The Pope has urged the Catholic Church to stop the slide into blurring of sex roles and to stop the destruction of mankind through homosexuality and transsexuality. He rubbishes gender theory which is an artificial concept.
He doesn't however rubbish the myths and fairy tales his whole empire is built on. How much longer have we got to stand by while these out of touch imbeciles pronounce on issues they neither understand nor have any right to speak about?
Where's the peace and love supposedly preached by Jesus? In a world heading for 9 billion souls, how can mankind be under threat, except from shortage of natural resources? This time the silly old fool has gone too far. This time it feels personal.
Disgusted of Dorchester.
Angharad.
Comments
bugger mankind
I'll stand with the women, well sort of an honourary member maybe in some eye's but stuff them too. Artificial concept is it? And here I thought you had to be a smart man to be pope, never mind the compassion and love angles, no wonder they don't want women priests.
Kristina
Everything you write ...
... echoes my own feelings. I'm 100% with you ... or even more if that's possible. I'm glad I'm not religious; I wouldn't want to be a member of a club that's so homophobic and misogynistic ... and I'm neither gay nor female (or TS come to that).
Power to your writing elbow.
Geoff
Confirms My Prejudices
The biggest supposedly Christian church throws people like us to the outer darkness. I seem to remember some passages in the New Testament such as "Suffer the little children..." Maybe I'm wrong.
Okay, we're on our own, so what? That's where we've always been. Let's not expect any help from organised religion or legislative bodies or so-called sympathetic communities such as gay/lesbian.
It's just us, kids. Get used to it. We're on our own. Don't give in,
Joanne
You Have the Face You Deserve
This man, and his work with his predecessor, have set back the Catholic Church fifty years. It was absolutely scary to see him in Germany, where he failed to accept the full responsibility for the Catholic Church's role in the holocaust. He appears to live in an age where the list unacceptable and secondary people is lengthy and cast in concrete.
This is not the Church of Inclusion envisioned by many not too many decades ago.
Christ taught a Gospel of love and compassion. He did not address the question of transsexuality or homosexuality. Was that an oversight? Not likely.
I wrote a story about this -- Exitus Acta Probat.
http://www.bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/572/exitus-acta-pr...
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
>> This man, and his work with his predecessor...
Well, "Pope" is an elective office, with a very limited electorate, so it might be more precise to say that the highest authorities of the church have set back the clock...
It seems to me that the hierarchy of the church was just itching to be set back, and arranged a series of guys with that exact intention to carry it out.
It seems over-personification, perhaps even idolatrous, to settle on one or two guys to carry the whole weight of right-wing revisionism in one of the largest Christian churches, especially since the same process, with more or less success and perhaps more angst, is going on in many other Christian churches. The Anglican/Episcopalian communion appears to be breaking apart over similar bigotry, as are the Presbyterians and others. The Methodists too have their problems.
I submit that this is part of a political and cultural process that permeates the larger global community, perhaps fueled by increasing scarcity, in which angry subsets of humanity stake out territory within which they can tell everyone else to get stuffed.
Cheers,
Puddin'
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The first priest was the first
rogue who met the first fool.
--- Voltaire
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Agreeing
but also feeling the need to point out that we will be heading for that 9 Billion figure for quite awhile, seeing as how we're not quite to 6.5 Billion yet.
Edeyn
Population growth
The world population has almost tripled in my lifetime (1940 < 2.5 billion 2008 approx 6.5 billion) so perhaps that 9.5 billion figure might not be so far away.
Geoff
And yet it moves....
The quote attributed to Galileo when he was forced by the Papacy to renounce his scientific findings that the Earth revolves around the sun....
Having been raised a Roman Catholic, subject to its lies and ignorant hypocrisies, I lost patience and respect for the hierarchy of the Church years ago. Comments like those by the most recent pope underscore that I was not mistaken.
The Church denies anything that it feels threatens the continuing powers of their establishments - it denies reality as long as it can, but eventually it loses the argument.
