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

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!

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

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

I’d be happy never to write another word about Christianity, Islam or any other supernatural belief system if their leaders didn’t keep telling me that their ethics are better than mine. On Thursday, Mr Ratzinger had barely got off the plane in Edinburgh before he was urging Britain to resist “aggressive forms of secularism”. With excitable exceptions such as Richard Dawkins, most secularists I know are pretty laid back, although we do get irritated by discrimination against women and gay people. I think that’s what Mr Ratzinger meant when he urged us to respect “traditional values”, and I’m glad to have played a part in the struggle to eject them from public life.

The Vatican is proud of its prejudices. It can’t find a single woman worthy of becoming a priest, and it has lobbied for exemptions from UK employment law and the rules governing adoption agencies so that it can go on discriminating against gay people. It gives every impression of longing for a return to the days when unmarried girls who got pregnant were treated as pariahs, their babies taken away and their families consumed with shame. In Ireland, thousands of them were imprisoned in the Magdalene laundries run by Catholic nuns, where conditions amounted to slavery.

Now the Vatican has been engulfed by a scandal involving child-rape on a vast scale, and its response has revealed a degree of moral bankruptcy that’s astounded even its harshest critics. Mr Ratzinger is the head of a church which has shielded rapists from the secular authorities.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/joan-smith-ill-take-no-lectures-on-ethics-from-ratzinger-2083259.html

As everyone knows, all humanists, atheists and secularists are primarily concerned with destroying Christmas.

From as early as January 12th every year, barely a day goes by when the British Humanist Association isn’t pushing their major campaign: to rename Christmas as “Universal Secular Winterval Light Fest Season (For Humanity)”. Richard Dawkins’ own campaign is to rebrand Christmas as “Evolution Time”, in which beardy Charles Darwin will fly to people’s houses in a sleigh towed by a magical pack of friendly terradactyls. And it’s working, because Christmas is barely mentioned by anyone anymore, nowadays. The PC knuckleheads have got us all running scared that people of non-Christmas religions will deem it OFFENSIVE. They’ve ruined Christmas for everyone, forever.

That’s why it was massively important for the Pope himself to speak out, and reverse the tide of secularism.

This is, seriously, from The Sun:

THE Pope issued an impassioned plea to the people of Britain yesterday – to save CHRISTMAS.

Benedict XVI let rip at the politically correct knuckleheads who deem it offensive to other faiths.

His blast – on Day Two of his historic UK visit – came as he hit out at “those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged.”

The Pontiff told bigwigs who packed Westminster Hall in London that it was a “questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions” or even atheists.

The 83-year-old leader of the world’s one billion Roman Catholics declared: “These are worrying signs of a failure to appreciate not only the rights of believers to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, but also the legitimate role of religion in the public square.”

He urged his VIP audience to use their “respective spheres of influence” to help turn back a tide that has seen Christmas renamed Winterval.

Continues, and continues, at: http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/3143145/Pope-tells-London-Dont-let-PC-brigade-wreck-Christmas.html

Participants include Father Christopher Jamison for the Catholic Church, Canon Paul Avis for the Church of England, Andrew Copson from the British Humanist Association,  Terry Sanderson for the National Secular Society, and abuse survivor Sue Cox.

Andrew Copson’s contribution:

For non-religious people, the state visit of the Pope was immediately inflammatory. His first comments in our country linked not believing in God with Nazism and accused secularists of being intolerant.

Combined with the failure of our politicians to defend the values of secularism, equality and democracy in response to his comments, but instead to reassure him that faith was at the heart of Britain, I think that at least one of the legacies of the state visit will be a disaffection and frustration among non-religious people not just with the Pope but with our own politicians.

When it came to the march and rally – our main protest event – we were amazed at the turnout.

By the time we reached Westminster for the speeches we were just under 20,000 strong and we think that means we were the largest protest in modern times against the international policies of the Holy See.

