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.

Get off the fence, Gordy, and give Ratzo what for

I’m glad to see that Pope Ratzinger* continues to get flak over his fatuous comments about condoms.

But now it’s Gordon Brown’s turn to tell us where he stands on the issue.

You see, Brown recently reiterated an invitation for the evil former Nazi to come here to the UK (no doubt at enormous expense).

Then we learned that he would be coming.

Now, the ever-helpful think tank Ekklesia tells us that the British government is “being challenged on its position”.

It says:

Health campaigners have been surprised at the silence from 10 Downing Street over the affair. Gordon Brown is keen for the Pope to visit the UK in the near future. As he has visited the Vatican recently, it is thought the Prime Minister is reticent about upsetting the Holy See.

But the British Humanist Association says that the government should come off the fence.

The Association says the Pope’s recent comments may actually increase the problem of the transmission of AIDS.

Some governments have already condemned Ratzo’s remarks. Now, says the BHA, it’s time for Britain – and that means Gordon Brown – to speak up.

But Brown has been brown-nosing; Brown is keen not to upset the old sod.

OK, Gordy. What’ve you got to say for yourself?

Well? Hmm?
__________
* One of my correspondents in the comments section, Truthspew (take a look at the lively blog) suggests that Ratzo is a pedestrian name for . . . well, for Ratzo. Benny the Rat would be better, he/she believes. Nice one, but I go for Ratzo because I always have done (so it’s a consistency thing and I have OCD over consistency) and because I just hate (it may be irrational) bowing to this thing about dyeing your name just because you put on a clean white cassock after a bunch of fogeys have generated some white smoke. That’s why I’ve mostly avoided the Benedict moniker (and, by implication, its diminutive Benny). Always good to hear from you, Truthspew. Keep commenting.

Ratzo condemns same-sex marriage! Oh, what a surprise!

My fellow blogger George Broadhead has been having a go at Ratzo again – and with good reason.

Following the Pope’s latest attack in Portugal on gay marriage, this blog’s dear mother, the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT), has branded this, and previous attacks, as clear evidence of a paranoid obsession about what he perceives as the evil of homosexuality.

The old twat – Ratzo, not George – was addressing a multitude at the shrine of Fatima during a four-day visit to Portugal.

As PTT secretary George pointed out that Ratzo made his first official attack on gay marriage in 2005 following years of condemning same sex couples whilst working for the last Pope. He told a meeting of the Diocese of Rome that same sex unions are only “pseudo matrimony” born of “an anarchic freedom that wrongly passes for true freedom of man”. Before he became Pope, Benedict repeatedly attacked same sex marriage. As Cardinal Ratzinger he issued an edict calling on all Catholic priests to resist government reforms that might lead to gay weddings.

And, in his 2008 Christmas message, he declared that saving humanity from homosexual behaviour was as important as saving the rainforest from destruction. Now, in his address to the faithful in Portugal, he has described gay marriage as an insidious and dangerous threat to the common good.

“These repeated attacks on gay rights, and in particular the right to marriage, amount to a paranoid obsession about what the Pope clearly perceives as an intrinsic moral evil,” George Broadhead has said in a hard-hitting news release.

“Given that the stance of all three main UK political parties is supportive of gay rights, are their leaders going to have the guts to condemn this overt hostility and will the new coalition government think twice about welcoming this ghastly bigot to the UK next September?”

Nope. Sorry. They won’t think twice. The old bastard will put his unwanted pretty little red jackboot onto our soil, and to hell with what huge numbers of people think, or the expense to the UK taxpayer. Mustn’t upset religion.

Yours truly did an article in Gay & Lesbian Humanist recently on this monster.

The evil of Ratzo's “living and relevant force”

So the Catholic Church is just a “creative minority”, Pope Ratzo admits.

The homophobic old bigot was speaking to reporters on the plane taking him to the Czech Republic, and said that creative minorities “determine the future”.

