Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has blamed Chernobyl on Soviet atheism. Yes, God caused the radiation-spewing disaster as a punishment for Russia’s ungodliness. “The Lord could have stayed the hand of the operator who made a terrible mistake while running the reactor. Instead, many people died to atone for the sins of the masses,” intones Kirill. If this seems cruel (and totally stupid)  then relax. Patriarch Kirill informs us that atomic destruction led to nationwide soul-searching and that the clean-up work “became a great moral deed for thousands of people,” eventually resulting in the collapse of Sovietism and revitalisation of the Church. It seems the Lord works in… well, not so much mysterious, more like quite blatant, but certainly obtuse and vicious ways.

* * *

President of Peru, Alan Garcia, says that the death of Osama bin Laden (“demonic incarnation of crime, evil and hatred”) is a miracle, owing to the late Pope John Paul II. After all, Sunday saw not only Osama bin Laden being shot in the eye, it also saw the Vatican beatifying it’s previous head of state. And if you’re the President of Peru the divine synchronicity at play in these two events is undeniable. It can be “no coincidence”, says Garcia, that US special forces finally caught up with the man nu-media is quickly calling OBL on the same day as the beatification of the man they’re not calling JP2. (The Vatican has actually criticised the killing.)

* * *

Jesus is out of work. Self-flagellating actor, Jim Caviezel, has suffered a fate worse than death ever since starring in Mel Gibson’s torturous The Passion of the Christ. Shunned by the evil Jews in Gibson’s interpretation of the last days of the life of Christ, Caviezel is now shunned by evil Hollywood directors, he claims. Gibson apparently prophesied that all this would come to pass, telling Caviezel before filming The Passion that ”You’ll never work in this town again.” (What a salesman!) Gibson reportedly told Caviezel that this was a price they’d both have to pay for filming the Truth about Jesus, saying, “We all have to embrace our crosses.” *Cringe*

In a story which is yet to reach the mainstream media, but may grow as the case progresses, the Pope and two other people have been named as the Vatican has been served with court papers. The case relates to a allegations of sexual abuse against a priest, now dead, at a Wisconsin school for the deaf.

Jeff Anderson, an attorney for the man making the allegations, said he had been notified the papers were successfully filed through official diplomatic channels.

“Every time we make a step forward, as long as that takes, we are going in the right direction,” Anderson said. “And the direction we’re headed is a measure of accountability. We really believe that we need to put some heat on the Vatican to bring some light.”

The Vatican’s U.S.-based attorney, Jeffrey Lena, said Tuesday that he still has to evaluate the papers to determine whether they meet the requirements imposed by U.S. law.

“It’s premature to comment what will happen next in the case,” he said.

The lawsuit was filed nearly a year ago in federal court on behalf of Terry Kohut, now of Chicago. It claims Pope Benedict XVI and two other top Vatican officials knew about allegations of sexual abuse at St. John’s School for the Deaf outside Milwaukee and called off internal punishment of the accused priest, the Rev. Lawrence Murphy.

Full article: http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5icsvx0mcrbR3n3_u9KDl33BZ_iBw?docId=6546589

And you thought you wouldn’t have to hear about it again…

Some of the £10 million cost to Whitehall departments (that’s your money) of the Pope’s state visit was diverted from foreign aid funding, it has been revealed. We knew the bill for the visit has already been divided up between eclectic sources including environmental and energy budgets!

The BHA has quickly responded, referring to this latest jiggery-pokery with tax-payers’ money – meant for the poor and vulnerable – as “irrational and wrong”, adding that the work of the Catholic Church as an NGO is often “questionable in itself”. BHA Head of Public Affairs Naomi Phillips said, “Most people, including Christians, did not think that the British taxpayer should pay for the Pope’s visit in the first place, and many will be astonished to see the detrimental impact that this illegitimate use of public funds has already made.”

An influential Commons committee called on ministers to explain how diverting development cash to subsidise the trip met global aid rules.

The “somewhat surprising” transfer to the Foreign Office (FCO) was queried following a detailed investigation of the annual accounts of the Department for International Development.

Initial figures published in November put the cost to Whitehall departments of the four-day state visit in September at £10m.

Malcolm Bruce, who chairs the international development select committee, said voters would struggle to understand why DfID money was involved.

“Many people will be as surprised as we were to discover that UK aid money was used to fund the pope’s visit last year,” he said.

“Ministers need to explain exactly what this was spent on and how it tallies with our commitments on overseas aid.”

The committee also warned that the higher priority being given in aid spending to war-zones and other fragile states would make it harder to be sure taxpayers’ cash was being well spent.

Continues: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/feb/03/mps-decision-overseas-aid-cash-popes-visit

Ardent litigator targeting paedophile priests and the sex abuse cover-up heads for the UK.

A leading US litigator who has spent more than 20 years suing US-based paedophile priests and the church officials who moved them from parish to parish is joining a new legal practice dedicated to rooting out clerical sexual abuse in the UK.