The average Catholic is no mere automaton, however, and adherer to the teachings of the church only as long as they think them wise. I've more faith in Catholics than I do in the RC Church; it's power is by no means absolute.
YW
He conquers who endures. ~ Persius
Vatican fear of losing authority
Having made an all too brief foray in recent days into the history of the papacy, I have discovered that Joseph Ratzinger and his predecessors, in the main, have spoiled their right to claim anything in the name of God. The Vatican and the Jesuits are intent on one world government and intend that government to their patsy. According to the prophesy of St. Malachy; Ratzinger is the 111th and perhaps the penulitmate pope. What is to come after his successor is subject to much speculation.
I have no quarrel with the millions of seriously practicing catholics around the world. I pray that they too may be enlightened as to who/what it is that is directing their faith.
My own church has accepted me and love me for being part of their church family. They have not become bogged down by the dogma and rhetoric of the church hierarchy.
As YW implies, the Vatican is very slow to learn a lesson and seem not to learn from lessons they have been given in the past. Many clear thinking individuals, and organisations, learn from their mistakes and move on. Not the Vatican it seems. The Vatican is keen on sowing the seed of ignorance because it is in that ignorance that they maintain power.
The 20th century saw tremendous changes to the "ignorance" of the masses and hence the authority of the papacy.
I believe in God and His message for our lives, but not in the way that established religion has shaped it with "man's" thinking into a hideous and gross misrepresentation.
God knew about my transgendered status even before I did. I did not make a decision that He already did not know about.
Merry Christmas to you all and I hope that you enjoy the holiday season as it presents itself in your world.
Robyn B
Sydney
Robyn B
Sydney
Glad there is a God
Hi,
I'm glad there is a God as he has given doctors the skills to formally agree that I'm transgendered, and surgeons the skills to operate on me. I know that God moves in mysterious ways and has a purpose for everyone. Why he made me TS, who knows.
What I do know is that the Pope is NOT a God, and therefore has no right to try and interpret why I am like I am. As a supposedly relegious man, is it right for him to question how God has made me? Is it right for someone who teaches to "love thy neighbour" to then spread hatred?
In 1633 the Vatican questioned the teachings of Galileo that Earth circled the Sun. It took them 359 years to agree and even longer to appologise. I hope they don't take 359 years for there teachings to catch up on scientific knowledge regarding gender identity and sexuality.
Karen
A guy (pope) in a dress shouldn't throw stones
I would think that a guy (pope) in a dress shouldn't throw stones. We just have to picture his and his officials robes as dresses, refer to them as dresses whenever we can and then sit back, smile while they do a slow burn and try to explain they aren't dresses.
A similar discussion with my son
We should fight on in spite of knowing that this whole world is heading for the ultimate conflict. I will stand before God and say that this was not voluntary.
makes me glad I am a "Christian" and NOT a "Catholic" follower
I disagree totally with the POPE and he has never been my God's representative on Earth.
I speak with my God every day. It's my listening that is somewhat difficult...
My God may be stern at times but He is not a bigot.
My God is a God of Love and forgiveness as well as one who understands the enormous diversity held within the souls out there. I pity everyone who follows this Pope.
God Bless You All...
God and I are cool.
It's his followers
Christian/Catholic
I'm with you T D.
I am Christian. Like you, my listening skills need more practice and then the communication will become clearer.
Robyn B
Sydney
Robyn B
Sydney
Tell it like it is TD
I'm not a Christian but the Spirit we worship is all the same. The RCC has unfortunatly perverted a good thing for money, influence and power. My roomie is a member of the RCC but does not follow the institution, especially after the local franchises started telling its parishoners how they should vote and if they did not vote that way it was a sin. I cannot be party to any faith that would teach its followers to hate and revile themselves for being LGBT or not make it explicitly clear to its followers that such judgemental behavior is wrong. The Bible admonishes people for judging others but the church is complicit in this wrongful behavior by ignoring that because it practices this hateful behavior itself; a selective license to do so?