“The Catholic Church must understand itself as a creative minority with a legacy of values which are not a thing of the past, but which are a very living and relevant force that must be realised, rendered present in the public debate,” said the Devil’s spawn.

A very “living and relevant force” that doesn’t think condoms should be distributed as a way of preventing, to some extent, the spread of AIDS? That “living and relevant force”?

Or is it the “living and relevant force” that won’t allow birth control by those among whom, through fear, it wields its evil influence, even though kids can’t be provided for in some societies, and, anyway, every new birth is a further drain on the Earth’s resources?

Perhaps it is the “living and relevant force” that won’t allow abortion – on pain of excommunication – even if women are vulnerable, likely to die, be unable to look after the child or children.

Then there’s the “living and relevant force” that opposes the rights of same-sex partners, and even causes some young people to commit suicide because they can’t bear being gay after being told by Ratzo and his despicable cohort that it’s evil.

This “living and relevant force” continues to insist on sectarian schools, of course, thus ensuring that young people feel alienated from their fellow human beings, not to mention the “living and relevant force” that has tried to cover up the actions of pervy priests who’ve abused young people.

Yes, Benny, old chap, a really useful “living and relevant force”, that!

Ratzo’s in his haven and all’s well with the world

New York Times:

Buffeted by a sexual abuse scandal that is quickly defining his papacy, Pope Benedict XVI marked the fifth anniversary of his election on Monday by telling a group of cardinals that he did not feel alone at the head of what he called a “wounded and sinner” church.

Well, he wouldn’t, would he? He’s cosy in a world that has protected him and his kind since they were immersed in it, with no idea at all of what goes on outside it other than what he has seen. Well we’ve all seen things outside our experience. We have TVs. We walk through cities. He can no more empathise than I can, and probably not sympathise very much, either.

Anyway, as the NYT points out:

His remarks seemed yet another small and indirect reference to the growing sexual abuse scandal, which has focused more directly on whether Benedict, before he became pope, and his subordinates acted strongly enough against pedophile priests.

Quite. Trite words. Totally irrelevant.

The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano says that Ratzo “very strongly feels that he is not alone; that he has on his side the entire college of cardinals, sharing with him tribulations and consolations”.

Well, I’m sure we’re all very happy for him. They’ll share his tribulations while the victims of the child abuse Ratzo – and others – permitted while he was himself a cardinal can go screw themselves and take their own tribulations with them.

He’s done an apology; he can now enjoy the comfort of his pals and the luxury of his position, paid for by the poor followers who have over generations been duped into believing the shit he claims to believe in, and thereby submitting to the very powerful control his organisation wields.

Ratzo goes unchallenged in flagship news prog, NSS not too pleased

The National Secular Society is not a happy bunny today. Understandably, it’s up in arms over the fact that Ratzo the Vile is getting an unchallenged slot tomorrow – Christmas Eve – in Radio 4’s flagship Today programme.

It’s actually in that programme within Today called Thought for the Day, a slot that allows people with weird views to rabbit on about invisible entities, sky fairies and what other people should be doing with their lives.

Ratzo – hot on the heels of his controversial visit to the UK in September – recorded his slot yesterday in the Vatican.

The Daily Mail quotes the NSS’s Terry Sanderson as saying: “The Pope has a lot of questions to answer about the failings of his church and its guilt in covering up child abuse.

“I doubt whether any of this will be addressed in Thought for the Day and nobody will have the opportunity to ask him for clarification.

“Rather than giving the Pope an uninterrupted platform, why won’t he be invited to take the 8.10 interview slot on the Today programme with [anchor] John Humphrys to ask the awkward questions that the Vatican constantly sweeps under the table? Instead we’ll just get the usual whitewash and the Pope rewriting history.”

But, then, the BBC’s director general, Mark Thompson, is one of the more prominent members of the Bewildered Herd – and a devout Catholic to boot. He had a cosy little visit to the Vatican in February, where it’s believed this dodgy little deal was born.