Jeff Anderson has filed more than 1,500 lawsuits against the Catholic church in the US and thousands more against individuals and organisations, including those belonging to other Christian denominations.

His Minnesota firm says it is “aggressively committed” to child protection through civil litigation and he believes there is significant scope to expand this activity in the UK.

Anderson, whose firm recently represented all 23 plaintiffs in a suit that led to a US diocese filing for bankruptcy protection, will be working with Ann Olivarius, a solicitor who is already based in London, to expose offenders and seek justice for victims.

Continues: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/10/lawyer-paedophile-priests-us-uk

New envoy to the Vatican is a “temp” because no one wants the job.

David Cameron has appointed George Edgar as Britain’s temporary envoy to the Vatican after Ann Widdecombe turned down the role.

Having been surprised by a string of rejections for the role of Britain’s ambassador to the Vatican from such candidates as Ann Widdecombe, Lord Patten of Barnes and the MP Edward Leigh, David Cameron has been forced to turn to a trusted trouble-shooter.

Mandrake can disclose that George Edgar will be the interim chargé d’affaires to the Holy See when Francis Campbell leaves his post at the end of this month.

Continues: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/8246963/Criticism-as-David-Cameron-sends-trouble-shooter-to-the-Vatican.html

Oddly enough, the Church of England doesn’t want whole churches to be poached off by the Vatican.

Defecting priest feigns surprise. Tension between Catholics and Protestants…? It’s unheard of!

Anglicans defecting to Rome are being told they must leave their churches with clergy even been asked to move away from their parish.

They have worshipped together for decades on the pews of their parish church. Generations of their loved ones have been baptised, married and buried there.

But now a Church of England congregation is being torn apart by the Pope’s offer to welcome disaffected Anglican traditionalists into the Catholic Church.

… At St Barnabas the move towards Rome is being led by the vicar, Fr Ed Tomlinson. He believes that traditionalists who oppose the ordination of women have been badly let down by Church leaders.

But he has been told by the diocese of Rochester that if he and his followers leave the Church of England they will no longer be allowed to hold services, even on a shared basis, at St Barnabas…

Full article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/8247915/Anglicans-heading-to-Rome-told-they-cant-stay-in-their-churches.html

And finally, the Pope tells you how to name your children.

The pope has declared war on parents’ growing insistence on shunning the saints and naming their children after fashion designers, Sanskrit titles and things that don’t mean much.

The Holy See fears that parents are choosing modish names such as Chanel, Swami and Pesche at the expense of Maria, Martina and Giuseppe, egged on by celebrity examples.

“Every baptism should ensure that the child is given a Christian name, an unmistakable sign that the Holy Spirit will allow the person to blossom in the bosom of the Church,” Benedict XVI said, while baptising 21 infants in the Sistine Chapel on Sunday. “Do not give your children names that are not in the Christian calendar.”

Continues: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/for-heavens-sake-pope-hopes-to-end-trend-for-exotic-names-2181133.html

In a somewhat unusually direct move today the Pope called on Pakistan to reverse its blasphemy laws. The call may be welcome but it is somewhat undermined by less well-reported items in his speech, which specifically put religion above all other considerations in law. An extraordinary single paragraph from the Pope’s speech today, to ambassadors assigned to the Holy See:

…on this solemn occasion, allow me to state clearly several principles which inspire the Holy See, together with the whole Catholic Church, in its activity within the intergovernmental International Organizations for the promotion of full respect for the religious freedom of all. First, the conviction that one cannot create a sort of scale of degrees of religious intolerance. Unfortunately, such an attitude is frequently found, and it is precisely acts of discrimination against Christians which are considered less grave and less worthy of attention on the part of governments and public opinion.

On the one hand he seems to be saying that discrimination against any religion is as bad as any other, which is at least reasonable, but the ambiguity around collapsing the “scale of degrees of religious intolerance” plays into recent debates – partly prompted by the Pope himself – about “persecution”. It’s a word usually reserved for acts more severe than (for example) merely asking people to obey the law regardless of their religion, but which is losing a sense of severity thanks to those with an interest in collapsing the intuitive “scale of degrees” so that merely losing equality cases when you discriminate against others sits right next to actual persecution on the single point scale.

“At the same time,” the Pope continues in the same paragraph:

there is a need to reject the dangerous notion of a conflict between the right to religious freedom and other human rights, thus disregarding or denying the central role of respect for religious freedom in the defence and protection of fundamental human dignity.

So to translate, even though time and again the freedom of belief is found in law not to include the right to unlawfully discriminate against other people, no such conflict of rights is real, or rather my religious rights should trump all other considerations. For the Pope, the right to express religion, that is to act on beliefs we acquire in life, even by discriminating unlawfully against others, is more “fundamental” to human dignity than, for example, protecting people who want to live in accordance with the innate characteristics they are born with.