Certainly there has never been anything like it at any Papal state visit in living memory.

The protesters had diverse motives, as the various placards testified: opposition to the undermining of the human rights of women, of gay and lesbian people, of children; the refusal of the Pope to ordain women; the concealment of child abuse and frustration of justice.

All contributions: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11372428

For a self-proclaimed radical defender of free speech and a sceptic of hysterical reactions, Brendan O’Neil spends an awful lot of time telling others what not to say, in an hysterical tone – says Vicky Simister

Vicky Simister

Yesterday (16^th September) I met editor of Spiked Online and self-proclaimed “radical humanist” Brendan O’Neill. We were both on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, debating street harassment of women and my campaign against it – which Brendan feels impinges upon men’s free speech. (HumanistLife readers may already be aware of Brendan’s article “The weird fashion for bashing faith schools”, prompting a response from BHA ‘faith’ schools officer James Gray. New Humanist magazine have described O’Neil’s criticisms as “self-serving hot air”).

In preparation for the debate, I googled O’Neill. According to his website, he’s a “passionate defender of free speech” who thinks “free speech should be awarded to anyone who says anything anywhere on any subject for any reason with any effect”. And he certainly seems to have been directing a lot of his free speech in the direction of provoking other atheists and humanists. In March this year he wrote an article entitled “Why humanists shouldn’t join in this Catholic-bashing”, with the subheading “The reaction to the paedophile priest scandal is as guilty of scaremongering, illiberalism and elitism as the Catholic Church has ever been”.  Earlier this month he wrote an article called “Turning the pope into an Antichrist for atheists” and this week he wrote “How the New Atheists are abusing the truth”, his main point being that Johann Hari had stated in The Independent that “over 10,000 people have come forward to say they were raped” and how this was technically inaccurate as it “lumped sex talk and fondling and actual penile penetration together” (seems a rather pedantic point to make, to me). Yesterday Brendan published an article in the Big Issue Scotland where he accused “active atheists, those in the Richard Dawkins mould” of “feverishly politicising the visit too. They see it as an opportunity to spread their own gospel of anti-religious faith­ or anti-religious prejudice, as some people see it.”

Never fear, it’s not just humanists that meet with O’Neil’s skepticism. Greenpeace, western liberals and “moralistic” coffee shops also get a piece of his mind in his back catalogue of published articles. This article is a humanist (and feminist!) response to O’Neill’s particular brand of free speech and what appears to have become his anti-Anti-Pope campaign.

The Trivialisation of Abuse

In his efforts to criticise the “Catholic bashers”, O’Neill seems to have gone to great lengths to trivialise the sexual abuse that went on in the catholic church. In “Why humanists shouldn’t join in this Catholic-bashing”, he states:

Someone has to point out that for all the problems with the Catholic Church’s doctrines and style of organisation – and I experienced some of those problems, having been raised a Catholic before becoming an atheist at 17 – the fact is that sexual abuse by priests is a relatively rare phenomenon.

The next two paragraphs state statistics of reported abuse in Ireland which is where O’Neill points out that the majority of these cases did not go to trial (which, I must point out, could have a lot to do with the treatment of these cases by the police as well as the social stigma involved with abuse), and that 35% of the claims pertained to lay staff, care workers and fellow pupils. It is around this point that, for the first and only time in his 1,885 word article, he concedes “Of course, one incident of child sexual abuse by a priest is one too many”, but he quickly goes on to say that whilst “very, very few” were abused, “very, very many” received a “decent education”.

Staggeringly, O’Neill suggests that abusees somehow cashed in on their misery by reporting the abuse to the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse (or is he suggesting that they simply made it up?). He believes that the reason reported abuse in the Irish catholic church was so high for the sixties is “because the people who attended the institutions during that period were in many ways the main targets of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse”. According to O’Neill, “when the commission began in 1999 many of them had suffered long-term unemployment, health problems, and other disappointments. Reporting their misfortunes to the commission offered them the chance, not only of getting financial compensation, but also of validating their difficult life experiences as a consequence of their having been abused.”