If any ever doubts that religion gets privileges, this ought to put them straight. One of the most controversial figures in the world gets to speak in what is often a hard-news programme and not one question will be put to the evil bastard.

Raving Ratzo relies on revelation

“Truth is the revelation of God in Christ.” And this is what we should be concentrating on. No, this isn’t being said by someone in a care-in-the-community programme, but Pope Ratzo.

Today’s Tablet, the newspaper of the Catholic Church, quotes this Cloud Cuckoo Land resident as saying to theologians that their primary task is to reflect on the truth of Christian revelation as taught by the Church and not just focus on the practical consequences of theology.

Oh, right. So Christian revelation is truth? Revelation itself is truth? Faith is truth?

Yes, according to Ratzo.

“The essential, inescapable characteristic of theology is to ask questions concerning the truth of faith and not simply to ask questions about its practical and social effectiveness.”

So the practical side of theology, and the good (there may be some of that) and (undoubted) bad that it is capable of, are of no consequence. Forget the social effectiveness, just concentrate on having faith.

“Pope Benedict”, says The Tablet, “said theological method could not be established ‘only according to the criteria and norms of other sciences’ but was based on revelation: ‘Truth is the revelation of God in Christ, the response to which demands obedience to faith in communion with the Church and its Magisterium.’ ”

To have faith, you don’t rely on evidence. That’s the whole nature of faith. So how can you know what is true if your faith “reveals” things to you.

These people are totally raving mad – and governments take them seriously. That is very frightening.

Court decision is one in the eye for Ratzo

As if we needed telling yet again, Pope Ratzinger is banging on about how immoral it is for any sexual union that doesn't involve one of each gender. If your sexuality isn't one that lends itself to that happy ideal, you can go to hell.

Ratzo's remarks come after a California court ruled in favour of same-sex marriage, recognising, one assumes, that people have sexual needs, and not all of them fall within the narrow confines of what the Catholic hierarchy say is "moral".

"The union of love, based on matrimony between a man and a woman, which makes up the family, represents a good for all society that cannot be substituted by, confused with, or compared to other types of unions," he says. Blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda.

The Reuters story linked to above tells us, "On Thursday, the California Supreme Court overturned a ban on same-sex marriages in a major victory for gay rights advocates that will allow homosexual couples to marry in the most populous US state."

George W Bush prayed with Ratzo "for the family" while the pope was in the States earlier in the year.

And last year Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the head of the Italian Bishops Conference, made headlines with comments suggested homosexuality was akin to incest and paedophilia.

Bugger the Pope!

A piece of Fascist legislation (note the capital F) is being invoked to prosecute a comedian in Italy for having a go at the Pope.

Today's Times says that Sabrina Guzzanti had declared that Pope Ratzo would "go to Hell and be tormented by homosexual demons". She's now facing a prison term of up to five years. The story continues:

Addressing a Rome rally in July, Sabrina Guzzanti warmed up with a few gags about Silvio Berlusconi – her favourite target for her biting impressions – before moving on to some unrepeatable jokes about Mara Carfagna, the Equal Opportunities Minister and one-time topless model.

But then she got religion, and after warning everyone that within 20 years Italian teachers would be vetted and chosen by the Vatican, she got to the punchline: "But then, within 20 years the Pope will be where he ought to be – in Hell, tormented by great big poofter devils, and very active ones, not passive ones."

You never know: the old tart might enjoy it.

But, for saying that, Guzzanti is now facing a charge of  "offending the honour of the sacred and inviolable person" of the evil old twat, who, along with his predecessors and his religiofascistic thugs in the Vatican, has been responsible for the deaths of countless people by telling them they shouldn't use condoms, as well as self-inflicted death by gay Catholics, not to mention having played a big part in the overpopulation of Planet Earth.

