorality of Professional Boxing," compared the sport to the bloody gladiator contests in ancient Rome. It also criticized the business of boxing as equally ruthless, with the fighter "only a machine to make money." The magazine provided advance copies of the article. Boxing is a "legalized form of attempted murder, in the short or in the long run," the magazine said. It also noted that fighters who don't die in the ring often suffer long-term physical and psychological injuries. The article cited the deaths of hundreds of fighters in the last century. While there was no specific indication what prompted the article, it noted the death in Las Vegas last month of Leavander Johnson. The boxer collapsed on his way to the dressing room after taking a beating in his IBF lightweight title defense against Jesus Chavez. Johnson underwent surgery and never came out of a medically induced coma. The secretary-general of the Italian Boxing Federation, Riccardo De Girolami, said it sounded as if the magazine printed "cliches" about boxing, perhaps influenced by such films as "Million Dollar Baby," about a woman trying to become a prize fighter. "They don't really know the sport," De Girolami said. "The competitive level is like any other sport." The Jesuit magazine often reflects Vatican thinking and some articles receive approval from the Vatican's Secretariat of State. In 1993, the late Pope John Paul II gave his blessing to then heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe when he attended the pope's general audience at the Vatican after a goodwill mission to Somalia.