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A Pope Is a Pope Is a Pope

By Lakshmi Chaudhry, AlterNet. Posted April 22, 2005.


The hysteria over the appointment of a conservative pope is based on a vastly exaggerated assessment of the papacy's power.
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Anyone with a modicum of liberal inclination in the media is now all worked up over the selection of Joseph Ratzinger as the new Pope Benedict XVI. Oddly, many of the same people who were rightly offended by the orgiastic news coverage that followed John Paul II's death are the ones now devoting their energies to slamming his successor -- a choice that unfortunately only reaffirms the already inflated assumptions of the importance of the papacy.

The source of much of this indignation is, of course, Ratzinger's long and well-documented support of conservative positions on homosexuality, contraception, abortion, and gender equality. That the criticism of his track record is well-earned does not, however, make it any less misguided. And here's why: it's based on a vastly exaggerated assessment of the papacy's power. John Paul II -- or the newly dubbed "rock star" pope -- was neither able to stop the war in Iraq nor the plummeting birth rates in his own backyard. Italy has the lowest birth rate in the EU, and not because its women practice the rhythm method.

In the past, liberals have been fond of attacking both the Church and its more visible emissaries -- be it the Pope himself or Mother Teresa -- of discouraging the use of birth control in countries that need it most, such as Mexico or India. Yet high population rates are more an effect of poverty and gender inequality than religious dogma. Change the socioeconomic equation, and cultural attitudes will inevitably follow -- with or without the Pope's blessing.

While the appointment of a liberal pope may well have been a cause for celebration, the victory would have been mostly symbolic. It is unlikely that the happy event would have led to a spectacular change in attitudes among less affluent Catholic nations in Africa, Asia, or Latin America. On the flip side, the winds of change are already blowing in some of these countries despite the ideological rigidity of the Catholic Church. As Kelly Hearn reports on AlterNet, in countries such as Brazil and Argentina, papal conservatism will likely do little to stem the popular tide in favor of more liberal policies on abortion and contraception. In the end it will be Lula and his supporters, not Pope Benedict XVI, who determines whether Brazilian women can choose to have a safe and legal abortion.

Arguments about the relationship between religious dogma and cultural attitudes at least include some measure of veracity. Sidney Blumenthal's rant on Salon blaming Ratzinger for George Bush's second term, however, relies almost entirely on hypothesis rather than fact -- especially since it is based on the peculiar notion that the same American Catholics who have no problem ignoring the Church on matters of fornication or birth control would somehow jump to attention when it comes time to pick their president. While it's true that Bush increased his support among Catholics by six points in 2004, he also improved his standing with almost every demographic since 2000. Why assume that the reasons for this spike among Catholics is any different than, say, the factors -- fear, terrorism, etc. -- that gave Bush a bigger share of the married women's vote? How can Blumenthal so confidently blame it on one strongly-worded directive from Ratzinger, when a recent survey clearly indicates that 72 percent of American Catholics prefer to rely on their conscience rather than the pope to make their decisions?

The underlying reasons for this leap of logic -- and more broadly, liberal rage at Ratzinger -- can be found in the same article's breathless teaser: "Cardinal Ratzinger handed Bush the presidency by tipping the Catholic vote. Can American democracy survive their shared medieval vision?" Quick, run for the hills! The vast right-wing conspiracy has now gone global. Ever since Bush's ascendance to the White House, the liberal obsession with the Christian right has grown in leaps and bounds -- so much so that it now looms large in our imagination as a gargantuan monster of comic book proportions, intent on swallowing us whole. This isn't to say that our fears are baseless, but in refusing to recognize the religious right for what it is -- a formidable, well-organized and -funded political force -- we run the risk of substituting hysteria for strategy, and therefore impotent wrath for effective action.


Digg!

Lakshmi Chaudhry is senior editor of AlterNet.

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What else can I say?
Posted by: campoe on Apr 22, 2005 4:52 AM   
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Good, well balanced article. I will send it to some of my friends who think the world is about to come to an end.

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Mr.
Posted by: robchapman on Apr 22, 2005 5:24 AM   
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One of Bush's political effects has been to recruit the Catholics into the American Conservative political base. Benedikt's positions on a number of controversial issues are in line with Bush and will consolidate this trend.

There are no off-setting values for moderates or liberals in this equation. The conservatives have clearly demonstrated with the Invasion of Iraq, that they value their pride more highly than they value the lives and property of the Arabs.

The Invasion of Iraq is only the most public demonstration of this. In every phase political transaction the Christian right places property over justice, dogma over knowledge and idealogical dependibility over efficacy.

Benedikt XVI's elevation to the Papacy is a confirmation of this trend for the American religious right.

It is important for the rest of us to remember and practice democracy. It is important for the rest of us to reach out to the religious right for dialogue.