Giovanni Ferrara, the Rome prosecutor, is invoking a 1929 piece of legislation known as the Lateran Treaty (enacted during the Fascist era), made between Italy and the Vatican, which stipulates that an insult to the Pope carries the same penalty as an insult to the Italian President.

Paolo Guzzanti, Guzzanti's father and a centre-right MP, said the move was "a return to the Middle Ages”. "Perhaps my daughter should be submitted to the judgement of God by being made to walk on hot coals," he added.

And Antonio Di Pietro, a senator and former anti-corruption magistrate, who organised the rally at which Guzzanti expressed her hope that Ratzo would get a good buggering, said that the comedian had only "exercised her constitutional right to freedom of thought".

But religions don't like freedom of thought. It threatens their power. It lifts the veil on the evil that lies within many of them, particularly strict Catholicism. Those with cushy jobs and plenty to eat and drink in the Vatican would not want that life of comfort and plenty to disappear if the Catholic world – so much of it suffering abject poverty but still contributing to the cardinals' abundant and lavish lifestyle – suddenly decided it was not going to put up with it any more.

Are we being too harsh on dear old Ratzo?

A British think tank thinks (well, it would, I guess: it’s a think tank) that secularists are treating that nice pope chappie a bit unfairly. They reckon it’s a bit of a witch hunt.

What do you think? Can any persecution of Ratzo the Vile be too much, considering what he stands for, which has been rehearsed time and time again on this blog and others? See this link, which will take you to oodles of posts (including this one – weird, I know, but that’s how it works).

Now the Pope can be buggered in hell

Oh, goody! No prosecution for the comedian in Italy who said Pope Ratzo would go to hell, where he would be buggered by demons.

The Times tells us, "Angelino Alfano, the Italian Minister of Justice, [. . .] said he had refused a request by the public prosecutor in Rome for permission to charge the comedienne and satirist Sabina Guzzanti with insulting Pope Benedict XVI."

The story continues:

Ms Guzzanti had said during a left[-]wing rally in Rome in July that because of the Church's stand on homosexuality the Pope would go to Hell, where he would be tormented by "very active poofter devils".

Under the 1929 Lateran Treaty between Italy and the Vatican, an offence to the pontiff carries the same weight as an offence to the Italian head of state, with a penalty of up to five years in prison. However prosecution requires the go[-]ahead from the Justice Ministry.

So that's one up for free speech, one in the eye for nutty Catholics.

But here's the sting in the tail:

Mr Alfano said he had decided not to proceed with a prosecution "knowing the depth of the Pope's capacity for forgiveness". Speaking at the Catholic University in Milan the minister said that as a Roman Catholic himself he had been "saddened and shamed" by Ms Guzzanti's remarks. However she had accepted full responsibility for them, and he saw "no point in adding further fire to the flames".

So it's nothing to do with the fact that some fossil of a law (a) puts a nutcase in the same category as a head of state and (b) perpetuates the idea that there's something wrong with criticising the head of state in the first place: it's that Ratzo has a "capacity for forgiveness".

Hell, I wouldn't want to be forgiven for insulting the old twat: I'd want him to rage and rant at me and feel the full impact of my satire, and then to be told there would be no prosecution. As it stands, she hasn't been exonerated: she's just been let off getting her wrist slapped for this heinous offence against a religiofascist.

Gay cardinal on the road to sainthood – but his love will be ignored

Ratzo is beatifying Cardinal John Henry Newman today – the last day of his highly expensive (to the British taxpayer) four-day visit to the UK.

But there’ll be no mention of his having been gay, and much in love with Father Ambrose St John, with whom his remains were buried.

And there’ll be a demonstration, too, as there have been throughout Ratzo’s four-day visit to the UK at enormous expense to the taxpayer.

See Digital Journal’s take on the story here, and our own previous posts:

Dem bones, dem bones, dem gay bones

Dem bones, dem bones, dem gone bones

Dem bones, dem bones, dem bones of contention

Brown-nosing

Why on earth are we paying for our Prime Minister to have talks with someone whose way of life is intrinsically evil, and who is morally suspect?

