Nervecentre

The Homophobic Criminal Pope

If you didn't know already, the new Pope is a homophobe.

Not only that, but Ratzinger, (some might say criminally), 'obstructed justice' after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church's investigation into child abuse claim's be kept secret.

The Catholic faith does not deserve this bigoted, prejudiced and criminal man at it's head. He should be deposed, (or even excommunicated), immediately.

'The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001. 

It asserted the church's right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood. The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected as John Paul II's successor last week.

Lawyers acting for abuse victims claim it was designed to prevent the allegations from becoming public knowledge or being investigated by the police. They accuse Ratzinger of committing a 'clear obstruction of justice'.

 

The Observer article goes on;

'Daniel Shea, the lawyer for the two alleged victims who discovered the letter, said: 'It speaks for itself. You have to ask: why do you not start the clock ticking until the kid turns 18? It's an obstruction of justice.'

Here's what the Gay People's Chronicle has to say about the new Pope;

While Perry’s comments were measured and political, executive director         Matt Foreman of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force was more blunt.

“Today, the princes of the Roman Catholic Church elected as pope a man         whose record has been one of unrelenting, venomous hatred for gay people,”         Foreman said. “As a long-time Catholic from a staunchly Catholic family,         I know that the history of the church is full of shameful, centuries-long         chapters involving vilification, persecution, and violence against others.”

“Someday, the church will apologize to gay people as it has to others         it has oppressed in the past,” he opined. “I very much doubt that this         day will come during this pope’s reign.”

“In fact,” he concluded, “it seems inevitable that this pope will cause         even more pain and give his successors even more for which to seek atonement.”

Ratzinger, who was born in 1927, joined the Hitler Youth when he was         14, and was later conscripted into the German army. He was posted as a         guard at a factory using slave labor from a concentration camp before         deserting the army and being picked up as a prisoner of war by American         forces.

Ratzinger has said that resisting either the military service or membership         in the Hitler Youth would have meant his death, but other people from         his home town of Traunstein tell a different story.

“It was possible to resist, and those people set an example for others,”         84-year-old Elizabeth Lohner told the London Times, as quoted in         the New York Post. “The Ratzingers were young--and they had made         a different choice.”

                                         

If Ratzinger clearly cared enough about humanity as a whole, he would atone for his past membership of the Hitler Youth and the German army. As the lady above points out, he had a clear moral choice to object to what was being done in the name of the German people, and quite clearly, he did not. He was part of the system of abuse, and did not stand up to it.

The Nazi's murdered millions. In particular, they went after Jews, gypsys, the disabled, Russians, Poles and gay people.

Why has Ratzinger not the balls to stand up and;

a.) Condemn the crime which the Nazi's perpetrated, (crimes in which he was complicit), in the             strongest terms.
b.) Apologise for his involvement in the Hitler youth and German army.
c.) Apologise to all gay people for obstructing their cause of equality and human rights.
d.) Apologise to the victims of paedophilic abuse whose search for justice he blocked and obstructed.

How can this man look the 1.1 billion Catholic citizen's of the world in the eye and claim to be a man of God???

Source: Observer, Gay People's Chronicle

Bigot

The bigot has only been in the job for a week and already he is condemining progress and equal rights.

Source: BBC

The Pope

For those of you that, (like me), are fed up with the papal love fest and the media overkill, there's a very interesting story here from the BBC on alternative view points about the Pope and his legacy.

It sounds as though he wasn't quite as great as some would have us believe...

Source: BBC

The Catholic Cardinal, The Da Vinci Code & the Nature of Censorship

So, a cardinal inside the Vatican has spoken out about the Dan Brown book 'The Da Vinci Code' stating that Catholics should avoid the book at all costs. To my ears this sounds at best encitement to boycott and at worst, encouragement to censor or even ban. I am sure that, at a different time in history, this is what might well have happened, with the author perhaps cast out from the faith or flagellated or even eviscerated for his sins.

Strong words have been used by the cardinal, saying Catholics should shun it like rotten food and branding it 'a sack full of lies' that is an insult to the Christian faith.

Now, I'm usually the first to rush in to the breach when this sort of talk goes on. What the cardinal seems to have misunderstood here is that 'The Da Vinci Code' is a work of fiction. If I remember correctly, the author has quite clearly stated, on numerous occasions, that there is very little, if any, grain of truth to the novel.

"I would ask the author of this book and similar ones to be more respectful because freedom of expression has limits when it does not respect others,"

Its incredible to think that someone could be so blinkered and easily upset by a work of fiction. I am sure Dan Brown meant no harm or insult to Catholics, or indeed members of other faiths. It is this denial of the exploration of religion, faith and meaning that is the true evil here, the unquestioning dogmatic belief that we should be more worried about than a work of fiction. Surely large swathes of the Bible might be said to have a liberal sprinkling of artistic embellishment, or the Koran, or any other religious text.

The cardinal's outburst seeks to highlight just how gullible he believes the book reading public must be. Since when did anyone read a work of fiction and take it, quite literally, as gospel? Surely this kind of assumption is tantamount to an insult to he majority of the intelligent book reading world community. What does this man take us for?

Whenever political or religious figures try and take the moral high ground over works of art or entertainment you can guarantee that things are going to get messy. Just look at the furore over the Brass Eye special on paedophilia and the paroxysms that engendered when some of the less enlightened members of our society completely lost touch or understanding of the meaning of 'irony' and 'satire'.

The central tenant of 'The Da Vinci Code' was that Christ did not die on the cross and become ressurected a few days later - it says that he in fact went on to marry Mary Magdalene and they had children together. Apparently, this plot device 'sows doubt and confusion amongst the faithful'... Now, I don't pretend to believe that all, some or none of the Christ story is true. I know that, (from what I have read at least), there is much about the Christ story that can be verified historically. However, it is an insult to us all when bodies, organisations or indeed, preachers use religious or political dogma to deem certain topics 'off limits'.

Of course, we've seen what happens when novelists stray too close to the active volcanism of religious dogma. Salman Rushdie's 'The Satanic Verses' dealt with areas of Islam that caused uproar amongst the worldwide Muslim community, was declared an abomination and the Ayatollah of Iran ordered a fatwah (death sentence) against Rushdie, who subsequently went into hiding.

Even recently, a play about the Sikh community (Behtzi - Dishonour) that depicted a rape in a Sikh temple was protested against by the Sikh community in Birmingham and the play was subsequently closed down. Rushdie spoke out about this and said that the government should have done more to quash the protests to enable freedom of expression for artists.

Of course, by marking something out as offensive to many, or causing extreme upset can only add oxygen to the fire of publicity. When Radio 1 DJ Mike Read took Frankie Goes To Hollywood's 'Relax' off the radio mid-song on his popular breakfast show in 1984, the resulting publicity and furore helped to catapult the single to number 1 in the music charts. And controversial films such as Straw Dogs, The Exorcist, A Clockwork Orange and The Evil Dead all earned notoriety for being banned or heavily edited at various times, boosting the cache of being able to say you'd seen it, (and of course, it helped that they were all excellent films).

So perhaps all the cardinal has done is to help 'The Da Vinci Code' on its way, not that it needed the help, it is already a runaway international bestseller with a movie adaptation in the pipeline.

In an ideal world, no topic, subject, faith or belief would be 'off limits'. Surely it is the mark of a culturally mature and adult civilisation to question and explore the meaning of areas and beliefs that effect the very course of our lives. Art and entertainment should not be restricted by 'no go areas', for, if that were to become the norm, we would all be much poorer for it.