Timeout column on Protest the Pope
There are many good reasons to oppose the Pope’s state visit in September. This is a man who insists that populations devastated by HIV and AIDS should abstain from using condoms; a man who regularly makes hateful pronouncements about the ‘sin’ of homosexuality; a man, lest we forget, who has become personally embroiled in the scandal over Fr Hullerman, the German priest who sexually abused children – and a man who is now facing growing criticism over accusations that the Vatican tried to cover up these and many other abuses all over the world.
So far we’ve heard tales of abuse by Catholic priests in America, Brazil, Germany, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. The Pope has strenuously denied any involvement in a cover-up. But according to an investigation made for the BBC’s ‘Panorama’, in 2001, the then Cardinal Ratzinger (aka ‘The Enforcer’) issued an edict to all Catholic bishops, recommending that instead of reporting abusers to the police they report them to the Vatican and encourage the victims to take an oath never to talk about the abuse they suffered. The instructions said: ‘Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret’. The Cardinal proposed that if the victims broke their oath, they should be excommunicated.
Continues: http://www.timeout.com/london/gay-lesbian/article/960/protest-the-pope
The British Humanist Association is a founding member of the Protest the Pope campaign, demonstrating against the official nature of the Pope’s state visit next month.
Perhaps we should strongly recommend that the BBC should show that 2001 Panorama report during his visit.
Perhaps pigs might fly.
WHO SAYS CATHOLIC PRIESTS ARE JUST RAPISTS, THEY KILL TOO.
Genocide term for Rwanda priest
A Rwandan priest has been jailed for life after a U.N. tribunal extended his sentence for ordering militiamen to burn and bulldoze a church with 1,500 people inside. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda’s ruling came after Roman Catholic priest Athanase Seromba appealed his 2006 conviction, a statement posted on the body’s Web site late Wednesday said. He was originally sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The tribunal is trying the alleged masterminds of the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which more than 500,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu extremists over a 100-day period. The tribunal said it convicted Seromba for “his role in the destruction of the church in Nyange Parish, and the consequent death of approximately 1,500 Tutsi refugees sheltering inside.”
Seromba was convicted of leading a militia that attacked the people and poured fuel through the roof of the church, while police threw grenades inside. After failing to kill everybody inside the church, Seromba ordered it to be demolished, the tribunal found.
Thousands of Rwandans have turned away from Catholicism, angered and saddened by the complicity of church officials in the genocide. Priests, nuns and followers were implicated in the killings and some churches were sites of notorious massacres.
When you protest the Pope, confront him with information that will finally make the Vatican fearful of impending justice for an age of evil.
If you really want to end the Vatican’s lies and help the people they have duped and oppressed, then take a little time to grasp the truth about the core lies they use to gain and keep wealth and power. To help others, by exposing the Vatican’s most important deceptions, requires that you start talking about me.
Peace and Wisdom,
Seven