Off he goes to Italy tomorrow to chat to Berlusconi, but he’s dropping off at some point to chinwag with Pope Ratzinger. According to Scotland’s Herald, it’s to discuss “development issues”, whatever they are.

Brown has already repeated an invitation made by his bizarrely superstitious predecessor, Tony Blair, to visit Britain. Who will be paying for that? Who will foot the bill for all the security? Yep, the British taxpayer.

And why the hell does the Herald talk of his having “an audience” with the evil Ratzo? They’re having a meeting, aren’t they? Is he having “an audience” with Berlusconi, too? Does his secretary have “an audience” with Brown when taking him his morning coffee? Or ministers when they pop in for a chat?

Ratzo is not granting “an audience” to Brown: he’s having a meeting with him. It will just happen to take place in or near the old bastard’s luxury abode, that’s all.

Hollow words from an old fart in a frock

So Ratzo has apologised, then. He’s said sorry that his foot soldiers were guilty of ruining people’s lives in Ireland.

Big of him.

He could have done the decent thing and resigned, or topped himself, as some of the victims of priests in several countries have done, according to the National Secular Society (NSS).

But the victims and their families will have to make do with an apology from an old fart in a frock. The trouble is, some of them – good Catholics that they are – will just tug their forelocks and accept it.

Got to hand it to the NSS, though. Its director, Keith Porteous Wood, pulled no punches in Geneva when he spoke this week to the United Nations Human Rights Council on behalf of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, which he represents.

“Billions of dollars – and euros – have already been paid out in respect of thousands of victims in the USA and Ireland,” he said. “News of further abuse has since appeared in Austria, the Netherlands and now Germany – and this is just the tip of the iceberg. How much more evidence of children’s suffering at the hands of the Church will the UN and the international community tolerate before fulfilling their responsibility to those children to hold the Vatican to account?

“The Vatican is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child but has contravened several of its articles, and is more than 10 years behind in its reporting. It has habitually compounded the abuse and facilitated multiple reoffending by moving offenders around and shielding them from prosecuting authorities by imposing the ‘pontifical secret’.

“Major investigations in the USA and Ireland have been deliberately and cynically obstructed by the Church at all levels without censure from above. This includes the Vatican’s representative in Ireland, suggesting that he acted under instruction from the highest level in the Church. All this has led to abusers being allowed to continue offending and to escape justice, while their victims despair – some even committing suicide.

“The Church cannot claim it is being victimised. It still places the protection of its reputation, and even more its assets, above the protection of those entrusted to its care. Over 90 per cent of the compensation payments paid by cash-strapped Ireland came from the tax payers, including the abused themselves.

“When we raised this issue at the UN in September 2009, the Church blamed everyone else, but did promise one paltry paragraph on clerical abuse in its report to the UN. Even that mandatory report – already 13 years overdue and promised last September – has still not been filed with the UN.

“Following an instruction from Cardinal Ratzinger when head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, all suspicions and accusations of child abuse were to be sent to the Vatican in secret.”

I’ve embedded a video of his speech below. The CRC you’ll hear mentioned there is Convention on the Rights of the Child.

You may also want to read my own article in the current Gay & Lesbian Humanist. Ratzo, I conclude, is in one important respect no different from Adolf Hitler.

Ratzo's apology for an apology

Pope Ratzinger just can't bring himself to apologise – really, truly, properly apologise – for all the heartbreak caused because his priests couldn't keep their peckers in their pants.

A commentator called Lee Russ has a comprehensive analysis of on it here in Watching the Watchers:

He's admitted his "shame" for the perpetrators of the abuse. He's acknowledged that the scandal was, in some instances, "badly handled." But he just can't seem to publicly acknowledge the role that Church as a whole, and this Pope in particular, played in the concealment and continuation of that widespread sexual abuse.