The Commission has, according to him, allowed Ireland to seize the abuse scandal as an opportunity to dismiss “unemployment, poverty, drug abuse and heavy drinking” as “products of Ireland’s earlier era of abuse rather than as failings of the contemporary social system.” Being Irish born and raised myself, I can’t say I recall any headlines reading Catholic abuse cause of Unemployment or Recession comes early due to child rape, but I’m certainly not surprised if victims of abuse do suffer from emotional, physical and/or mental challenges later in life, making them vulnerable to unemployment, heavy drinking and the like. But then O’Neill seems to have no sympathy for those who “define themselves by those misfortunes”, who are encouraged “to look upon themselves as the end-products of having being emotionally, physically or sexually abused”.

The Great Catholic Education

In the same article, O’Neill criticizes Richard Dawkins, who received a letter from an abusee reading “Being fondled by the priest simply left the impression (from the mind of a 7 year old) as ‘yuchy’ while the memory of my friend going to hell was one of cold, immeasurable fear. I never lost sleep because of the priest ? but I spent many a night being terrified that the people I loved would go to Hell. It gave me nightmares.” In this article, Dawkins examines mental abuse vs physical abuse in the Catholic church: “The threat of eternal hell is an extreme example of mental abuse, just as violent sodomy is an extreme example of physical abuse.” However, O’Neill doesn’t mention this, instead quoting Dawkins out of context “Only a minority of priests abuse the bodies of the children in their care. But how many priests abuse their minds?”. O’Neill reacts: “In this spectacularly crude critique of religion, no moral distinction is made between being educated by a priest and raped by one.” Hang on, surely the real crudity here is scaring little children into obedience by threatening them with hellfire, devils and torture?

It seems, however, that you’ve got to be a lot more aggressive than that to bother O’Neill. In “The weird fashion for bashing faith schools”, O’Neill defends ‘faith’ schools, despite having attended a Catholic school which was “administered by Dominican sisters who saw it as their duty to beat – sometimes literally – us Catholic boys and girls into shape”. Apparently unfazed by the beatings, O’Neill says Catholicism failed to brainwash or scare him and to demonstrate describes how he and a friend “beheaded a statue of St Vincent de Paul” and rebelled against the Catholic admonition that masturbation is a sin. He says it’s “a myth that faith schools are factories for producing unquestioning, God-fearing drones”. In a nutshell, he went to a faith school, he was physically abused, but hey, he turned out ok and isn’t a Catholic anymore, so what are you all moaning about?

I too went to a Catholic school and I certainly wouldn’t send my kids to one. If they kept their dogma out of science class and sex ed, if they let gay and non-Catholic teachers work there, then I might consider it, but I wouldn’t send my kid to a school that taught them they’d burn in hell for masturbating (where do you think all that “Catholic Guilt” people talk about comes from…) and certainly not one where the “sisters” get heavy handed with their discipline. Even if I were a died-in-the-wool Catholic, why should Catholic schools have the right to teach children scientific fallacies, like Creationism? O’Neill says it’s “illiberal” to bring faith schools to an end. I say it’s irresponsible not too.

The Hysterical New Atheists

In ”Turning the pope into an Antichrist for atheists”, O’Neill criticizes the “zealous moralism, the irrational demonization” of “the current baiting of all things popish”. When Nick Doody jokes that he wouldn’t say anything to the pope – he’d simply put a condom over the pontiff’s head until he goes blue and dies, O’Neill fails to see the humour and instead calls it “a glimpse into the emotionally troubled mindsets of the anti-pope lobby”. Hang on, I thought O’Neill was the one campaigning against hysterical talk? He criticizes some humanists for “scaremongering” and for using extreme language, yet his articles are peppered with phrases describing Pope-protesters as “hysterical”, “Inquisitorial”, “Torquemada-ish”, “alarmingly intolerant”, driven “by doubt and disarray” running a “fear-driven campaign of demonisation”, “hellbent on using the politics of fear to invent a fantastical rape-happy ogre”, which has acquired “a powerfully pathological, obsessive and deafeningly shrill character”.  The point is that O’Neill is generating plenty of his own hysteria, and not about a corrupt institution or perverted criminals, but about the very people who criticise those people!

