An audience with the Pope – What would you say?

The latest edition of the UK’s “New Humanist” has asked a few famous folks what they would say to the pope if they were granted an audience with him. Here are a few of my favorites …

Richard Dawkins:

“Mr Ratzinger, as head of the world’s second most evil religion you are not welcome. True, your church recently “pardoned” Galileo (four centuries late), and eventually revoked its historic anti-Semitism. But the equally long-established misogyny remains. On almost all issues concerned with sex, contraception, population and reproduction your stance is illiberal, inhumane and immoral, and your propaganda claim that condoms don’t protect against AIDS is scientifically inaccurate and murderously cynical. In criminally shielding child-raping priests from justice you have placed the welfare of your church ahead of your victims. Go home to your tinpot Mussolini-concocted principality, and don’t come back.”

Next we have Johann Hari, a man of action, keen to take a few steps in the right direction …

Johann Hari, journalist:

“I am placing you under arrest for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, and for your central role in the systematic cover-up of the rape of children across five continents. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not say now something you may later rely on in court. Wait there – I’ve called for a police officer to take you down to the cells.”

Graham Wilmer, survivor of childhood sexual abuse at a Catholic school:

“Your Grace – I stand before you as a survivor of sexual abuse in my childhood, at the hands of members of your Church. My story has been told before, but my struggle for justice goes on, as does the struggle for the hundreds of other survivors who sought my help after my story was published. Despite the recommendations of the Nolan Review and the Cumberlege Commission, we are still meeting hostility, obfuscation and denial from your bishops and safeguarding officers, as we seek the reconciliation and healing we need to enable us to move on. What we lack is the support of an independent commission, with the credibility and experience to act as a forum for all victims of child abuse in the UK; a place where victims can disclose the harm done to them without fear, shame or prejudice, have their experiences recognised and accepted, and seek and obtain the therapeutic support they need to recover. I have laid out the rationale for such a commission on a website: The Commission for Truth and Reconciliation for victims of sexual abuse in the United Kingdom. You have the power to enable such a commission to be created. All that is needed is a single sentence of support from you, no more, no less. I ask you, therefore, to help me help those who still suffer in silence and in darkness, so they may be guided through their turmoil and be, once more, free to achieve their potential, as they were once, briefly, in childhood, before your priests laid waste to their futures.”

It will never happen of course, he will be well and truly mollycoddled. Only those willing to grovel at the feet of this pedophile protector will be granted access, ah but we can still dream dreams of what we might wish to say

You can find the full article with quotes from lots of others here …

So what about you, what would you say if you were granted the opportunity to chat with him? (why not drop a comment)

So how have folks reacted to all this? Well, William Oddie in the Catholic Herald has ranted this in reply …

The atheists’ utter loathing, all the same, is at times a little frightening in its sheer vicious irrationality. These people are in the grip of a barely restrained hysteria. Take the current issue of the New Humanist, subtitle: “Ideas for godless people”; this issue gives a good idea of what it must be like being godless, and at least it makes you grateful not to be godless yourself. “If you were invited to address Benedict XVI during his UK visit,” the New Humanist introduces its special issue, “what would you say to him?

So, the folks who devote their entire lives to an imaginary friend in the sky, and are led by elderly male virgins who wear black dresses and pronounce magic words over wavers to magically turn them into human flesh so that they can  practice ritualistic cannibalism consider non-believers to be irrational!!! … yea right. But then, Mr Oddie does appear to be quite happy to lie for Jesus …with phrases such as …

our enemies know that the evidence is that we are no worse than representative of society as a whole

Such an outrageous lie says a whole lot about his complete lack of ethics … name any other portion of society where its OK, to systematically cover up abuse and protect abusers …

If you can handle a rant, then you can read it here …

He finishes off with this biblical quote …

Blessed are you, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.”

What this complete Gobshite so totally fails to comprehend is that the current contempt for Catholicism has nothing to do with what they believe. As far as most folks are concerned, they simply don’t give two hoots if they truly believed the sky was pink or that the faeries lifted the sun up each morning. Its their actions, not their words or thoughts that has caused so much grief.

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