It's no secret The Catholic Church isn't keen on the homos. Okay, less than keen - the Vatican has a long, disgraceful history of damning not only the gays, but their straight allies, as well.

Consider the case of Sister Jeannine Gramick - the Catholic nun who helped establish the pro-homo New Ways Ministry. Founded in 1977, the NWM (not to be confused with NWA - Niggas With Attitude) has worked to expand queer rights within the Catholic establishment. Needless to say, the Pope and his cronies did not approve and ordered Gramick to cease and desist. Her work, it seems, "caused confusion among the Catholic people and have harmed the community of the Church".

Because confusion's much worse than the threat of being picked apart by hell demons for a little homo-sex action.

A bad-ass through and through, Gramick refused. Despite her decidely anti-Catholic stance, Gramick was awarded the Mother Teresa Award last month. Founded in 2005, the awards honor "spiritual accomplishments in the secular world", according to the Award's website. What's most interesting about Gramick's story is that the honor has never been bestowed upon someone whose work contradicted Catholic teachings.

While we're sure Gramick's thrilled, not everyone's cheering her on, particularly because of her defense of defrocked priests found guilty of molestation. The Catholic website, LifeSiteNews reports:

Bill Donahue, president of the U.S. Catholic League, expressed his disgust at the honoring of Sr. Gramick with the Mother Teresa Award:... "Surely they could have found someone more worthy for this award than Sr. Jeannine Gramick... Any person who to this day is still trying to rescue the reputation of the disgraced child-molester Paul Shanley is not worthy of any commendation."

Paul Shanley is the defrocked priest who in February 2005 was found guilty of the statutory rape of a minor and received a sentence of 12 to 15 years in prison. Since his sentencing Sr. Jeannine has continued to defend the innocence of Shanley, who in the past had been an ally of her efforts to promote homosexuality.

Theirs been no comment from the Vatican. We've got a sneaking suspicion they're not celebrating.