In one of his closing paragraphs, O’Neill says:

No doubt some will accuse me of ‘defending paedophile priests’ in contrast to the New Atheist campaign on behalf of ‘powerless victims’. In truth, my only concern, as an atheistic libertarian, is with analysing the emergence of a new form of hysterical and repressive atheism.

Brendan, you seemed like a nice-enough guy when I met you, certainly a sincere one. But your campaign to promote free speech and “liberty” comes at the expense of everything else. It’s not hysterical or repressive to do exactly as you campaign: to exercise free speech in criticism of others. From our debate on Woman’s Hour, where you told me that you did not believe in making racist hate speech or sexual harassment either illegal nor even socially unacceptable, to your abuse-trivialising criticisms of “New Atheists”, you have lost your sense of perspective. I’m with you on advocating freedom of speech, including self-criticism between atheists and humanists and anyone else. But if you think a reaction to a crime deserves more flak than the crime itself, then you’re in danger of becoming less a “radical humanist” and more a religious apologist.

Vicky Simister is a writer, activist and… finance analyst. She’s a member of the BHA, Treasurer of feminist group UK Feminista, and founder of the London Anti Street Harassment Campaign. Her blog can be found at www.vickysimister.com.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue reacts to the way British atheists are handling Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to their homeland:

The pope cited Hitler today, asking everyone to “reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century.” Immediately, the British Humanist Association got its back up, accusing the pope of “a terrible libel against those who do not believe in God.”

The pope did not go far enough. Radical atheists like the British Humanist Association should apologize for Hitler. But they should not stop there. They also need to issue an apology for the 67 million innocent men, women and children murdered under Stalin, and the 77 million innocent Chinese killed by Mao. Hitler, Stalin and Mao were all driven by a radical atheism, a militant and fundamentally dogmatic brand of secular extremism. It was this anti-religious impulse that allowed them to become mass murderers. By contrast, a grand total of 1,394 were killed during the 250 years of the Inquisition, most all of whom were murdered by secular authorities.

Donahue goes on to concede that his request is not quite sensical, but argues that it is only fair because it is analogous to asking the Pope to apologise for the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic church (which the Protest the Pope campaign aren’t actually directly asking for directly, but which the Pope has done in a round-about way, anyway). That’s right: expecting the Catholic church to make some kind of amends for widespread sexual abuse in the Catholic church, or expecting the current Pope to make some kind of amends for the demonstrable coverup of the same during his own tenure in the upper echelons of Catholicism, is the same thing as expecting atheists to apologise for the actions of Nazis, Stalinists and Maoists. The amazing power of analogy!

Continues: http://catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1978

NB: The Catholic League is not a spoof.

The Pope has set a new world record for the invocation of Godwin’s Law by using his opening address in the UK to liken the country’s secular community to the Nazis.

Godwin’s Law states that as an Internet conversation grows longer, the probability of someone making a comparison with the Nazis or Hitler approaches 1, however the Pope decided to jump straight in with both feet during yesterday’s speech.

The Pope explained that the the UK should be wary of growing militant atheism, because the Nazis were atheists too, before concluding that all atheists must be Nazis.

As one attendee at the Pope’s address told us, “We thought he would at least use an interesting Hitler anecdote, you know, ‘this one time at Nazi camp, Hitler said..’, but no – he invoked Godwin’s Law using a barely concealed boring old simile.”

Continues: http://newsarse.com/2010/09/17/pope-sets-new-godwins-law-world-record/

NB: Newsarse is a spoof!

