Friday, April 08, 2005
Last thoughts on the Pope
I guess you've been bombarded for days just like me. Exactly how many people did the BBC send over to Rome? (Radio4 and Radio5 reported live simultaneously). And how many times did they use this outside broadcast to report on feelings - the feeling of the crowd 'right now', the feelings they'd had, and feelings that were yet to be?
Ah well.
Too fucking many is all I can tell you.
So I cracked. And thought about the Pope. Andrew Sullivan expressed some of my thoughts, and I wrote to thank him. Here's what I wrote:
"Andrew -
Thanks for being the only person I've seen to tell the most vital truth about the Pope (in this post).
The Catholic Church operated as an international paedophile conspiracy under his management & with his acquiescence. I particularly admire the forthright way you compare this reality with the Catholic Church's demands of others, such as gay people.
It is well known that he Catholic Church moved priests around to avoid controversy rather than taking the only non-criminal, morally decent course of action; ie, telling the police & families everything they knew about every incident.
However, these events are often referred to as though they are part of history. They are not. The well-known case of Father Ayers, sent to Samoa by Catholic Church, who KNEW what he'd done to kids, but DIDN'T THINK IT SHOULD BOTHER TELLING THE SAMOANS, was in the 1990s.
This is only one lacuna in the horrid avalanche of fawning. People who are being told how he loved people and freedom should be reminded that, if they have ever used contraception so as to enjoy sex without conception or with reduced risk of disease, the Pope was against them. That he adjudged that a pre-teen child who'd been raped by her father had to carry the child. That he lied outright for years about whether condoms can prevent AIDS. (Why?).
Those who are told to be pleased or excited that the next pope might be a black man should be reminded that the next pope will not be gay man, or a woman.
Those who are told that the pope believed in Freedom because he opposed Communism should perhaps be instructed to read up on the history of southern Europe in the 20th Century, where blood-drenched fascists held power till the 1970s with the claim that they were fighting communism; and that the same thing happened in South America, where the 'fight against communism' was fought by state-sponsored sadism, mass murder, & rape by cattle-prods & dogs. To 'fight communism' is not to 'fight for Freedom'. You have to actually believe in Freedom for that.
However, I think you let yourself down a bit by linking enthusiastically to the Derbyshire piece in National Review. As well as there being an element of racism in his portrayal of African Christianity, he kicks off with the terrible old church lie that Hitler was an atheist & a believer in Darwinian evolution and that this was somehow important in his world-view. This has been fully refuted. (Here's Michael Wong). Hitler was a creationist, a theist, and a Christian. Yes, he opposed the Church in Rome (despite the pact they signed together), but only because it was not German and so offended his nationalism. Yes, he had a crack-pot version of 'evolution', but, as it happened, it was not Darwinian evolution.
But anyway - thanks for lots of good reading over the years and I'm glad you appear not to have followed up on your plan to retire from the web.
- ape"
Ah well.
Too fucking many is all I can tell you.
So I cracked. And thought about the Pope. Andrew Sullivan expressed some of my thoughts, and I wrote to thank him. Here's what I wrote:
"Andrew -
Thanks for being the only person I've seen to tell the most vital truth about the Pope (in this post).
The Catholic Church operated as an international paedophile conspiracy under his management & with his acquiescence. I particularly admire the forthright way you compare this reality with the Catholic Church's demands of others, such as gay people.
It is well known that he Catholic Church moved priests around to avoid controversy rather than taking the only non-criminal, morally decent course of action; ie, telling the police & families everything they knew about every incident.
However, these events are often referred to as though they are part of history. They are not. The well-known case of Father Ayers, sent to Samoa by Catholic Church, who KNEW what he'd done to kids, but DIDN'T THINK IT SHOULD BOTHER TELLING THE SAMOANS, was in the 1990s.
This is only one lacuna in the horrid avalanche of fawning. People who are being told how he loved people and freedom should be reminded that, if they have ever used contraception so as to enjoy sex without conception or with reduced risk of disease, the Pope was against them. That he adjudged that a pre-teen child who'd been raped by her father had to carry the child. That he lied outright for years about whether condoms can prevent AIDS. (Why?).
Those who are told to be pleased or excited that the next pope might be a black man should be reminded that the next pope will not be gay man, or a woman.
Those who are told that the pope believed in Freedom because he opposed Communism should perhaps be instructed to read up on the history of southern Europe in the 20th Century, where blood-drenched fascists held power till the 1970s with the claim that they were fighting communism; and that the same thing happened in South America, where the 'fight against communism' was fought by state-sponsored sadism, mass murder, & rape by cattle-prods & dogs. To 'fight communism' is not to 'fight for Freedom'. You have to actually believe in Freedom for that.
However, I think you let yourself down a bit by linking enthusiastically to the Derbyshire piece in National Review. As well as there being an element of racism in his portrayal of African Christianity, he kicks off with the terrible old church lie that Hitler was an atheist & a believer in Darwinian evolution and that this was somehow important in his world-view. This has been fully refuted. (Here's Michael Wong). Hitler was a creationist, a theist, and a Christian. Yes, he opposed the Church in Rome (despite the pact they signed together), but only because it was not German and so offended his nationalism. Yes, he had a crack-pot version of 'evolution', but, as it happened, it was not Darwinian evolution.
But anyway - thanks for lots of good reading over the years and I'm glad you appear not to have followed up on your plan to retire from the web.
- ape"
