The Pope's Christmas Speech...

jellybeard999 said:
Usually found reading from a solid gold eagle bookstand, with a gold sceptre and a ring on each finger :cool:
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So what? it isn't his, it's not like he can pawn them for an Xbox.
I don't see a rich man here, I see a poor man in a very posh hotel.

For that matter Mosques have gold roofs, CofE has plenty of gold trinkets and they recently found $22 billion in a Hindu temple.

I don't see Bankers funding any global aid charities, so wrong target I think.
 
AndyOcUK said:
Agreed....my OP point exactly;)



Not at all, just an observation of the opitomy of hypocracy :) I couldn't care less what faith he follows. A hippocrite is a hippocrite, whether Catholic, Muslim, C of E, Buddhist, Sikh, Hindu, Hippy, Jedi, black, white, green with pink spots, gay or straight. Please don't think this is an anti catholicism thread.
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Thank you Andy, well said! I really do dislike hypocrisy. Especially when its so overt that they dont even try to pretend they beleive in what they say.

bitslice said:
So what? it isn't his, it's not like he can pawn them for an Xbox.
I don't see a rich man here, I see a poor man in a very posh hotel.

For that matter Mosques have gold roofs, CofE has plenty of gold trinkets and they recently found $22 billion in a Hindu temple.

I don't see Bankers funding any global aid charities, so wrong target I think.
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The problem with that being that religions preach humbleness, yet bathe in absolute decadence...very hypocritical and wrong in my opinion. Yes the people may not be rich but the church by its very nature should not be rich and yet it is, so much so it is one of the richest organisations on earth. And you can garantee the pope lives a life of luxery in terms of the fact he will never have to do without.
 
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bitslice said:
So what? it isn't his, it's not like he can pawn them for an Xbox.
I don't see a rich man here, I see a poor man in a very posh hotel.

For that matter Mosques have gold roofs, CofE has plenty of gold trinkets and they recently found $22 billion in a Hindu temple.

I don't see Bankers funding any global aid charities, so wrong target I think.
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Exactly the heart of my point. Banks, governments, organised religions.......all pontificating about doing right....all doing very little about it. Personally, I can't stand the wealth held by organised religion......its the ultimate hypocracy in my opinion. Most religions speak of looking after your fellow man and being humble before whatever God. Practice what you preach is all I'm saying.;)

http://boards.fool.co.uk/wealth-of-the-catholic-church-10962908.aspx

Personally I find this obscene amount of power and wealth handed over so freely on utter blind faith, absolutely terrifying.
 
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aaron said:
The problem with that being that religions preach humbleness, yet bathe in absolute decadence...
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This is actually at the behest of followers who want their religion to have more bling than others, people donate money for the upkeep of their church.

So long as they continue to fund charitable work then frankly I'm keeping my mouth shut about the Pope's fancy hat, because in comparison I do naff all and neither do 90% of all the other people bitching about religion.
 
bitslice said:
This is actually at the behest of followers who want their religion to have more bling than others, people donate money for the upkeep of their church.

So long as they continue to fund charitable work then frankly I'm keeping my mouth shut about the Pope's fancy hat, because in comparison I do naff all and neither do 90% of all the other people bitching about religion.
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Hell If I was given Billion's of dollars, tax free every year by people for no veritable reason other than being "gods" representative, Id give all of it away to help people. What I dont like is the fact that religions are revered there charitable work when in fact if other people/organisations had similar ammounts of money the majority of that would indeed be given to charitable efforts. and as such I dont regard them as better than any other person who gives money to charity such as amnesty etc and find them hypocritical at the heart of there ethos. Maybe i just have to much faith in people being decent but still my point stands.

What really grinds my bones though is when you look at the "bling" the pope and other religous leaders have and wear daily, and the gold dais etc. it just exemplifies the corruption at the heart of religion. Yes I know, they cant exactly just pawn off all the gold etc now. But I find it truly ridiculous that an influential figure such as the pontiff can preach modesty dressed in enough bling to make Mr T shudder.
 
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Monserrat said:
Glod is a popular typo on gold. Like pwn vs own.
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No, glod is a small dwarf. A witch once mistakenly cursed a greedy king by saying that anything he touched would turn into glod.

There is now a village full of short tempered dwarfs.