As the Pope descends to the level of sub-standard internet forum debate in his first speech as honoured guest in the UK, the responses to the visit come in.

The British Humanist Association calls the Pope’s speech “surreal”:

Addressing the Queen and other guests at the Palace of Holyrood House, the Pontiff praised Britain’s fight against Hitler’s “atheist extremism”.

“Even in our own lifetimes we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live.

“As we reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus a reductive vision of a person and his destiny.”

The British Humanist Association (BHA) expressed its disappointment at the remarks.

“The notion that it was the atheism of Nazis that led to their extremist and hateful views or that it somehow fuels intolerance in Britain today is a terrible libel against those who do not believe in God.

“The notion that it is non-religious people in the UK today who want to force their views on others, coming from a man whose organisation exerts itself internationally to impose its narrow and exclusive form of morality and undermine the human rights of women, children, gay people and many others, is surreal.”

The Pope’s speech follows controversial comments by one of his top aides in an interview with German magazine Focus.

Sky News on Pope atheist slur speech

Stephen Fry is hated by the Daily Mail (but by no one else, fortunately).

Sometimes, I must confess, I can get a little hurt when that shrieky weaselly little bourgeois tabloid is mean to me, which I believe is very often. I don’t read it of course: like anyone of education or sense or moral decency I wouldn’t have such a purulent creepy production in the house. Nonetheless, by the osmosis of twitter and well-intentioned cabbies I sometimes get to hear of some spiteful snide remark or other and naturally I can be upset.

Today’s headline ["AN UNHOLY WELCOME TO BRITAIN"] and the leader inside however actually made me genuinely guffaw and wriggle with delight. It is the final proof, if proof were needed, that the Daily Mail is not just actually wicked (intentionally, knowingly lying) but actually now quite, quite mad. In the name (it must suppose) of morality, spirituality, goodness, kindness, sweetness and honesty it intentionally, knowingly twists, distorts, misrepresents, smears and calumniates. Will their editor and subeditors go to heaven? Is god pleased with them? Have they done a good deed? Is this their advertisement for the religious way? To lie?

I can always be certain that I have done a good thing when out of all the descriptions they can choose, their leader writers select “quizmaster”. “What has this country come to,” they want to know, “when an egregious, self-satisfied quizmaster presumes to make moral pronouncements on a two thousand year old institution etc etc.”

As it happens I have spent many many more hours of my life as a writer and a journalist than as a “quizmaster”, yet, oddly enough, we don’t read the Mail coming up with: “What has this country come to when a journalist presumes to make moral pronouncements on a two thousand year old etc.?”

Perhaps the Mail leader writer would be kind enough to explain to the world what qualifications are needed to allow one to express an opinion, or write a letter to a newspaper? What profession should one belong to and can we have a list of those which in fact disbar us from expressing one’s views?

I was one of 50 signatories to a letter that called into question the official state nature of the papal visit. I didn’t write the letter, but am proud to stand behind it and with my fellow signatories. Otherwise my “hate campaign”, as they well know, begins with the words, “I’ve no objection to the Pope coming to visit Britain, he is welcome to do so…” it is, as I go on to say, none of my business. I go out of my way to make it clear that I fully respect the desire of the pious, the faithful and the devout to welcome their spiritual father, their supreme Pontiff.

My only objection is that this be a State Visit. It hasn’t happened before and the Vatican is in no real sense a nation state. Visit the place: it takes fifty minutes to walk round. You don’t need a passport or visa to enter. It is a curlicue of history that makes this “absolute monarchy” (to quote the Holy See’s own website) a “country”. Under no reasonable or worthwhile definition does the Vatican match up to the old-established and widely accepted Montevideo protocols on statehood. So by all means come, but please don’t ask the British taxpayer (a figure whom the Daily Mail is usually so zealous to protect) to help foot the bill.

Believe me, there is no hate there. None whatever. The Mail knows this perfectly well.