Even less justifiable are attempts to counter the right of religious freedom with other alleged new rights which, while actively promoted by certain sectors of society and inserted in national legislation or in international directives, are nonetheless merely the expression of selfish desires lacking a foundation in authentic human nature.

Translation: gay people who want to formalise relationships and adopt are being selfish and unnatural.

Finally, it seems unnecessary to point out that an abstract proclamation of religious freedom is insufficient: this fundamental rule of social life must find application and respect at every level and in all areas; otherwise, despite correct affirmations of principle, there is a risk that deep injustice will be done to citizens wishing to profess and freely practise their faith.

My beliefs come first, always and in all circumstances.

Full text: http://press.catholica.va/news_services/bulletin/news/26680.php?index=26680&lang=en

It’s “British Humanist Association“, John!

The Pope did a Thought for the Day today. Don’t get too excited, it’s fairly anodyne and Christmassy and this-is-who-I’m-praying-for, as opposed to his atheists-are-Nazis riff. No reflection on a terrible few years for the Church though, either.

In a response segment afterwards, Polly Toynbee points out that Today programme listeners on Twitter haven’t been particularly moved by the level of excitement the Beeb encouraged re the Pope’s slot. Bishops in the Lords, ‘faith’ schools, and dodgy religiosity stats all come in for criticism, with reference to the BHA Census Campaign. –  Cristina Odone responds by accusing Polly of wanting to take religious people “out of public life”… apropos of nothing.

You can listen again at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9319000/9319167.stm

Note: The British Humanist Association campaigns for non-religious inclusion in Thought for the Day given that it’s remit is to reflect ethically on current affairs and people other than priests, rabbis and the Pope can do that actually.

Even with many documents missing or destroyed, a single investigation into the Munich Archdiocese has implicated  hundreds of priests and staff in abusing children over a 64-year period, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A new report found that more than 250 priests and clerical staff were implicated in abusing children over a 64-year period in the Munich Archdiocese that Pope Benedict XVI once led, but that destruction of church documents over time prevented a full accounting of the scandal.

The report, released Friday by a church-appointed law firm, is the result of a six-month audit of the diocese’s vast archives to see how Catholic leaders handled, or mishandled, past sexual abuse cases in the pope’s former archdiocese.

Though similar archival searches have been under way elsewhere since a clerical abuse scandal first rocked Germany and other European countries this year, the Munich investigation has held particular attention because of what skeletons it might unearth from the pope’s tenure there as then-Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger from 1977 to 1982.

…

In total, the audit found evidence that 159 priests from 1945 to 2009 were involved in some sort of abuse, while 26 of them were convicted specifically of sexual abuse. The report added that investigators found evidence that an additional 17 priests also committed sexual abuse.

In addition, investigators found evidence 15 deacons and 96 religion teachers also committed abuse, though only two were ever convicted of sexual abuse, according to the report.

Full article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703350104575653110492675020.html

People of faith do not have a monopoly on virtue as British society was now “more diverse and secular”, the Queen told the Church of England today in an address to its governing body.

Speaking at Church House, central London, she told members of General Synod that believers and atheists were equally able to contribute to the prosperity and wellbeing of the country.

The Queen, who is supreme governor of the Church of England, said: “In our more diverse and secular society, the place of religion has come to be a matter of lively discussion. It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue and that the wellbeing and prosperity of the nation depend on the contribution of individuals and groups of all faiths and none.”

Don’t get too excited, though.

But, recalling the words of Pope Benedict XVI from his UK visit last September, she said churches “and the other great faith traditions” retained the potential to inspire “great enthusiasm, loyalty and a concern for the common good”.

Elizabeth Windsor went on to briefly refer to the debates within the Church on women bishops and homosexuality, without picking a side of course, and optimistically noting that trial and debate often coincide with “growth and spiritual vigour”.

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/23/queen-synod-virtue

A small step for Rome, a giant leap taken by everyone else ages ago. We round up some responses to the Pope’s comments on condoms, released – unusually for the Catholic Church – via interview with a journalist.

ROME — Pope Benedict XVI has said that condom use can be justified in some cases to help stop the spread of AIDS, the Vatican’s first exception to a long-held policy banning contraceptives. The pope made the statement in interviews on a host of contentious issues with a German journalist, part of an unusual effort to address some of the harshest criticisms of his turbulent papacy.

The pope’s statement on condoms was extremely limited: he did not approve their use or suggest that the Roman Catholic Church was beginning to back away from its prohibition of birth control. In fact, the one example he cited as a possibly appropriate use was by male prostitutes.

Still, the statement was something of a milestone for the church and a significant change for Benedict, who faced intense criticism last year when, en route to AIDS-plagued Africa, he said condom use did not help prevent the spread of AIDS, only abstinence and fidelity did.

The interviews are to be published this week in a book, and excerpts were posted online by the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, on Saturday afternoon.