I often use a parent/child model for describing our relationship with the Spirit. Lets just say we're not using the parent model you would see on Cops or America's Most Wanted.
First, it would be naive and arrogant to create God in man's image, including asigning man's flawed and dysfunctional emotions and character faults. What parent would condem their child to eternal suffering? Much less predestin their unborn child to this? A parent may correct a child but would a parent be vengful? Give the God(s) you worship some respect and do not characterize them in such a manner that you have reason to be any more fearful of them than you would if you ignored your own parents wishes. If anything I'd say that if you screw up you might have a bad day, things won't necessarily go your way and your God(s) may ignor you for your abuses. Its a relationship, don't be the child who calls home only when you need something. Question everything that is laid on you by any intermediary of a religious franchise for motive..what is it they have to gain by you buying what it is they are selling, where is God's word in it? Follow your heart, not theirs.
Sorry for preaching but there needs to be more love spread around, especially in this community.
Blessings, Christine
Luntic PONTIFF WANTS TO CAUSE ECO-COLLAPSE!
Angharad, I thought you response was very restrained.
when I heard what that old fool had to say about sexuality and gender variants, it made me say "Thank god I'm an Atheist !" :)
This from the Fuehrer of the RCC, who encourages the poorest folk to overbreed raising kids they cant feed properly, rather than encouraging sensible contraception. And as a CELIBATE, he surely knows about the same about sex and gender as Amoeba does (for the non biologically educated Amoeba is a unicellluar aimalcule that has no shape and no sex and reproduces by dividing into two!).
It is IMHO time that the RCC was Proscribed as a Terrorist Organization - they have been guilty of un-numbered murders, torturing people, genocide, and mass dys-information. Also their priests have frequently molested little boys. The RCC is the world's largest, richest, oldest Business. Anyone going to Rome as a Tourist can visit the independent Vatican State, where only bona fide males are citizens, as Tourists. Anyone who does, please dont just look at the front bit, have a walk round the back of the protective walls that surround this Fortress, and peep at the modern glass and steel Tower bristling with Antennae, where some Reverand Gentlemen sit sending out messages to the Church'es Brokers all over the world, "Sell United Tobacco, Buy NORTHROP GRUMMAN & lOCKHEED MARTIN."...
There are more than enough humans on the planet already. The guy should be thanking those who form relationships that cant normally result in yet more babies, for being how they are, or not just the trees, the entire oecology will soon collapse.
Luckily, the peoples of the world are leaving the RCC en mass. The days when what the Pope says was taken as important are coming to an end. Not before time!
Briar
Briar
If only it were so...
>> leaving the RCC en mass...
There are always new thick-headed clods coming along. That's what "missionary" activities are for. There are still large populations mired in ignorance and superstition, which makes them the perfect suckers for a sophisticated con. All sorts of churches are "in decline" and simultaneously experiencing rapid growth, depending on where you look.
Remember The Marching Morons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons
Like the poor, the dolts are always with us...
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
I did perform the ultimate act of deterrent..
I also wrote to the Guardian, who will doubtless ignore it.
Angharad
Angharad
I think that's a requirement...
I post from time to time, but much of the available space is taken up by those whose primary purpose in life is to rant in tiresome detail, over and over and over again, sometimes dozens of essentially identical reposts in the same stack of comments. I think they believe it to be something like saying a "rosary," or setting up a prayer wheel, through which they build up spiritual merit through mindless repetition.
I imagine he's all in favour of the 58-year-old Saudi putz who married an eight-year-old girl, though. It's paedophilia after all, which is an ancient tradition in the Catholic Church, and heterosexual; what more can life possibly offer in the way of morality and justice?
So it goes...
Puddin'
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Two things are infinite: the universe
and human stupidity; and I'm not sure
about the the universe.
--- Albert Einstein
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style