Posts Tagged ‘the pope’

Ratzinger, we hardly knew ye

Thursday, February 28th, 2013 | Religion & Politics

the-pope

Today, Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, better known as Pope Benedict XVI, will step down as Pope. I for one, am very disappointed.

As an atheist, I thought having a former member of the Hitler Youth, who personally covered up child abuse during his career at the Catholic Church, made an excellent elected leader for their organisation. As the infallible representative of God here on Earth, it makes it much more difficult for them to sweep such endemic abuse problems under the carpet as a few nutters gone astray (a tactic that has so far worked very well for the Islamists).

So it is with regret that I see Ratzinger quit the post that most people keep for life – and nobody is implying such tradition once again draws the line between religion and cult into question, so lets lay that one to bed right now. I didn’t think the man known as Hitler’s Other Pope would let anything get in his way.

I wonder what kind of retirement package you get as Pope. They probably haven’t put too much thought into this given it hasn’t happened in 600 years, but presumably he is still going to need security and other considerations, above that of the level of a Cardinal.

Also, at what point does he stop being infallible? Is that today? I hope he has squeezed out all the knowledge he can while we still has the chance.

Still, what is done is done. He had a great run – pissing off all the gays, women, non-believers, Anglicans, health workers and many other groups along the way. I only hope that their next leader is such an apt representative of an organisation that is brought an unparalleled amount of evil into the world[1][2][3][4][5].

How do they keep getting away with it?

Monday, June 4th, 2012 | Humanism, Religion & Politics

The May meeting of the Humanist Society of West Yorkshire saw Mike Granville speak to us on the topic of “The Vatican: How Do They Keep Getting Away With It?”

It was a chilling reminder of the amount of outrageous things the Catholic church have done and gotten away with over the centuries, from the the Papal states, to the complicity in Hitler’s Nazi Germany and constantly covering up child abuse.

This also struck a chord with Alistair McBay’s recent article in NSS Newsline who commented that a certain “non-resident octogenarian” named Rupert Murdock was recently hauled up in front of a government committee to answer claims about his organisation covering up people’s phones being hacked and described as not being fit to lead such an organisation.

Yet, when another non-resident head of a multinational organisation arrives in the UK, someone we know covered up child abuse claims against priests and even resisted their removal from the priesthood, he is welcomed with open arms on what was described as a state visit.