More Questions Prompted by Pictures of the Pope's Visit to Britain

What percentage of the Catholic Church is white? What percentage is male? What percentage is over 65? What percentage is wealthy enough to dress in silken robes and jewelry? This image of the pope and his entourage should give you some glimpse of the problem with the church. The hierarchy consists (almost) exclusively of rich-old-white-guys who go around insisting everyone else do things their way. Sound like a reasonable plan to you? Any wonder why the 'morality' they preach is so exclusionary and oppressive?

The Pope, the Dove and the Thorn

I'm not particularly exercised in any way by the Pope's visit. 

In my perhaps, wishy, washy British way, I think that it is some sort of a "good thing".

I was brought up in a largely  secular environment but many of my boyhood friends were Roman Catholic (mostly second generation Irish).

I would fundamentally agree with those who argue for tolerance and free speech for all believers and non believers. 

I do like this photo by a retired RAF serviceman, John Gray (no known relation), of a "Dove of Peace" to celebrate the pontiffs visit (even if it was published in the Daily Hate).

But while I also do think that some of the more militant secularists have overstepped the mark somewhat recently, to be honest, the clearly racist remarks by the Pope's advisor, Cardinal Kasper, about Britain and our multicultural society just about makes you despair of the Catholic Church and its leadership.  IMO.

Celebrating Your Appendix

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip escorted
Pope Benedict XVI to the Morning Drawing Room in
the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Queen’s official residence
in Scotland, on Thursday. Photograph © Dan Kitwood.

I opened The New York Times this morning to find this front page image - monarchs and pope, two remnants of the dark ages. Listening to npr this morning I heard one man who planned to protest the Pope's current visit to Britain articulate the relevant matters quite succinctly; he noted that the Pope holds a series of appallingly retrograde views - you know, no woman on earth is capable of being a priest, married HIV+ men are forbidden from using condoms when having sex with their wives, homosexuals embody sin and evil, and so on. Such views are not just disrespectful, they are often deadly. The pope's job, of course, is to impose them on others. Celebrating such bigotry and ignorance is really quite astounding. And that is Catholicism, as it were, when used correctly. In other words, no one has even mentioned the church's myriad "errors" or "mistakes" - say, the scores (easily more) of child molesters the Church has enabled and continues to harbor. In this latter crime the pope and the church are fully complicit, and not just after the fact.

This picture prompted me to consider the appendix - a vestigial appendage (1) with no apparent function, that (2) I could live without, but that (3) also can, without warning, prove lethal. That is a pretty good analogy.

Pope Operates in Alternate Reality

You can put this into the 'ya couldn't make this stuff up' category. . . . According to this report in The Guardian, the Pope has announced - in response to criticism of his despicable failure, over the course of decades, to protect children from molesters among the clergy - that his oh so pure faith affords "the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion." That is precisely the sort of thing Jesus would not say. To call the well established fact of priests - including those directly under his command - exploiting children "petty gossip" suggests to me that the Pope is massively out of touch with reality. He ought to be removed from office. Oh yeah, the church is not exactly a democracy.

Perverts and Heretics in the Catholic Church

"As archbishop, Benedict expended more energy pursuing theological dissidents than sexual predators. Already in the early 1980s, one could catch a glimpse of a future pope preoccupied with combating any movement away from church tradition. Vatican experts say there is little evidence that Benedict spent much time investigating more than 200 cases of “problem priests” in the diocese, with issues including alcohol abuse, adultery and, now under the microscope, pedophilia."

This paragraph from this story in The New York Times hardly comes as a surprise. Most of the church hierarchy was indifferent, at best, to the sufferings the clergy (including nuns) imposed on children. I spent most of my childhood in repressive Catholic Schools. And I witnessed a progressive priest being hounded out of our Parish too while the besotted Monsignor . . . My parents thought it was good for me and, while not in the intended way, it was. The only difference between the now Pope and the rest of the hierarchy is that he succeeded in the church politics and is now at the top of the apparatus, still bent on hunting down heresy instead of protecting the innocent. I will say that anyone who doesn't find the excuse that he simply 'overlooked' plain evidence of child molesters under his command is beyond help. His actions then were despicable and the rationalizations for his failings now being offered make me ill. Believers are fond of asking "What Would Jesus Do?" Despite his purported intellectual prowess and proclivities, the Pope shows no signs of knowing the right answer to that question.