Ratzo is doing the States at the moment, where he's already met with a few protests from gay campaigners who seem to have given the poor chap a hard time. Oh, the unfairness of it. What has he done to deserve this?

Ratzo Stateside

Pope Ratzinger will be forced to face some of those he is so beastly to, yea, even among his own followers, when he gets to the States this week for an all-expenses-paid jolly, courtesy of Catholics rich and poor throughout the world.

There are, of course, gay Catholics, believe it or not. Quite how they can believe all that the Catholic Church tells them to believe – which they must do to be true Catholics – while being gay and believing it's OK to be gay makes the mind boggle somewhat. But there you go. There's no accounting for some religionists.

Anyway, they're planning to "greet" him in Washington and New York, as can be seen in this story.

No good will come of it, of course – except to show a presence to those watching on TV or reading the newspapers, if the protests get much coverage. But Ratzo will not be moved. He'll continue to say he loves the sinner but hates the sin.

Condoms and AIDS – Ratzo’s considered view

Pope Ratzinger reckons condoms are not the answer to preventing AIDS. Well, he’s right. They’re not the answer.

However, they are part of the answer.

Sexual abstinence, which is what he preaches, will of course prevent sexually transmitted illnesses, but people are people, and will conjoin or otherwise exchange body fluids as part of whatever they get up to.

His remarks have led to quite a debate, as you can well imagine.

Kevin Osborne, HIV adviser at the International Planned Parenthood Federation, is quoted in the (London) Times story linked to above as saying, “All the evidence is that preaching sexual abstinence and fidelity will not solve the problems. We need to work with the reality of where people are, especially in countries he is visiting such as Angola, which is hard-hit by the epidemic.

“The Pope’s message will alienate everybody. It is scary. It spreads stigma and creates a fertile breeding ground for the spread of HIV.”

But Ratzo has an agenda: no sex outside marriage – heterosexual marriage, of course. God says so. Inevitably, Ratzinger will say anything to get people to go along with that.

Does he actually believe he’s telling the truth, or is he telling lies? Who knows? As with so many things he says, he’s talking bullshit.

The case against Ratzo the Vile

The error of treating perpetrators of child sex abuse as sinners in need of fatherly counsel, rather than as criminals deserving of punishment, compounded by the motive of protecting the church's reputation at any cost, has been buoyed by the belief that, because the Holy See and its immune leader can do no wrong in the eyes of diplomatic law, they can do no wrong.

The words are those of Geoffrey Robertson QC, the barrister behind the intentions of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens to have Ratzo the Vile arrested for crimes against humanity when he comes to the UK later this month (the spineless UK government has moved to prevent such a possibility – as you would expect, politicians being such utter shits most of the time).

Robertson has a book out called The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuse, a longish extract from which is to be found in today’s Independent.

And did you know that the Queen will have to wear black because, according to Robertson, “only Catholic queens can meet the Pope in white”? You couldn’t make it up. While I fly no flag for royalty, I see no reason why the Queen of this country should be forced to dress in a particular way for a bogus head of a bogus state – and on religious grounds at that.

Enter the monster – but let’s not make it easy for him

“The Pope has urged Catholic bishops in England and Wales to fight the UK’s Equality Bill with ‘missionary zeal’,” the BBC tells us.

And this is the monster the UK will be welcoming with open arms when he comes here on a state visit later this year.

Ratzo is quoted as saying that the legislation “violates natural law” and could end the right of the Catholic Church to ban gay people from senior positions.

And this is the monster the UK will be welcoming with open arms when he comes here on a state visit later this year.

“[T]he effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal [of equality, dignity and fairness] has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs,” the bigot is quoted as saying.

And this is the monster the UK will be welcoming with open arms when he comes here on a state visit later this year.

As we reported, the UK’s National Secular Society has a petition. It won’t stop the visit if you sign it, but, if it has a huge number of signatures, it sends out a message every time the petition makes it into a news story.

