I swore I wasn't going to do this post. I promised myself that I wasn't going to do it, because I know there are many people out there who are passionate about their beliefs and, although I may not agree with you about it, I have always said I would defend to the death your right to worship however you see fit (as long as you don't push it down anyone else's throat. Especially mine). I even, shock horror, found myself defending the Catholic Church last Sunday in an argument with my Anglican grandmother, when I quite reasonably pointed out that not every priest is a paedophile and it isn't part of their job description. Yes, of course what has happened in the Catholic Church (and no doubt many other organisations over the years - look at orphanages and boarding schools) is horrendous; words can't accurately describe just how vile and reprehensible it is, and frankly the attitude of the Pope and the rest of the powers-that-be to the whole thing has been despicable, but bad apples and barrels, y'know? Believe me, no one was more surprised than I was by my sudden impassioned defence...
However. Oh, but however...No longer can I keep my big trap shut, and so this is going to be a bit of a ranty, what-the-fuck kind of post. Now that His Popeness is actually here, I'm starting to get slightly sickened by the whole freaking charade.
First of all, I find it completely ludicrous that in a nominally-Anglican country, the tax-payer is expected to contribute towards the cost of the whole shebang. We're facing horrendous cuts thanks to the retarded attitude of our Government; if we were a Catholic country I could maybe understand it, but we aren't. And why the hell is the whole thing being treated as a state visit? The Pope is the head of a religious sect to all intents and purposes, not a visiting President or monarch; why we have to treat him any differently is beyond me. The Catholic Church wanted him here, fair enough - he is their spiritual leader, after all - but then they should foot the bill. It's not a state visit in my eyes, so I want my money back, please. Give it to a charity that works in AIDS research, or put it towards a fund to help pay for counselling for the children abused by priests...
There is also the small issue of the whole attitude of the Catholic Church - and recently reiterated by His Popeness - with regard to women (although I couldn't give a hoot about women bishops, my inner Feminazi screams in unbridled fury at the implication that my gender makes me a lesser being in the eyes of some constructed faith - that's patriarchy for you); homosexuality, and the general attitude towards contraception. Now correct me if I'm wrong (I lay no claim to being an expert on the Bible; I've never read it) but I'm not aware that it actually states in black and white 'thou shalt never wear condoms'. Besides that, even if it did (and I know there's the whole 'go forth and multiply' directive), things have changed in the past 2000 years or so; Jesus and his happy band of followers didn't have to worry about HIV and AIDS whereas we, sadly, do, and how anyone with any modicum of influence and control over people (like the Pope) can stand by and actively encourage people not to use condoms when the rates of HIV and AIDS are going through the roof (especially to the faithful in Africa)...well, as far as I'm concerned he's as good as killed those people. And, of course, his attitude to abortion makes me sick. So when I have some terrified woman in front of me, crying her eyes out because she got pregnant after being raped in an alleyway, or a woman whose health and life will be put at risk if she has this baby which the Church is encouraging her to have anyway because of the whole 'multiply' edict, all I can do is tell her she can't have an abortion or she'll go to hell? Yeah, that's compassionate. Love thy neighbour and all that. Nice one.
But the whole tragic spectacle has become more and more ludicrous with each day that passes, especially now he's actually here. Even before he got here one of the aides compared Britain to a Third World country; when, offended, the Brits reacted, the Vatican's idea of damage control (apart from the sudden and inexplicably well timed attack of gout suffered by said Cardinal) was, "no, no, no, we didn't mean it like THAT! We were referring to how multicultural you are!" Ah good - so you're all racist as well then? Glad we got that one cleared up...
Then, of course, there was The Speech yesterday, followed by The Speech today. Basically, the Pope has come to Britain to try and return it to the Holy Church; to turn back the tide of secularism and atheism that has swept the country and which has caused the marginalisation of religion.
Ok, first of all...most people in this country don't give a shit. We are nominally an Anglican country, not Catholic, and haven't been since Henry the Eighth thought Anne Boleyn looked a bit of a goer; therefore we don't really give a flying monkey about coming back to Holy Mother Church. It was a bad break up, I'll admit but please, move on. We're so over it. I'd say most people in this country would either describe themselves as Agnostic or Atheist anyway, unless you're one of our multicultural brothers and sisters, in which case we know what the Pope thinks of you...he's already slated other religions because, let's face it, you aren't the 'true' religion like his is. Allegedly. So yeah, this is my first problem with his crusade.
