Ekklesia, the religious think tank, has helpfully brought together the thoughts of the three main UK political leaders on matters of “faith” – and there’s not much to choose between them. Oh, Clegg of the Lim Dems says he’s not a man of “faith”, but he allows his kids to be brought up Catholics by his deluded wife. (OK, one of them had to win the argument over where to send the sprogs, I guess, but he’s not denouncing these dens of dogma.)
Cameron for the toffs is just dying to see the Holy Twat put his dainty red jackboots on our soil.
And Brown? Well, he’s NuLabour. What do you expect? Just sycophancy (he did, after all, visit Ratzo and then invite him here), status quo, let’s not upset people just because they’re deluded, misguided idiots, let’s not actually use our political influence to show what a monster Ratzinger is and refuse him a state visit.
Read Ekklesia’s report on what was said in last night’s prime-ministerial TV debate here. But here’s a bit from each of the leaders.
CAMERON
I do think it’s welcome that the Pope is coming to Britain and if were your Prime Minister I would want to support that visit and make sure I could do everything in my power to make it a success.
There are millions of people in our country who would welcome that, who share the Pope’s Catholic faith and I think we should try and sic] make a success of it but do I agree with everything the Pope says? No. I don’t agree with him about contraception, I don’t agree with him about homosexuality and I think the Catholic church has got some very, very serious work to do to unearth and come to terms with some of the appalling things that have happened and they need to do that but I do think that we should respect people of faith, I think faith is important in our country.
I think faith-based organisations, whether they are Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Hindu do amazing things in our country, whether it is working in our prisons or providing good schools or actually helping some of those vulnerable people in our country, so a country where faith is welcome, yes. A good visit from the Pope, yes, but does that mean we have to agree with everything he says? No.
No, but you’re not saying we, the taxpayers, should not have to fork out an estimated twenty million quid for this unutterable shit.
And how do you define a successful visit by this man? My definition would be that we give him a welcome so warm that he combusts. No different from the treatment his kind used to mete out to those who didn't agree with them. But it's better that he not come in the first place, and be told he’s not welcome.
CLEGG
My wife – I’m not a man of faith – my wife, Miriam, is Catholic, my children are being brought up in her faith so I have a little bit of an insight into the immense feelings of anguish in the Catholic community here and elsewhere and I think many Catholics themselves feel really extremely torn apart by what’s happened and I think they do want to see the Catholic church express greater openness and repentance.
You can’t keep a lid on sin and of course you need to move with the times. I do welcome the Pope’s visit but I hope by the time he does visit there is a greater recognition that there has been terrible, terrible suffering, there has been abusive relationships which have left immeasurable scars on individual people’s lives and we need a process of openness and then healing. You can’t undo the tragedies of the past but you can be open about them so people can start to move on.
And you can help people to move on by keeping that monster out of our country – or at least sending a very strong message that he’s not wanted here (Geert Wilders was banned from our country by NuLabour for far less).
BROWN
I’ve met some of the people who have rightly complained about the abuse that they were subject to when young and it never leaves them, it’s something that is with them always and no matter what you can try to do to help, there is always this problem that they have to face up to every day that they were abused, cruelly abused, by people in whom they placed their faith and trust. So the church has got to deal with these problems and it has got to make sure there is an open and clean confession about what has happened and that we help those people that have been put into difficulty by this abuse.
But, you know, I welcome the Pope’s visit to Britain, and I want him to come to Britain for two reasons. One is the Catholic Church is a great part of our society and we should recognise it as such and I hope every British citizen wants to see this visit by the Pope take place, and secondly, we must break down the barriers of religion that exist in our world.
The faiths must come together and recognise that they have common values and common interests. We all believe that we should be good neighbours to each other, I’m from the Presbyterian religion but I support the visit. I not only support it, I want religious faiths to work more closely together in society.
Well they’re clearly not going to be able to work with the evil Catholic Church, are they – the church you allow to run schools that are allowed to torture the minds of kids and make them feel utterly ashamed of themselves for being natural? No, because the Catholic Church will not move an inch on that bit of dogma – and many others – will it?
This makes me determined not to vote for any of them: the smarmy toff Cameron, the hypocrite Clegg, the sycophant Brown.
Now, will someone pass me the bucket!
__________
Related link: Gay & Lesbian Humanist article by yours truly on the “invitation to a monster”
1 comment:
Has it not occurred to anyone how bizarre it is for all three Party leaders to declare that they welcome the Pope's visit when they all reject his view on so many important moral issues? Isn't this a bit like the Pope welcoming Peter Tatchell to the Vatican?
Of course the reality is that none of them want to alienate the UK Catholics for fear of losing their votes.
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