America does a thing (again) (and again)

bhavv said:
Sigh. Religion again :(

Why cant people just go away and stop bothering about it?
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Fixed.

EDIT: BTW Castiel, the Catholic church was interviewed by the BBC this week, and 'clarified' the edict regarding contraception. Their official stance is that condoms are 'proven' to have pores in them that let the AIDS virus peneterate them freely, making them useless as a preventative. They (condoms) apparently worsen the spread of AIDS and their use is a sin, even if it means having too many children to be able to feed yourselves. :o

--Sorry, my mistake. It was actually on Dispatches: The trouble with the Pope. Worth watching.
 
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Castiel said:
The issue over condom's is one which gets somewhat misunderstood. What the Catholic Church are saying is that contraception is wrong across the board regardless of the use of condoms for safe sex or combating STD's or whatever, however , and this is important, they also state that it is wrong to have sex outside of marriage and that if people in the third world abided by this then the need for contraception to combat AIDS would be less of an issue.

Now, I am neither a Catholic or particularly religious, but they do have a singular point, unprotected sex outside of marriage spreads sexually transmitted disease and those who abstain from premarital sex have a significantly lower risk of contracting AIDS and associated conditions.

In reality, both protected pre-marital sex and abstinence outside of a secure, stable relationship should be encouraged within such afflicted social groups, the Church have their beliefs so promote the one which fits within this, it is then up to the state to promote the other.

It doesn't make the Catholic Church evil as such, but personally I feel that some of the issues surrounding the Church do need to be addressed, hence my surprise when Benedict was elected Pope in the first place. He is a traditionalist and what the Church needs is someone more progressive, hopefully the issues raised during visits such as this one will rally some of those within the Church to push for a more progressive stance on some of the more contentious political issues such as contraception and the errant priesthood.
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Did you watch the intelegence squared debate where stephen fry and his coleage ripped apart the catholic church and pointed out all the crimes they had commited that went unnoticed? I knew they were bad but I didn't know the full scale of things. It really opened my eyes.

Here is stephen fries bit. I highly recomend you check out the other as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL5WVecNdhk



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And as pointed out above the pope really did say it. Sorry but he is cruel and evil. The intelligence squared debate really pointed it out.
 
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Rainmaker said:
Fixed.

EDIT: BTW Castiel, the Catholic church was interviewed by the BBC this week, and 'clarified' the edict regarding contraception. Their official stance is that condoms are 'proven' to have pores in them that let the AIDS virus peneterate them freely, making them useless as a preventative. They (condoms) apparently worsen the spread of AIDS and their use is a sin, even if it means having too many children to be able to feed yourselves. :o

--Sorry, my mistake. It was actually on Dispatches: The trouble with the Pope. Worth watching.
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It's panorama actually. It was from 2003 and the Cardinal involved at the time, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo said he was misquoted and reiterated the Church's abstinence policy. This is a good example of the media taking one Cardinals statements and polarizing them as the official status of the Catholic Church.

Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini actually supports the use of Condoms in those circumstances as the lesser of two evils as he puts it. There are many others, like I said, hopefully the more progressive members of the Holy See will eventually gain some credence within the Church and without.
 
Castiel said:
It's panorama actually.
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Pope-y programs are no doubt popular this week, but it was undoubtedly Dispatches, as I've just re-watched it to make sure. :p The pope did indeed say that prophylactics weren't the answer to the AIDS issue, and that they actually make it worse. The program showed the letter written by the pope himself.

dispatches.the.trouble.with.the.pope.ws.pdtv.xvid-ftp.avi_snapshot_28.22_[2010.09.16_19.29.42].jpg


In an earlier time, as Cardinal Ratzinger, he had some rather worrying views. According to Dispatches, he started off as part of Vatican2, a liberal movement in the mid 20th century. Student protests shocked him so much he literally turned conservative, and alienated a great many of his fellow professors at the time. You should watch the program, it's very interesting. :)
 
Rainmaker said:
Pope-y programs are no doubt popular this week, but it was undoubtedly Dispatches, as I've just re-watched it to make sure. :p The pope did indeed say that prophylactics weren't the answer to the AIDS issue, and that they actually make it worse. The program showed the letter written by the pope himself.

dispatches.the.trouble.with.the.pope.ws.pdtv.xvid-ftp.avi_snapshot_28.22_[2010.09.16_19.29.42].jpg


In an earlier time, as Cardinal Ratzinger, he had some rather worrying views. According to Dispatches, he started off as part of Vatican2, a liberal movement in the mid 20th century. Student protests shocked him so much he literally turned conservative, and alienated a great many of his fellow professors at the time. You should watch the program, it's very interesting. :)
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It may well be in Dispatches, but the actual story is regurgitated from the original 2003 Panorama program. I will agree with you that Cardinal Ratzinger is a poor choice of Pope for a Church attempting to pull itself out of the middle ages.

It was a shock to many Catholics within the Holy See that Pope John Paul II advocated much the same thing.

Also @ 8igdave, I have to agree with much if not all of what Stephen Fry has to say, I do not however agree that the Catholic Church is inherently evil. As he said at the end of his address, they need to modernise and accept the vagaries of the modern world.

Unfortunately, like most monolithic organisations they have great difficulty in doing so.
 
Castiel said:
I will agree with you that Cardinal Ratzinger is a poor choice of Pope for a Church attempting to pull itself out of the middle ages... As he said at the end of his address, they need to modernise and accept the vagaries of the modern world.

Unfortunately, like most monolithic organisations they have great difficulty in doing so.
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Agreed. As with so many things, the institution comes to overshadow the sum of its members, as it were. There are many priests and laypeople doing amazing work in the name of their religion, but the trappings of the actual institution and the policies of some of its most senior members don't do justice to the fact.

People like Father Francis Maple and Father Shay Cullen work tirelessly and selflessly for the underprivileged and the poor, but as I often repeat the best things come out of practising less religion and more spirituality.
 
Rainmaker said:
Agreed. As with so many things, the institution comes to overshadow the sum of its members, as it were. There are many priests and laypeople doing amazing work in the name of their religion, but the trappings of the actual institution and the policies of some of its most senior members don't do justice to the fact.

People like Father Francis Maple and Father Shay Cullen work tirelessly and selflessly for the underprivileged and the poor, but as I often repeat the best things come out of practising less religion and more spirituality.
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Absolutely, and that polarizing of views by people and then attributing them to all Catholics including those Cardinals and members of the Holy See who are not such Traditionalists is what I am trying to attack.

The thing that Stephen Fry said, "the catholic church is not a force for good in the world" is simply unsubstantiated hyperbole in my opinion. The Church does many good things throughout the world and I feel that needs defending.
 
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