The other thing is...well, I guess he needs to sack his advisers. If I were Pope (fat chance as I'm a woman. Oh yeah, and a Pagan-heathen-burning-in-hell-non-believer), and I were coming to the UK on a mission to try and repair the damage of recent scandals and atrocities and to bring people back to the Light of the Lord, I would want to show the world how wonderful my religion is. I would actively want to get out there and spread the word, to bring people who have left in disgust back to the church and to maybe spark the interest of others who previously had no faith, so that they could seek out the information for themselves and maybe - just maybe - find spiritual peace in my faith. What I would not do is come over here and denounce the whole bloody lot of you as 'dangerous atheists', compare secularism and atheism to Nazism, and tell a load of schoolchildren that science was a bad thing. Way to win friends and influence people. It actually makes me even more antagonistic towards religion, especially Catholicism, to have this man come over here and start bitching about how unfair it is that he and his church don't have the power and influence they once did. I don't care for organised religion and I never have, although I find all religions deeply interesting. What I don't appreciate is being told that I'm going to burn for all eternity because I chose to use my brain instead of blindly following some invisible entity. My faith is in Nature, so it's sort-of Pagan/Wiccan but not strictly; this doesn't make me a bad person. Forced conversion, however, does; something organised religions seem to be only too familiar with (and they all have very short memories, it seems. She says, having the obligatory pop at Islam and Judaism as well - I don't discriminate in my antipathy and anger. Although you never get militant Buddhists, it seems...)
Yes, Christianity may be getting marginalised in the UK today, but that's because we live in the modern era instead of clinging to archaic and outdated rules. For those who choose to believe, whether that's in God, Allah or the Pink Unicorn of the Seventh Sanctum, there is a place for them in Britain, and we should never lose sight of the fact that this country has (mostly) always been a safe place for people to practice their religion (it got a little hazy in the middle for a while, what with Catholics being burnt and then Protestants/Anglicans being burnt, and the Jews being persecuted, and the Puritans so on). But we can still be nice people, nice human beings, without believing in Catholicism or any other religion. Similarly, as the recent problems within the church have shown, you can be a man of God and still be an utterly reprehensible human being - and the Pope's way of dealing with this is to make some half-arsed apology to people and then tell us that instead of bringing these bastards to justice, we should pray for them. Only after I castrate them with blunt nail scissors and see them put before a court of law, because strangely enough - secular though it may seem, Your Popeness - that's how we do things in the real world.
I'm sick of the whole sorry charade now and I can't wait until he goes back to Rome. Although this whole blog could just be because I'm bitter about the fact that I haven't lined the church's coffers by not owning any of the official merchandise; maybe if I had a 'Benedictaphone' to sing into, I wouldn't be so recalcitrant and secular. Or I could just be a realist...
However. Oh, but however...No longer can I keep my big trap shut, and so this is going to be a bit of a ranty, what-the-fuck kind of post. Now that His Popeness is actually here, I'm starting to get slightly sickened by the whole freaking charade.
First of all, I find it completely ludicrous that in a nominally-Anglican country, the tax-payer is expected to contribute towards the cost of the whole shebang. We're facing horrendous cuts thanks to the retarded attitude of our Government; if we were a Catholic country I could maybe understand it, but we aren't. And why the hell is the whole thing being treated as a state visit? The Pope is the head of a religious sect to all intents and purposes, not a visiting President or monarch; why we have to treat him any differently is beyond me. The Catholic Church wanted him here, fair enough - he is their spiritual leader, after all - but then they should foot the bill. It's not a state visit in my eyes, so I want my money back, please. Give it to a charity that works in AIDS research, or put it towards a fund to help pay for counselling for the children abused by priests...
There is also the small issue of the whole attitude of the Catholic Church - and recently reiterated by His Popeness - with regard to women (although I couldn't give a hoot about women bishops, my inner Feminazi screams in unbridled fury at the implication that my gender makes me a lesser being in the eyes of some constructed faith - that's patriarchy for you); homosexuality, and the general attitude towards contraception. Now correct me if I'm wrong (I lay no claim to being an expert on the Bible; I've never read it) but I'm not aware that it actually states in black and white 'thou shalt never wear condoms'. Besides that, even if it did (and I know there's the whole 'go forth and multiply' directive), things have changed in the past 2000 years or so; Jesus and his happy band of followers didn't have to worry about HIV and AIDS whereas we, sadly, do, and how anyone with any modicum of influence and control over people (like the Pope) can stand by and actively encourage people not to use condoms when the rates of HIV and AIDS are going through the roof (especially to the faithful in Africa)...well, as far as I'm concerned he's as good as killed those people. And, of course, his attitude to abortion makes me sick. So when I have some terrified woman in front of me, crying her eyes out because she got pregnant after being raped in an alleyway, or a woman whose health and life will be put at risk if she has this baby which the Church is encouraging her to have anyway because of the whole 'multiply' edict, all I can do is tell her she can't have an abortion or she'll go to hell? Yeah, that's compassionate. Love thy neighbour and all that. Nice one.
