Go unfrock yourself, Ratzo

This kind of language really pisses me off:

During an interview on [. . .] Radio 4’s Today programme, Cardinal [Cormac] Murphy-O’Connor [Catholic leader in England and Wales] said that the pope “wasn’t condemning anyone or any person” with his comments.

The cardinal went on to say that the pope was only trying to emphasise the importance of the family, and the responsibility on humans to procreate.

He also said that Pope Benedict’s comments were “quite difficult to interpret” and as a result of this that he had been “very much” misrepresented in the media.

The Pope said behaviour beyond traditional heterosexual relations is “a destruction of God’s work”.

The comments concerned are those Pope Ratzo made (and has been throughly criticised for) when he said that the existence of gay people threatens humanity as much as the destruction of the rainforests does.

Ratzo is a fine one to talk of “responsibility”. The responsibility is on humans not to procreate at the moment, not to have as many babies as it’s humanly possible to have. These people obviously find it hard to see that the planet is burgeoning with life, and it’s becoming unsustainable.

Every person born is going to require food and much of his or her body is going to be made up of finite water. Then there will be the social demands: the need for more infrastructure, the demands not just for homes, but also for mod cons such as cars (and the fuel to run them), washing machines, computers, TV sets – none of which are absolutely necessary to life and limb but you know that there will be the demand, and companies will move heaven and earth (and often huge pieces of earth) to satisfy it.

Then there is the question of the industry required to provide those things that are necessary, such as clothing, tools, homes.

Sure as hell, this is going to lead to ever more people on the poor end of poor, scratching around in the earth for grains of rice, potbellied kids starving – you’ve seen the images a thousand times.

This doesn’t even consider overcrowded cities and the concomitant friction as more and more people have to reach the accommodation necessary to live alongside one another – especially those of different religions, each group making its unreasonable demands.

And what’s this that Murphy-O’Connor says about how Ratzo’s comments are “difficult to interpret”? Just how difficult is it to interpret that gay sex is as big a threat as the loss of rainforests?

As for that “destruction of God’s work”, this is just gratuitously insulting. Ratzo really should hang his head in shame – better still, do the decent thing and shoot himself.

Trouble is, one puff of white smoke and there will be an equally bigoted excuse for a human being to take his place. Which wouldn’t be so bad if the media didn’t continue to legitimise his comments by treating them as news, without severely bollocking him in their leader columns.