In the book, Benedict said condoms were not “a real or moral solution” to the AIDS epidemic, adding, “that can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.” But he also said that “there may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility.”

Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/world/europe/21pope.html

Austen Ivereigh, who spoke in favour of the Pope’s state visit in the Protest the Pope debate hosted by Central London Humanists in September, gives a modest or optimistic outline of what he thinks this means: this is at once nothing new, and yet the Pope has “cleared up” something that the Church has been silent on for too long.

This is significant because he is endorsing the view, expressed by many moral theologians over the years, that the use of a condom to prevent infection is of a different moral order from that of frustrating conception – it is not, therefore, contraceptive; and may, therefore, be licit.

What will it lead to? It will clear up, once and for all, the misperception that the Church’s message to an HIV-positive prostitute is that he, or her client, shouldn’t use a condom under any circumstances. The Church has never believed that, but the silence from Rome has allowed some conservative Catholics and Church critics to claim otherwise – giving the impression that it would rather a person be infected with Aids than prevent a pregnancy. As a Catholic commentator, that has been frustrating for me, and I am delighted Benedict XVI has cleared this up.

But it will change the way the Church goes about tackling Aids in Africa. The Pope’s message to prostitutes or people in engaging in casual or risky sex is they should change their behaviour. But if that message is ignored, or people are not ready to hear it, the Pope is not telling them to refrain from using a condom.

In clearing up this up, the Pope is also sending a clear message: that the Church does not put its dogma before the lives of sufferers; and that taking responsibility for others is the first step in moral development.

Full article: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/austen-ivereigh-historic-and-uttered-nervously-but-it-offers-nothing-for-those-with-aids-in-africa-2139885.html

Jack Valero of Catholic Voices also says this is a “clarification”, nothing new.

However, Tom Chivers, self-described “secular liberal”, says this is a bit new and we should give credit where it’s due.

It’s okay to use condoms, says the Pope. Or rather, it’s a lesser sin to use them than it is to knowingly risk infecting your sexual partner with HIV or other diseases.

It’s tempting, for liberals and secularists and others, to say “Well – obviously”. They might also feel an urge to point out that it might have been useful if this was made clear, say, 30 years ago, when the AIDS crisis started to bite in Africa and elsewhere – more than 25 million people have died of the disease since. Further, this critic might say, it doesn’t go far enough: condoms should also be used to help reduce poverty and overpopulation, by allowing poor parents to manage their family size.

But that would be graceless. This is an uncomplicatedly good thing that the Pope has done. It should save lives.

Full article: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tomchivers/100049039/pope-benedict-and-condoms-credit-where-credits-due/

And Australian bishops, where the story broke, seem particularly keen to play down the interviews, and to bring in homosexuality again even though that doesn’t seem to have been relevant to this part of the interviews, but everyone is basically just ignoring the hardline naysayers anyway.

…Bishop Fisher told The Australian yesterday the pontiff used the example of a male prostitute to give due credit to someone “trying to make some moral progress”. He said the Pope had made a clear distinction between homosexual acts — where contraception was not an issue — and the use of condoms for HIV prevention more widely.

“He was very clear, as in his previous statements, that he is against condoms altogether,” Bishop Fisher said.

However, AIDS activists refused to accept Bishop Fisher’s interpretation.

Full article: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/bishops-say-pope-still-anti-condoms-for-hiv/story-e6frg6nf-1225958832267

Another mixture of collected responses from the BBC.

Update 23 November: The Vatican response machine swings into action, clarifying that this really isn’t a very big change in Catholic teaching:

The Vatican has clarified Pope Benedict XVI’s comments on condoms, saying their use by men and women to prevent HIV could be an act of “responsibility”.

The clarification follows comments suggesting Pope accepted their use only in exceptional circumstances.

But the Vatican’s senior spokesman said the key point was taking the life of the other person into consideration.

… The Pope’s meaning was questioned because the Italian translation of the book used the feminine form of the word for prostitute, whereas the original German used the masculine.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said he had personally asked the Pope if there was a serious, important problem in the choice of the masculine over the feminine.

“He told me ‘No’,” Fr Lombardi said. “The problem is this… It’s the first step of taking responsibility, of taking into consideration the risk of the life of another with whom you have a relationship.”

“This is if you’re a woman, a man, or a transsexual,” he added.

Despite this shift, the Vatican still believes that changing attitudes to sexuality is the proper way to combat HIV/Aids.

In the book, the Pope says that condoms are “not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection”.

The Pope’s attitude towards homosexuality and artifical contraception has not shifted, with other passages in the book reaffirming the Vatican’s opposition to both.

Full article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11821422

The Roman Catholic Church of England and Wales has until April to clear its multi-million pound debt with the government over the papal visit, with officials admitting they are currently unsure how the cost will be met.

The government covered many of the church’s contributions towards the four-day trip, which took place last month, and wants the money to be repaid by the end of the financial year.