Demonstrations, too, are likely. They, too, won’t stop the visit. There will be huge security. There will probably be human-rights abuses by police, who will be acting on orders from on high to keep demonstrators out of the sight of the monster (as happened with the visit 11 years ago of the Chinese president, Jiang Zemin), or at the very least out of brick-chucking distance.

This blog’s parent organisation, the Pink Triangle Trust, isn’t too keen on Ratzo’s visit, either. The PTT’s secretary, George Broadhead, says in a hard-hitting news release, “This is a thinly veiled attack on the anti-discrimination legislation concerning LGBT people. His claim that our equality laws undermine religious freedom suggests that he supports the right of churches to discriminate in accordance with their religious ethos. He seems to be defending discrimination by religious institutions and demanding that they should be above the law.

“This pope has shown himself to be paranoid about homosexuality. His opposition to LGBT rights knows no bounds. He has declared that saving humanity from homosexual behaviour was as important as saving the rainforest from destruction. This must be the most outrageous and bizarre claim yet made by someone who has already got a well-deserved reputation as one of the most viciously homophobic world leaders on a par with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

“But his entrenched homophobia is not the only reason for criticising the visit,” George Broadhead continues. “The taxpayer in this country is going to be faced with a bill of some £20m as the visit will be paid for by the government, not the Vatican. We therefore call on all Freethinkers, Humanists and like-minded people to sign [the NSS’s] petition.

“It is imperative that the strongest possible protest be made when his so-called holiness visits the UK. This is not without precedent. During the last papal visit to the UK by John Paul II in 1982, a protest called POPE (People Opposing Papal Edicts) was instigated by the Gay Humanist Group. It had the support of other gay and secular organisations including the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and the National Secular Society. On the occasion of the impending visit we must pull out all the stops to demonstrate our opposition.”

I suspect websites and blogs will be ablaze between now and September, when it’s thought this insult to human rights, human dignity and all that is decent will be allowed to place his jackboots on our soil. All power to their keyboards. Let us send an unequivocal message to the Vatican and to our own pusillanimous leaders that this evil obscenity is not wanted here by anyone but misguided Catholics and other members of the Deluded Herd, politicians and those who just don’t give a shit and can’t wait for EastEnders or The X Factor to begin.

Homosexuality is to blame for abuse scandal! Oh, it all makes sense now!

There are some things that really bring out the urge to kill.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, effectively the deputy to Pope Ratzo, is one of them.

It’s homosexuality, not celibacy, that is at the centre of the huge scandal over pervy priests, you see. Once again, it’s the gays who are to blame, says this twat in a frock who lives among men and who, if he’s stuck to his vows, has no practical knowledge of natural love, though, like his fellows, would no doubt be eager to tell us what is unnatural love.

“Many psychologists and psychiatrists have shown that there is no link between celibacy and paedophilia but many others have shown, I have recently been told [!], that there is a relationship between homosexuality and paedophilia,” he told journalists during a press conference in Chile, effectively inciting homophobes there to form lynch mobs.

And what of the paedophilia that has men raping girls, Cardinal? Is that homosexual, too, you raving nutcase?

Even if he were right, what has that got to do with the price of eggs? Priests – Catholic priests – raped and otherwise abused kids. The scandal isn’t about C of E priests (although there has no doubt been some hanky-panky there, too). It isn’t about Hindus or Buddhists. It isn’t about Jeddi Knights or New Agers or Zoroastrians. It’s about the Roman Catholic Church. End of story.

I know it’s very unlikely that a successful arrest of Ratzo will be made – as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens hope – when he visits the UK in September, but I sincerely hope that and the other healthily bad publicity the old sod and his cardinals and priests have had will continue to cascade on the Vatican like a thousand cartloads of horseshit – once a second.

What an utter waste of space that place is, filled as it is with monsters in frocks and reeking with their evil!

Yes. OK. I’m annoyed. I’ve shouted a bit. I’ll calm down. I’ll shut up now.