But the whole tragic spectacle has become more and more ludicrous with each day that passes, especially now he's actually here. Even before he got here one of the aides compared Britain to a Third World country; when, offended, the Brits reacted, the Vatican's idea of damage control (apart from the sudden and inexplicably well timed attack of gout suffered by said Cardinal) was, "no, no, no, we didn't mean it like THAT! We were referring to how multicultural you are!" Ah good - so you're all racist as well then? Glad we got that one cleared up...
Then, of course, there was The Speech yesterday, followed by The Speech today. Basically, the Pope has come to Britain to try and return it to the Holy Church; to turn back the tide of secularism and atheism that has swept the country and which has caused the marginalisation of religion.
Ok, first of all...most people in this country don't give a shit. We are nominally an Anglican country, not Catholic, and haven't been since Henry the Eighth thought Anne Boleyn looked a bit of a goer; therefore we don't really give a flying monkey about coming back to Holy Mother Church. It was a bad break up, I'll admit but please, move on. We're so over it. I'd say most people in this country would either describe themselves as Agnostic or Atheist anyway, unless you're one of our multicultural brothers and sisters, in which case we know what the Pope thinks of you...he's already slated other religions because, let's face it, you aren't the 'true' religion like his is. Allegedly. So yeah, this is my first problem with his crusade.
The other thing is...well, I guess he needs to sack his advisers. If I were Pope (fat chance as I'm a woman. Oh yeah, and a Pagan-heathen-burning-in-hell-non-believer), and I were coming to the UK on a mission to try and repair the damage of recent scandals and atrocities and to bring people back to the Light of the Lord, I would want to show the world how wonderful my religion is. I would actively want to get out there and spread the word, to bring people who have left in disgust back to the church and to maybe spark the interest of others who previously had no faith, so that they could seek out the information for themselves and maybe - just maybe - find spiritual peace in my faith. What I would not do is come over here and denounce the whole bloody lot of you as 'dangerous atheists', compare secularism and atheism to Nazism, and tell a load of schoolchildren that science was a bad thing. Way to win friends and influence people. It actually makes me even more antagonistic towards religion, especially Catholicism, to have this man come over here and start bitching about how unfair it is that he and his church don't have the power and influence they once did. I don't care for organised religion and I never have, although I find all religions deeply interesting. What I don't appreciate is being told that I'm going to burn for all eternity because I chose to use my brain instead of blindly following some invisible entity. My faith is in Nature, so it's sort-of Pagan/Wiccan but not strictly; this doesn't make me a bad person. Forced conversion, however, does; something organised religions seem to be only too familiar with (and they all have very short memories, it seems. She says, having the obligatory pop at Islam and Judaism as well - I don't discriminate in my antipathy and anger. Although you never get militant Buddhists, it seems...)
Yes, Christianity may be getting marginalised in the UK today, but that's because we live in the modern era instead of clinging to archaic and outdated rules. For those who choose to believe, whether that's in God, Allah or the Pink Unicorn of the Seventh Sanctum, there is a place for them in Britain, and we should never lose sight of the fact that this country has (mostly) always been a safe place for people to practice their religion (it got a little hazy in the middle for a while, what with Catholics being burnt and then Protestants/Anglicans being burnt, and the Jews being persecuted, and the Puritans so on). But we can still be nice people, nice human beings, without believing in Catholicism or any other religion. Similarly, as the recent problems within the church have shown, you can be a man of God and still be an utterly reprehensible human being - and the Pope's way of dealing with this is to make some half-arsed apology to people and then tell us that instead of bringing these bastards to justice, we should pray for them. Only after I castrate them with blunt nail scissors and see them put before a court of law, because strangely enough - secular though it may seem, Your Popeness - that's how we do things in the real world.
I'm sick of the whole sorry charade now and I can't wait until he goes back to Rome. Although this whole blog could just be because I'm bitter about the fact that I haven't lined the church's coffers by not owning any of the official merchandise; maybe if I had a 'Benedictaphone' to sing into, I wouldn't be so recalcitrant and secular. Or I could just be a realist...
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