The church has raised £6.5m but, as the total costs are £10m, it faces a £3.5m shortfall. It is counting on diocesan and individual contributions, in addition to sales of a papal visit prayer book, to settle the account.

A parish collection raised just £1.4m while appeals to the wealthy were more successful, netting around £4m. The previous papal visit, from John Paul II in 1982, left the church £13m in debt as it had to foot the bill entirely for the pastoral tour.

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/28/catholic-church-papal-visit-uk

Figures on the Vatican’s central wealth are notoriously hard to come by. This very old Time magazine article puts it at up to $15 billion … in 1965!

At least three serving Church of England bishops are to lead an exodus to the Roman Catholic Church in protest at women bishops.

The Bishop of Fulham, the Right Rev John Broadhurst, 68, announced at the weekend that he is to join the Ordinariate, an organisation set up by the Pope to allow Anglican laity, clergy and bishops to convert while retaining aspects of their Anglican heritage.

…

Dozens of Anglican laity, including an entire congregation in Kent, are preparing to go with the bishops.

The defections and the Ordinariate itself are leading to private anger among senior Anglicans over what they regard as poaching.

The usual ecumenical channels have been bypassed in setting up the Ordinariate. Instead of being led by the Council for Christian Unity, all talks have been held in secret under the auspices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly headed by the present Pope Benedict XVI.

Full article: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/faith/article2771004.ece (paywall)

Pope Benedict XVI created a new Vatican department aimed at “re-evangelizing” the most secular regions of the globe, including areas of Europe that have become “de-Christianized.”

Benedict issued a papal decree today launching the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, which will seek to bring Christianity to those whose spiritual lives have become an “interior desert” amid technological and scientific changes in recent decades, according to the document.

… Benedict, the leader of the world’s estimated 1 billion Catholics, has made fighting loss of faith a key theme of his papacy. He criticized “aggressive forms of secularism” during a U.K. trip last month, and called on Europeans “to rediscover the reasons for faith and hope” last year when he visited the Czech Republic, where religious practice is among the lowest in the 27-nation European Union.

The new Vatican office will employ “all the progress of the science of communications” in a bid to restore religion to the secular world.

Full article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-12/pope-benedict-creates-new-vatican-office-to-re-evangelize-secular-world.html

Victims of child abuse by Catholic priests in Italy have gathered in Verona, and called for such abuse to be made a crime against humanity.

Dozens of victims and their families went to the public meeting, the first of its kind in Italy.

Organiser Salvatore Damolo, a former victim and an ex-priest, said the aim was to give victims a platform to talk about their experiences.

He appealed for help in seeking justice for those who have been abused.

Italian bishops say around 100 cases of abuse have been investigated by Church authorities in the past decade. But organisers of the conference say the true number of victims is much higher.

Justice for the abused is hard to come by because Italy has a statute of limitations of 10 years, meaning that by the time victims came forward, it was often too late, Mr Damolo said.

“Here there is no hope. By the time a victim arrives at the awareness of having been a victim, legal intervention is not possible,” he told the Associated Press news agency.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11413050

Victims of child abuse by priests will hold a demonstration outside the Vatican next month against the Catholic Church’s role in the scandal, an Italian organisation said on Saturday.

Associations of US victims have been invited to take part in the October 31 protest, the group said in a report by Italian ANSA news agency.

“This will be an international protest and we will go in front of the Vatican to denounce once again these numerous (paedophiles) that shocked young victims and weren’t known until now,” Marco Lodo Rizzini, a spokesman of victims from the Antonio Provolo institute, was quoted as saying.

Sixty-seven deaf-mute children at the Catholic institute in the city of Verona were allegedly abused by priests and lay staff between the 1950s and 1980s.

“The hour has come for the truth to be known,” Lodo Rizzini said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jV6NVjYJxP51qwEmaQ6Xr37tUWcw

So are his flock defecting in droves [to Roman Catholicism]? “No, they’re not. One or two, and there’ll be more, I think.” Do they write and tell you why? Some do. But I don’t think it’s going to be a landslide and I never thought it would be.” One of the problems with Roman Catholicism is having to sign up to the idea that the Pope is infallible when, surely, to be human is to err? “Better ask my Roman Catholic friends about that.” But one of the reasons you chose to be an Anglo-Catholic was because of that stumbling block? “I couldn’t accept the infallibility of the Pope, no. But back to that situation last year… I think some people in the Vatican had been listening to some groups within the Anglican Communion who were looking for some sort of corporate solution – ‘Let’s all come together and be recognised in a group’ – and they’d worked out a scheme for that… I think, perhaps, slightly overestimating how popular it’s going to be.

“A lot of people in the Anglican Communion don’t think much of me and don’t think much of the way the Communion is going – but that doesn’t mean they want to be Roman Catholics.”