Continues: http://www.stephenfry.com/2010/09/16/dailymailhate/

Abuse survivors network SNAP describes the Pope’s limited regrets about child sex abuse and paedophile priests as ”disingenuous”.

On his plane shortly before landing in Britain for a historic visit, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his “great sadness” over revelations of widespread abuse of children by Catholic priests, saying that “authorities in the church have not been vigilant enough” in combating the problem.

But the US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said the Pope’s comments were “hurtful, not helpful”, and that any Vatican action on ridding the church of abusive priests or turning them over to law enforcement has been “virtually insignificant”.

“It’s disingenuous to say church officials have been slow and insufficiently vigilant in dealing with clergy sex crimes and cover-ups,” SNAP’s southwestern regional director Joelle Casteix said in a statement.

“On the contrary, they’ve been prompt and vigilant, but in concealing, not preventing, these horrors.”

The Catholic Church has been shaken by revelations that priests and Catholic teachers in Ireland, the United States and other countries had abused children in their care.

Casteix said papal claims of insufficient vigilance “imply that all’s well and that just a tad more attentiveness and promptness is needed. That’s patently false”.

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/abuse-victims-group-blasts-pope-20100916-15eu6.html

And, this guy thinks you have thin skin if you object when someone tries to associate you with the Nazis.

So you heard it here first, people; the Nazis wished to eradicate God from society, and were “atheist extremists”. Those presumably would be the Nazis run by one A. Hitler, who in his book Mein Kampf said: “I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”

Hitler also said in a speech in Munich: “My feelings as a Christian point me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognizsed these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders.” There are dozens more quotes along these lines here.

Let me stress: I am not saying the horrors of Nazism were the fault of Christianity. That would be idiotic. They were the fault of Hitler and his coterie, of the political thinking of the time, of the propensity for humans to get swept up in the madness of crowds, of the economic collapse of the Weimar Republic, and, yes, of too many ordinary Germans. But to blame atheism for them is not only idiotic in exactly the same way, but demonstrably wrong: Hitler, and most Europeans of the time, were Christian, and doubtless many thought (wrongly; we can all agree that) that they were doing God’s work.

The thing is, in this febrile atmosphere, when secularists are accusing Catholics of covering up child abuse and Catholics are accusing secularists of causing moral decline, and everyone’s shouting at each other, it would have been nice if the man at the centre of the whole storm went and tried to calm things down a bit. Saying “the Holocaust was the atheists’ fault” is hardly pouring oil on troubled water. It’s a shame, that’s all.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tomchivers/100046969/pope-visit-blaming-atheists-for-nazism-is-both-silly-and-demonstrably-wrong/

Pope Benedict XVI has begun his state visit to the UK with an admission that the Catholic church was too slow to tackle paedophilia by priests, and an attack on “aggressive secularism” and “atheist extremism”.

Speaking to invited guests after his first meeting, with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, the pope wasted no time in appealing for a role for religion in society, while laying into what he termed “the more aggressive forms of secularism”. And in what appeared to be a swipe at some of his most vociferous critics, he linked “atheist extremism” to the Nazism that Britain had fought in the second world war.

On the flight from Rome, the pope used his strongest language to date on the church’s involvement in sex abuse, saying he deplored its failure to act swiftly and decisively in the past and that the Catholic church was “at a moment of penitence” over its record on clerical sex abuse.

The papal flight touched down at Edinburgh airport just after 10.15am, where the pope was met by Prince Philip.

The pope told reporters on board the plane that paedophilia was an “illness” whose sufferers had lost their free will.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/16/popes-visit-benedict-arrives-uk

Godwin’s Law; slurs about “atheist extremism” (extremely not believing in God?); and a kind of  implication that loads of Christians stood up to the Nazis but no one else did and that there were no Christians actually amongst Nazis. This speech, delivered by Pope Ratzinger this morning at Holyroodhouse, has it all.

