I recently posted an irreverent (but I hope, amusing) piece about replacing Benny the Pope.
I received just ONE angry-ish comment from a Pope admirer (Semi-anonymous Lizzie), who accused me of Pope bashing. She also suggested that a Million adherents can't be wrong (wrong about what, she didn't say).
My muted reply to her was that I had nothing against ordinary Catholics per se, but that the Catholic hierarchy are...erm... well, not always nice. I never like to overstate the obvious.
I'm not going to embarrass Mr O'Brien (above); he's managed that all by himself, but I'm just posting his picture here for 'Semi-anonymous Lizzie'. It shows him wearing a nice hat, and holding a nice stick thingy, whilst waving to his nice adoring fans.
What WOULD we do for fun, without the Catholic priesthood!
Suggestions on Keith's private thoughts (in the above picture) would be welcomed. No prizes.
Nota Bene: Just in case anyone doesn't know about Cardinal Keith O'Brien (the top Catholic in the UK).... he's just admitted to having been a very naughty boy; and (like Benny) he's resigned. He's been told by his bosses that he MUST now go off and live as a hermit; I'm not surprised, as the cops are after him anyway.... C'est la Catholic vie!
You have to admiring the costuming they pull off!
ReplyDeleteWhile I would under normal circumstances be kind to individuals who need the delusions of religion as a crutch I see no reason for such restraint where the paid agents of the various cults are concerned. They are open targets. Similarly, those proponents who aren't satisfied with private delusion but must jump up and down and berate others for not sharing it. Two such strikes and, in my book, they then become open targets too.
ReplyDeleteIf the dear lady who admonished you is so fond of the simple strength of unthinking numbers perhaps you could explain to her the extent of the world population of mosquitos and ask if she is for or agin malaria.
Baaaaaaaaaaa. There's a reason why churches call their followers a "flock", madam.
Rather more than a million people used to believe that the world was flat. It was one of the tenets of the Spanish Inquisition and followers of Galileo were done away with in the most unseemly way.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's what she was referring to; it IS flat, of course!
DeleteIt IS in discworld!
DeleteI know some very nice very religious people. Also some rather horrid very religious people. The thing that makes them more horrid than they would normally seem to be is that they puff themselves up a bit because they are religious.
ReplyDeleteAny person who hides behind their religion (or profession) in order to be horrid deserves all the horrid stuff that people throw at them when they are found out.
I have known many spiritual people who are not at all religious, and some very religious people who are not at all spiritual - the two hardly ever seem to go hand in hand.
DeleteA few years ago, I started to think that if you had to belong to a Christian Church, then it might as well be the original one, but then it became impossible to ignore notorious history - even recent history, never mind the Spanish Inquisition.
I now have a bit of a soft spot for the old Anglican Church, with it's rural vicars who - if not huntin', shootin' or fishin', are wracked with self-doubt like the rest of us and are dependent on groups of elderly ladies who do the Hoovering and arrange flowers in between jumble-sales.
Tom if you were looking at the R.C.'s as being the original church, then you were looking at another schism for the first church was the now little known Coptic Church of Egypt.
DeleteWell, I suppose I was talking about the Church which the apostle (?) St Paul set up in Europe as being the original - at least for us. I went to Coptic wedding in Egypt once, with the bride and groom forced to sit on a dais for hours, whilst the guests - mostly strangers like me - ate, drank and cavorted beneath them as they almost fainted in the heat, trying to look happy.
DeleteThere was a C of E Theological College partly connected to my school. I got to know quite a few of the students, none of whom believed all the Mumbo Jumbo. As you eluded above, it was the lifestyle they were after. Georgian rectory, adoring flock, ancient church, spot of huntin' at the weekend, etc. It was a good life if you weren't the lawyer, doctor, or politician type.
DeleteWe are celebrating the conclave by watching "Angels and Demons", the movie based on Dan Browns novel. I'm one of those fallen types.....actually not so much fallen as jumped off screaming.
ReplyDeleteI can't say how I feel about these perverts.
ReplyDeleteJust this morning on the CBS morning news show, they talked about changing the celibacy rules for priests. They said that celibacy was not required at the beginning of this church, but they changed it to that when wives of dead priests insisted they "owned " property of the church. The church did not want them to be part of that, so they made up this new celibacy law. Go figure. and my thought was: which of the deadly sins would the church be committing because of this? Possibly GREED???
ReplyDeletePoint being: Maybe if they could live a NORMAL life, they would not bother the little boys.
DeleteYeah, a million adherents can most certainly be wrong! So glad I left that (and all) religion behind half a lifetime ago!!!
ReplyDeletePS: Pope-bashing should be an Olympic sport.
ReplyDeleteCan I be a coach?
Deletehaving once lived around the corner from A Good Shepherd Home!!!....enough said....the gates alone terrified me as a child!
ReplyDeleteEven the name makes me cringe.
DeleteO'Brien's hypocrisy is beyond the pale. To have been so homophobic and misogynistic in his utterings for so long and then to have been -- oh how did he put it, 'acting inappropriately with young priests' is just wicked and evil. I love the Anglican Church -- just because it tries so awfully hard to be all things to all people -- and because most of the vicars I've know have a great ability to laugh at themselves!
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