One of your most torturous times in the eight years as Archbishop must have been over the Dr Jeffrey John issue? “Yes,” he says in a very quiet voice. In 2003, Dr John – who is a celibate homosexual – was appointed as Bishop of Reading. … Much was made of Dr Williams speaking out against [lesbian bishop] Mary Glasspool’s election but remaining silent on Uganda’s proposed anti-homosexual bill that would have led to the imprisonment and even death of many homosexuals.

… Dr Williams’s position on this once seemed clear when he wrote, on the subject of homosexuality: “If we are looking for a sexual ethic that can be seriously informed by our Bible, there is a good deal to steer us away from assuming that reproductive sex is a norm.”

When I read this out, he replies: “That’s what I wrote as a theologian, you know, putting forward a suggestion. That’s not the job I have now.”

So your job doesn’t necessarily allow you to be true to yourself? “I think if I were to say my job was not to be true to myself that might suggest that my job required me to be dishonest and if that were the case, then I’d be really worried.

“Put it this way, it means that I’m not elected on a manifesto to further this agenda or that; I have to be someone who holds the reins for the whole debate. Tries to keep people at the table and to do that not just because it’s nicer to have people together than otherwise, but because there’s a real religious, spiritual dimension, saying, ‘Unity matters to all of us; we actually need each other, however much we dislike each other.’?”

Full article: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/faith/article2734417.ece (paywall)

Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But what is amazing is that the same guy who’s been telling everyone what a terrible moral wasteland Britain has become – obsessed as it is with its anti-Christian pro-equality laws, and its peddling of human rights for the gays, and its fascism/atheism – is now saying how wonderfully Christian we all are!

Sometimes I just don’t know where I am with you. You’re hot, you’re cold, I’m naughty, I’m nice, you pick me up, you bring me down… Pope, just stop toying with me. Do you love me or not?

Britain remains a country in which Christian faith is “still strong and active at every level of society”, Pope Benedict XVI said in his first remarks after returning from his historic four-day visit to England and Scotland.

The Pope said the visit, which was widely judged a success despite being preceded by months of controversy over cost, clerical sex abuse scandals and the issue of gay and married clergy, marked a new phase in the Vatican’s “complicated” relations with the Church of England.

“This was a historic event marking a new and important phase in the long and complicated history of relations between (the British) and the Holy See,” he said during his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square, after flying into Rome by helicopter from his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, in the hills outside the capital.

“In the course of the intense and very beautiful four days spent in this noble country, I had the great pleasure of speaking to the heart of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom and they spoke to my heart, most particularly with their presence and the testimony of their faith,” he said.

“I witnessed how the Christian faith is still strong and active at every level of society,” he said.

Continues: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/the-pope/8018617/Pope-Benedict-XVI-says-Christian-faith-remains-strong-in-Britain.html

Figures disclosed by the BBC show that its coverage of the Pope’s visit attracted more attention than most broadcasts.

In total, 384 viewers complained that coverage had been excessive while 169 said it had been too positive towards the Pope, suggesting it had ignored the controversy surrounding church and the well-attended protest events.

Another 197 claimed the coverage had been too critical, by including the views of secular groups and focusing on the experiences of clergy child abuse victims, while 122 people contacted the corporation just to express their appreciation for the programming.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/the-pope/8016329/Pope-visit-BBC-receives-750-complaints.html

Benedict’s clumsy conflation of atheism with Nazism and Cardinal Kaspar’s description of the UK as “aggressively secular” were without context or nuance. To be without belief is an entirely honourable and honest stance. If you have no faith, it would be a failure of integrity to pretend otherwise. It is as divisive and potentially malignant to suggest that all ‘non-believers’ are willing or unwilling agents of evil as to refuse to see that priesthood is not synonymous with paedophilia. And if so many are no longer engaged by the mainstream churches in this rapidly changing world, what questions should those institutions be asking themselves?

Our secular society is the best guarantor of the religious freedoms of all. Theocracies will always oppress those whose consciences are not in harmony with the ruling creed. Where no confessional strand is privileged above another or above the safeguarding adjudications of a democratic state, respect for difference is enabled to flourish and difficulties have at least the chance of being the subject of dialogue rather than denunciation.

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/13141

Hindus have criticized His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI for rough handling of atheists in his speech at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh (United Kingdom) on September 16, where he appeared to associate atheism with the Nazis.

Eminent Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that as Catholics and Hindus and others had freedom of their belief systems and were respected for their respective choices, and so should be the atheists. A religious leader of Pope’s stature should have been more inclusive.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, further said that although Pope frequently talked about right to religious freedom, cooperation of the human family, truly universal human community, etc., but in this speech, he apparently condemned the beliefs of a considerable chunk of world population called atheists. Who were we as human beings to judge publicly that other humans’ beliefs different than us were wrong?

Rajan Zed stressed that Pope should get rid of his obsession against atheism and show some maturity and inclusiveness. Frankly, it was the fault of us religious leaders (which included Pope also) and organizations that atheism was growing in the world.