Your Majesty,

Thank you for your gracious invitation to make an official visit to the United Kingdom and for your warm words of greeting on behalf of the British people. In thanking Your Majesty, allow me to extend my own greetings to all the people of the United Kingdom and to hold out a hand of friendship to each one.

It is a great pleasure for me to start my journey by saluting the members of the Royal Family, thanking in particular His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh for his kind welcome to me at Edinburgh Airport. I express my gratitude to Your Majesty’s present and previous Governments and to all those who worked with them to make this occasion possible, including Lord Patten and former Secretary of State Murphy. I would also like to acknowledge with deep appreciation the work of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Holy See, which has contributed greatly to strengthening the friendly relations existing between the Holy See and the United Kingdom.

As I begin my visit to the United Kingdom in Scotland’s historic capital city, I greet in a special way First Minister Salmond and the representatives of the Scottish Parliament. Just like the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies, may the Scottish Parliament grow to be an expression of the fine traditions and distinct culture of the Scots and strive to serve their best interests in a spirit of solidarity and concern for the common good.

The name of Holyroodhouse, Your Majesty’s official residence in Scotland, recalls the “Holy Cross” and points to the deep Christian roots that are still present in every layer of British life. The monarchs of England and Scotland have been Christians from very early times and include outstanding saints like Edward the Confessor and Margaret of Scotland. As you know, many of them consciously exercised their sovereign duty in the light of the Gospel, and in this way shaped the nation for good at the deepest level. As a result, the Christian message has been an integral part of the language, thought and culture of the peoples of these islands for more than a thousand years. Your forefathers’ respect for truth and justice, for mercy and charity come to you from a faith that remains a mighty force for good in your kingdom, to the great benefit of Christians and non-Christians alike.

We find many examples of this force for good throughout Britain’s long history. Even in comparatively recent times, due to figures like William Wilberforce and David Livingstone, Britain intervened directly to stop the international slave trade. Inspired by faith, women like Florence Nightingale served the poor and the sick and set new standards in healthcare that were subsequently copied everywhere. John Henry Newman, whose beatification I will celebrate shortly, was one of many British Christians of his age whose goodness, eloquence and action were a credit to their countrymen and women. These, and many people like them, were inspired by a deep faith born and nurtured in these islands.

Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. I also recall the regime’s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a “reductive vision of the person and his destiny” (Caritas in Veritate, 29).

Sixty-five years ago, Britain played an essential role in forging the post-war international consensus which favoured the establishment of the United Nations and ushered in a hitherto unknown period of peace and prosperity in Europe. In more recent years, the international community has followed closely events in Northern Ireland which have led to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and the devolution of powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly. Your Majesty’s Government and the Government of Ireland, together with the political, religious and civil leaders of Northern Ireland, have helped give birth to a peaceful resolution of the conflict there. I encourage everyone involved to continue to walk courageously together on the path marked out for them towards a just and lasting peace.

Looking abroad, the United Kingdom remains a key figure politically and economically on the international stage. Your Government and people are the shapers of ideas that still have an impact far beyond the British Isles. This places upon them a particular duty to act wisely for the common good. Similarly, because their opinions reach such a wide audience, the British media have a graver responsibility than most and a greater opportunity to promote the peace of nations, the integral development of peoples and the spread of authentic human rights. May all Britons continue to live by the values of honesty, respect and fair-mindedness that have won them the esteem and admiration of many.

Today, the United Kingdom strives to be a modern and multicultural society. In this challenging enterprise, may it always maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate. Let it not obscure the Christian foundation that underpins its freedoms; and may that patrimony, which has always served the nation well, constantly inform the example your Government and people set before the two billion members of the Commonwealth and the great family of English-speaking nations throughout the world.

May God bless Your Majesty and all the people of your realm. Thank you.

