yep at The Council of Nicaea, which is pretty much equivalent to putting, Roald Dahl, JRR Tolkein, CS lewis, and a few other brilliant writers in a room gettin pissed and comming up with a long winded boring childrens book thats full of holes and makes the hobbit look believable………. amanda brunker would probably be there aswell seen as she seems to get her beak in everywhere these days!!, …….. and sinead o connor too!!

and the quicker the better

All the red thumbs. Why do they not comment? Let’s hear why mr pope should keep this bulls**t going?

I red thumbed your comment because you mixed up the institution of catholic faith with the bullshit politics of the Vatican. Your comment was inaccurate and crudely worded.

And I green thumbed you cause,well,fair enough….. I’m just so against the pope and all he stands for that I used a story about the Vatican to attack him. Your right,there’s a time and a place and I chose unwisely.

@Emsy Wemsy – you are against ALL the Pope stands for? Really? As in everything???

Let’s see… This would mean that you are in favour of letting the poor starve. You are in favour of wanton damage to the environment. You are in favour of slavery. You are in favour of unbridled capitalism. You are in favour of war. You are in favour of religious persecution and opposed to religious freedom? You are in favour of wanton violence and abuse???

There’s a lot that this pope, indeed, any pope, stands for that most people of goodwill actually agree with. The thing is, most people never bother to actually read anything written by any pope. It normally gets filtered through the media, and the media are interested in sex (like us all!). So one easily forms the opinion that the pope speaks all the time about sex and morality. Well, one recent study showed that 3% of Pope John Paul’s speeches and writings were in some way or other related to sex. Based on media reports one would think that it was a whole lot more! In all likelihood Benedict has spoken on this issue even less, as John Paul dealt more extensively on this issue than other popes. (Emsy Wemsy, did you know that John Paul taught that it was sinful for a man to be selfish in sex, and that there is an obligation on a man to try to ensure that his wife has an orgasm? And that in so far as possible, the couple should try to ensure a simultaneous orgasm? Is this something you also disagree with?).

For all those who disagree with the pope – fair enough. That’s your right, and Pope Benedict supports that. I just wonder though how many of those who despise him so much have actually read anything he has said, rather than someone else’s interpretation of it?

There’s not much that he can say AlMar that would excuse the coverup of clerical paedopheila, cullusion with fascism in recent modern history and a conservatism that to some gives weight to it’s moral dilinquency.

@ AlMar Ratzinger, when head of the CDF, personally handled 3,000 cases of clergy who had raped and buggered children. In NONE of those cases did he recommend, to the bishop in authority of the rapist clergy, that the civil authorities be informed. Needless to say also that neither did he personally contact the civil authorities.

Ratzinger by his inaction in these 3,000 cases, enabled gross sexual violence by clergy on children. Ratzinger facilitated bishops who were criminally covering up cases of child abuse by clergy.

Thanks Andrew and John,pretty much my thoughts exactly. Dirty deceiving old git. Say what you like to win people over but lying about raping kids to protect yourself?? Give me a break!

Fine if people want to bow and scrape in front of him along with his cardinals and bishops in the pursuit of their beliefs and loyalties. If those beliefs are disposed to somehow ignore, obscure or cover up for the real story of the Roman Church’s criminality and it’s effect in wider society then it’s not fine.
It’s not fine when they influence democratically elected governments to conspire with them in the evasion of justice for crimes committed against the laws of the secular society by it’s clerics. If the members of the Roman Church were prepared to accept that their beliefs are theirs only and not to be shoved down the throat of others then criticism of their faith would be unfair.
Do committed members of this church want to offer up their children to the abuses of their clergy and then conspire in the cover up of the crime when it happens? !f not well then don’t lecture me on how I should be concerned at the level and cover up and lies being spouted from the pope’s mouth which puts the welfare of children worldwide at risk.

They feel persecuted because of people like yourself poking fun at the people just as much as the institution. Every time the Journal has an article on religion yourself and a number people are always there to say something about being mentally deluded like in your comment. I don’t know if there is a god or not but I hope there is something after I die and it’s not just the end. Where’s the harm in that? Would you not hope for something similar yourself?

News flash Diego its not the institution that is the cause of social malaise. It is peoples propensities to want to be wrapped in cotton wool and make up a fantasy world. The messed up institutions are secondary. These institutions only exist because people give them power. Nobody knows how the universe came to be for certain but to cite that as a reason for making up stories and expecting society not to laugh at them is entirely wrong. I say religion is delusional because it is.

Diego.
I too think it is wrong to belittle peoples personal beliefs. Where I have a problem is when believers become so convinced of the merrit of their ways that they think everyone else should act and perform as they do and contrive to have the laws of the land and the ways of state institutions on their side. I think if the Roman Church should gave up on it’s failed empire building and recognise that it is no longer entitled to influence state and civil institutions in the matter of morality and ethics.Why should the bells of it’s church ring out twice a day on the airwaves of our national broadcaster for instance!
When someone thinks it’s wrong not to believe as they do and adopt the high moral ground when doing this and then interfere in the legislature of a country to impose that doctrine they leave themselves open to critisism by those that rightly see this as wrong.

Cyril I do not understand what is ridiculous or funny about a community of cross-dressing elderly gentlemen that pay an average of €40,000 for bling ,ceremonial clothes and are vainer than Victoria Becham, yet claim that modesty and poverty are virtues.

Sounds like a night in the george

Its a few religious nutjobs that have registered an account for each voice in their head, that would explain the large number of red thumbs!