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/hindus-denounce-pope-for-being-offensive-to-atheists_100430124.html

Protest the Pope march on Piccadilly

Whatever we say, however we speak up, some people will always interpret protest as prejudice. Bob Churchill protests.

Consider just two little nuggets on the Pope’s state visit and his detractors:

1. Ben Goldacre joked via Twitter from the Protest the Pope rally, “Who knew so many people disapproved of child rape and dangerous anti-condom nonsense?” But, speaking on behalf of “sober observers” everywhere, Andrew Brown was still rather surprised by the turnout for Saturday’s Protest the Pope march.

2. In a BBC2 retrospective discussion on the visit, a participant was able to describe critics of the Pope as having “extremist” views with impunity. Archbishop Vincent Nichols appears to describe protesters as taking an “argumentative or shrill” approach, while Lord Chris Patten, the state’s Catholic organiser of the state visit, said that “enthusiasm overwhelmed cynicism” in the end. Later he would hope that the visit would prompt “a more serious debate about the role of religion in society.”

As if the debate and anger currently surrounding the Holy See is frivolous.

The BBC2 programme was formal and high-toned. An audience of protesters wasn’t necessary, but none of the eminent and respectable critics of papal policy were present either. The nearest this programme came to criticism was from the two academic participants pointing out that “there are long-term questions that remain” and that the Catholic hierarchy “is radically out of step” with the average Catholic. But later the same participants celebrated the fact that the visit “got people talking about religion” which is “good for religion”. The Pope was “sensitive” to UK politics and handled things “wisely and very, very well,” said Tina Beattie. Presumably she wasn’t thinking about the papal comments blaming Nazism on atheism.

Richard Dawkins at the Protest the Pope march

There is a pattern of response, here. Those who detract from Vatican teaching are painted as argumentative cynics, frivolously objecting to the serious and genuine moral teaching of the faith. Victims of the protesters’ disproportionate vitriol are “surprised”, bemused or outright incredulous. They adopt a kind of forced dismissiveness. Objections to the Church are already in hand; objections to the Church are immature, are offered from a position of ignorance, or of malice; objections to the Church may be looked down upon and disregarded.

Whatever we say, however we speak up, some people will always interpret protest as prejudice.

No one who spoke for the Protest the Pope campaign, and not even any of the banners I saw and which were well-photographed on the march, was spiteful about Catholics en masse. It was all about the state, the visit, the teachings of the Church. It was about the Pope and the Vatican, it was not about all the people who call themselves Catholics. Yet Amanda Platell still thinks it’s fair game to describe us all, without qualification, as “self-important atheists and Catholic-haters”. Apparently, we’re “bigots”. All of us. Amanda Platell knows this for a fact. We chanted “Protect the children, not the priests”; and this means we have “twisted values”! (One of few the reports which actually did seem to take the protesters at their word was from the Morning Star.)

The Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association at Protest the Pope

This attitude of suspicion against the protest has even sunk into the secular Guardian. The Guardian first pointed out the ways in which the Catholic church stands against the secular state and rejects pluralism in some important sense, but the same paper publicly  wrangled with its conscience over offering criticism. The readers’ editor treated us to snippets from journos and readers alike: Was the Pope coverage too “irreverent”, the copy frets? Has the paper occasionally lapsed “into a brand of intolerant rationalism that resembles a fundamentalism we would normally abhor”. Is it “Pope-bashing”? Is it “papist-bashing”?

Must it really be “anti-papist” to point out that the views the Vatican holds dear are seen as anachronistic, or as illiberal, or as outright dangerous, by many outside the faith (and many within it, too?).

Why must disagreeing be discriminating?

The Guardian’s troubled self-reflection was aired again in an editorial which adopts that easy in between position, criticising both the Holy See and the protesters:

Things got off on a bad footing with the pope’s senior adviser, Cardinal Walter Kasper seeming to suggest that to land into Heathrow was to land into a place rendered third world by multiculturalism. He was soon unpacking his suitcase, but his boss went on to link the Nazis’ atrocities with their lack of faith, and encourage silly talk about atheists endangering Christmas. If the pope has not done much reconciling, then neither have his militant opponents. The thousands who traipsed through London chanting “he belongs in jail” may not see any connection between themselves and the anti-papist mobs of the past, but there is a failure to afford sincere faith the respect it is due.

A similar point is made by another commentator in the Irish press: “The humanists claimed their opposition to the state visit was because of the abuse crisis, papal opposition to condoms, abortion and gay rights, support for segregated education and the Pope’s apparent rehabilitation of ‘holocaust denier’ Bishop Richard Williamson”, said Vincent Browne. As if all this wasn’t enough. But Browne goes on to expose the truth!: “However, the nature of the dispute reflects Britain’s historically deep anti-Catholic roots. It might accurately be described as the antisemitism of the left.”

"Humanity before religion" banner at the Protest the Pope march

Riiight.