Got to love Terry Pratchett :D
 
I think if you were to look at the amount of money/help given to those inspired by the Catholic church (eg Catholics), I think it would be the biggest giving organisation in the world.
 
aaron said:
Hell If I was given Billion's of dollars, tax free every year by people for no veritable reason other than being "gods" representative, Id give all of it away to help people. What I dont like is the fact that religions are revered there charitable work when in fact if other people/organisations had similar ammounts of money the majority of that would indeed be given to charitable efforts. and as such I dont regard them as better than any other person who gives money to charity such as amnesty etc and find them hypocritical at the heart of there ethos. Maybe i just have to much faith in people being decent but still my point stands.

What really grinds my bones though is when you look at the "bling" the pope and other religous leaders have and wear daily, and the gold dais etc. it just exemplifies the corruption at the heart of religion. Yes I know, they cant exactly just pawn off all the gold etc now. But I find it truly ridiculous that an influential figure such as the pontiff can preach modesty dressed in enough bling to make Mr T shudder.
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I agree with the whole bling element, a lot of Catholics (me included) are quite disillusioned with the church.

However, it's unfair to make blanket statements like that. Catholics do an enormous amount for the world.


To quote someone else on another forum:

"According to Vatican correspondent John L. Allen Jr. in his book All the Pope's Men, one reason that the Vatican doesn't sell off such treasures is that the Vatican doesn't believe that the treasures are the Vatican's to sell. They are considered the patrimony of mankind, entrusted to the Vatican for safekeeping, and cannot be sold or borrowed against. Indeed, the Vatican values them at one euro each for purposes of internal bookkeeping and spends a great deal of money to preserve the treasures for future generations.

If such treasures were sold and the money given to the poor, that money would soon be gone and mankind would be culturally impoverished by the loss of such artifacts into private hands. Besides, it is not offensive to religious sensibilities for a Church to maintain such beautiful treasures for the glory of God. If the Temple in Jerusalem could be richly ordained in order to glorify God and to inspire human worship, the universal Church of God can be richly ordained for the same purposes."
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Pate said:
I agree with the whole bling element, a lot of Catholics (me included) are quite disillusioned with the church.

However, it's unfair to make blanket statements like that. Catholics do an enormous amount for the world.


To quote someone else on another forum:
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No of course, I agree its completely unfair to make a blanket statement like that and I hope I didnt offend. Catholics themselves do an awful lot for the world they really do and do usually a pretty amazing job at it too, Its just the Catholic church im disillusioned with for the points covered. However I meant it more in the way the Catholic church portrays itself to the world. Its never going to go down well making a statement telling people to be less attatched to material possesions yet being adorned head to toe in what could be seen as the epitimy and most symbolic of material possesions.

In terms of the artifacts, Fantastic that they preserve them, yes! yet i cant help but think its like their trophy cabinet that they keep to maintain a sort of pride. Its not like the public can see the archives which would be a fantastic source of historical knowledge and would more than likely teach the world lots...and yes this will be "to preserve them" I realise that, but your quote loses all value if people are not allowed to admire and learn from and eveb look at said artifacts when they are locked away in vaults for all eternity with no benefit to man kind.
 
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AndyOcUK said:
Exactly my point. A few years back, My missus and I were in Crete (Chania....the old capitol.) A couple at our hotel had told us we had to see the catholic church in the town so when we were passing, we had a nosey......

The place was FULL of gold..... The wallpaper was all gold leaf......even the grout between the floor tiles was gold....

Outside , sat on the steps, was a 10 year old begging.

I rest my case.:rolleyes:
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It's so easy and fashionable to criticise the church. Did you ever think that they might be using the wealth they've amassed to help people?

What you probably don't realise is that God is in fact a magpie. It's up to the church to bring him his gold and jewels (also known as his 'Precious') in order to sate his desire for shiny things.

Believe me when I tell you that you don't want to see what an angry, omnipotent magpie is capable of! :(
 
Brings to mind this poem:
Norman MacCaig said:
Assisi

The dwarf with his hands on backwards
sat, slumped like a half-filled sack
on tiny twisted legs from which
sawdust might run,
outside the three tiers of churches built
in honour of St Francis, brother
of the poor, talker with birds, over whom
he had the advantage
of not being dead yet.

A priest explained
how clever it was of Giotto
to make his frescoes tell stories
that would reveal to the illiterate the goodness
of God and the suffering
of His Son. I understood
the explanation and
the cleverness.

A rush of tourists, clucking contentedly,
fluttered after him as he scattered
the grain of the Word. It was they who had passed
the ruined temple outside, whose eyes
wept pus, whose back was higher
than his head, whose lopsided mouth
said Grazie in a voice as sweet
as a child's when she speaks to her mother
or a bird's when it spoke
to St Francis.
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