The Queen welcomes the Pope to Britain this morning at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Her task is formal and constitutional, for this is the first state visit by a pope, and it must without exaggeration be called historic. But the task will be congenial for the Queen, too. She was the first British monarch to pay a state visit to the Vatican, in 1980. “We support the growing movement of unity between the Christian Churches throughout the world,” she told Pope John Paul II then, as she invited him to visit her kingdom in 1982. There is no embarrassment here. The Queen is confident in her Christian belief and in her duty to uphold the Protestant religion to which she swore at her Coronation. She is equally confident of the loyalty of her Catholic subjects.

To the whole nation, the Pope’s visit holds up a mirror. What kind of people are we? We like to think that we are tolerant. We defend the right of secularist critics to protest against the Pope, without violence. Yet Britain is no secular country. It has an established Church. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of All England, is as hopeful for the Christian benefits of the visit as is the Queen, the Supreme Governor of that Church. Dr Williams has far more in common with the Pope than a fondness for cats: their shared hope is in the Church’s one foundation. True, numbers going to church here have taken a dip since 1982. But it is lazy to presume that materialist secularism inevitably replaces faith. As Baroness Warsi, the first Muslim woman in the Cabinet, said yesterday: “Our world is more religious than ever.” She had Christianity, Islam and Judaism in mind, and her words echoed the Prime Minister’s warm welcome to the Pope. More than materialism, he said, society “should be about shared values and working for the common good”.

Continues: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/8005253/Pope-visit-A-heartfelt-welcome-to-Britain.html

Less fatuous-sounding, concise translation: Religion holds all forms of privileged conservative authority together quite nicely, thank you very much. Also, atheists are all immoral and opposed to society. Ta. Bye.

A senior Roman Catholic cleric has pulled out of accompanying the Pope on his visit to Britain after he described the UK as a “Third World country” where Christians are the victims of “an aggressive new atheism”.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, a senior Vatican official and a close aide to Pope Benedict XVI, made his remarks in an interview with the German magazine Focus. Vatican officials stressed his absence was purely for “health reasons” and not because of the interview. But his comments will cause embarrassment in a papal entourage already jittery about criticism aimed at the Pope.

In a discussion on the nature of secularism in the UK, Cardinal Kasper was quoted as saying: “When you land at Heathrow you think at times you have landed in a Third World country.”

Asked whether he thought Christians were discriminated against, the 77-year-old added: “Yes. Above all, an aggressive new atheism has spread through Britain. If, for example, you wear a cross on British Airways, you are discriminated against.” It was not clear whether the cardinal was accusing BA of discriminating against Christian passengers or if he was referring to the legal battle between the airline and an employee who was disciplined for refusing to remove her crucifix.

Fr Federico Lombardi, the Vatican’s chief spokesman, told The Independent that the Cardinal had been referring to the racial diversity of Britain and did not mean it as a slight. “Cardinal Kasper had no negative intentions or lowered appreciation towards the United Kingdom,” he said.

Continues: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/aides-slur-on-third-world-uk-adds-to-ill-feeling-on-eve-of-popes-arrival-2080503.html

Opponents of the first ever state visit of a pope to the UK have been readying themselves for the arrival of Benedict XV in Edinburgh on Thursday.

Critics say the Roman Catholic Church is hostile towards homosexuality, citing its stance against gay marriage and adoption by homosexual couples.

It has also come under fire for its opposition to abortion, IVF, stem cell research and the use of condoms.

In recent weeks, there been some vociferous attacks on the Pope, with some calling for his arrest over his handling of the clerical sex abuse crisis that has scandalised the Church.

Supporters of the Church, though, say the most ferocious attacks come from militant secularists and radical humanists who are disturbed by faith and want to deny religion any voice in the public square, thereby undermining their own claim to pluralism.

The nature of the Pope’s trip has also proved controversial because British taxpayers have to underwrite the state’s £10m share of the costs.

Here is a rundown of some of the groups who will be speaking out during the Pope’s visit…

Continues: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11294941