The cause of the worry, of the incongruity, begins to come into focus. It probably is true that the great majority of people marching with the Protest the Pope campaign made no connection between themselves “and the anti-papist mobs of the past” nor with “Britain’s historically anti-Catholic roots”. They don’t make that connection because it’s so utterly alien to the way they think. (This is my view based on being there, on knowing a fair number of marchers, on seeing the demographic, on listening to people.) We’re not Tudors. The Reformation and all that followed is not exactly ‘current affairs’  in our mental categorisation. ”The Troubles” were probably not our troubles, except when the cities were bombed, but even then the actions of the IRA hardly endeared either side.

People of all ages marched, but there were a lot of twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings for whom, I strongly suspect, the Protestant-versus-Catholic / papist-anti-papist divide has never been something living and personal. I’m only realising myself how deeply it runs in the collective memory of the media and the commenting class thanks to the critical comments the protest attracted.

This, I think, is part of the reason (only a part, but a real contribution) as to why people in the churches, people who commentate on religion, journalists of a certain age, cannot escape the mindset that there must be “anti-Catholic” motivations bubbling away.

But that is their paradigm, their baggage.

The campaign enumerated its actual grievances over and over. For the most part, protest banners were about real issues, and positively held values. Even many of the rest were just light-hearted or self-satirising. Geoffrey Robertson QC began his speech with a pun on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “Friends, Roman pontiffs, countrymen…” Even if you disagree with the message – even if you think the Holy See has nothing to answer for on sexual abuse, or on its failure to buy into human rights legislation, or its stances on condoms and AIDS or women or abortion – isn’t it just possible that these concerns might be enough to motivate someone to protest when the head of that  so-called state is being publicly and expensively venerated?

Ian McKellan is gay. Get over it.

Even Andrew Brown recognised that ”the crowd was cheerful and good humoured” at the protest, and “certainly having a lot more fun than the gloomy handful of Paisleyite protestors traditional on these occasions.” But he still described the protest as the new “face of anti-Catholicism”.

The protesters weren’t Paisleyite – they were gay. They weren’t Protestant – they were women and children. They weren’t slavering Reformists or anti-Catholics or an anti-papal mob – they were liberals, progressives, and people who just thought “For god’s sake why are we paying so much attention and paying so much money to host this random, prejudiced, illiberal old church?”

When you are actively criticised by the Church for being atheist or secularist; if you’re tutted at from on high for sleeping with your partner before marriage, or at all if you’re gay; if you’re told that you have a certain place if you’re a woman, that as a family you’re wrong to plan ahead in quite that way; then your disagreement with religion has already been made personal by the Church. Big surprise: people don’t like being told that their genuine, modern, human values are the wrong values, still less do they like to pay to be told this.

It is always possible to distort through goggles darkly the views of your cultural opponents. But if there’s an old sectarian war some people are still fighting it’s not me, it’s not the vast majority of fellow protesters as far as I could see. We’re not fighting that petty old fight, and if our critics can’t recognise even for a moment what our real beef is, then god help them.

Bob Churchill studied philosophy at the University of Warwick and Queens University, Canada, and is Head of Membership at the British Humanist Association, which co-initiated the Protest the Pope campaign. @bobchurchill

All photographs featured are by Andrew West and some more photos from the Protest the Pope march held on Saturday 18 September 2010 are available. You can also read, watch or hear the speeches from the rally at www.protest-the-pope.org.uk.

I certainly thought the charge sheet against the pope was a robust one. He is guilty as charged on his opposition to condoms, abortion and equal right for homosexuals, and on the lamentable response to the child-abuse scandal. But it does not follow from the fact that you feel strongly about something and have a right to speak about it, that you therefore should always make as much noise as possible.

Consider for a moment why almost every secular, liberal-minded person thought that Pastor Terry Jones was wrong to plan to burn Qur’ans on the anniversary of 9/11. Most would agree he has a right to his views and to express them through legal, peaceful protest. Most non-Muslims would say that burning a Qur’an is not in itself immoral. Still, they recognised the protest was a bad idea, and not just because of the risk of inciting violence. The main problem is that by burning the holy book of all Muslims, the protest would fail to target jihadist murderers and would be seen as vehemently anti-Islam. Bridges, not just books, would be burned.

The kinds of protests against the pope we’re seeing in the UK do not, of course, match the idiocy of Jones’s pyrotechnics. But they too are creating divisions at a time when mutual understanding is already at a low, and – as the alleged terror plot exposed yesterday shows – religious tensions are at a high.

…

I am glad that people are protesting on the key issues that the pope has got very wrong. If only a few people were doing so I might have felt it necessary to sign the petition. But when everyone starts piling in, it is perfectly reasonable for others to say it is time to back off before it gets too ugly. Party lines are the death of rational, free-thought movements: divided we stand, united we fall.

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/17/pope-benedict-visit-protest-ugly