But it is vitally important to remember that they do not respect us as human beings, they do not respect us as competent or knowledgeable people, they do not accept our sincerity as validating our positions.

Unless and until we provide a united front in defying their behavior in mixing religion into public life, killing for the sake of their idealogical purity and taxing the poor into submission, we will continue to see the world's misery increase.



Robert Chapman

Ithaca, New York

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» RE: Mr. Posted by: Buddha
» RE: Mr. Chapman Posted by: lgough
Take A Deep Breath!
Posted by: lcn on Apr 22, 2005 5:39 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I am pleased to read a piece that offers an opportunity to reflect rather than react. I am tired of the ranting and raving that is going on --- we as progressives need to take a deep breath and really look around. We must not buy into stereotyped images of the "right"---those images are served up to us to divert us from the real issues. We have not been able to articulate a progressive vision it is time for us to sit down and look around us and really see our communities.

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Confusion
Posted by: vtbaron on Apr 22, 2005 6:08 AM   
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Oddly, many of the same people who were rightly offended by the orgiastic news coverage that followed John Paul II's death are the ones now devoting their energies to slamming his predecessor

How do you slam a dead Pope's predecessor? Do you mean successor, Lakshmi? Not too astute for a journalist (read: wordsmith), wouldn't you say?

On the other hand, I do agree with most tenets of the article. The paranoia and sheer speculation about Ratzinger are all such hoo-ha, it is hard to take any of it seriously. Amazing that so many people out there are nervous about a German being at the helm of the Catholic church again (after nearly 1000 years), too. Why not? Most of Southern Germany (i.e. Bavaria and Swabia) are devoutly Catholic.

As a gay man, I have no problems with Cardinal Ratzinger's becoming Benedict XVI. Good luck and "Godspeed" to him. One would almost think his election had churned up a reaction based on German history of 60 years ago; if that is the case and these people dissing Ratzinger are looking at the Holocaust and Nazi Germany, let's all remember that the Roman Catholic Church stood idly by during the entire 12-year "1,000 year Reich" and officially did squat to help anyone put into the concentration camps, and even sided with the Hitler government on hundreds of issues where their opposition might have made a huge difference.

Shut up already and let Benedict strut his stuff. Too much attention is being paid to pundits these days. History writes itself without their help.

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» RE: Confusion Posted by: vtbaron
» RE: Confusion Posted by: Lakshmi Chaudhry
» RE: Confusion Posted by: thirdmg
Easy for You to Say
Posted by: Stonecutter on Apr 22, 2005 6:26 AM   
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Lakshmi Chaudry's logic, as usual, is impeccable as far as it goes, but I think a very central point is not addressed in this piece about the new Pope. The mainstream media has been infected with the fear virus (or is it really the profit virus?) for some time, and the result has been a chilling, propogandistic mutation that is evident in most outlets. It's likely that we progressives are over-reacting not only to the new Pope's hardline credentials, but also to numerous other benchmarks of right-wing extremism in our midst: John Bolton, Judge Brown, the "Nuclear Option", rumored plans to invade Iran, to name just a few.

The reason these individuals and/or circumstances loom so large in our headlights is because the prevailing media has put them front and center in a manner befitting the most sophisticated, effective and brutally redundant propoganda machine. Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, not to mention the myriad local news outlets, have all taken on the unmistakeable odor of public relations firms, churning out "news" stories as if they were so many car or cell phone commercials, with similar production values (MTV-style quick cuts, blaring sound effects, bombastic visuals, utterly superficial and slanted copy) and scant effort to offer any contrasting points of view.

The numbing, chilling effect of these developments on TV has been joined by scary self-censorship in the press. Just this week, the New York Times, which my wife and I have considered the bible of quality news reporting for decades, did something truly disturbing. In the midst of major developments about the John Bolton hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, indicating that the Bolton vote may be postponed (as it eventually was), the Times had no significant reporting---in fact, we were hard pressed to find ANY reporting--on these developments the day after they occurred. How could this be?

In an era where evidence of large-scale, often obvious omission or distortion in reporting of major events and information, clearly unfavorable to the Bush Administration or Republican zealots in Congress, is increasingly apparent in so-called mainstream outlets, when compared to alternative media sources such as Alternet, Truthout, Pacifica Radio and others, it's also apparent that pervasive right-wing spinning of the news is having it's intended effect. Fear trumps reason; bigotry can easily obscure what is right.

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The Vatican and the UN
Posted by: yelimske on Apr 22, 2005 7:05 AM   
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While I agree with the general sentiment of Lakshmi's article (ie...folks are overreacting), is it not still appauling that the Vatican has such privileged power within the UN. And it is indeed power.

Francis Kisling of 'Catholics for a Free Choice' wrote in a USA Today article "Imagine the furor if a diplomat at the UN argued that condoms cause AIDS; women who had been raped in war should not be allowed to use emergency contraception; women in developing countries have no interest in individual rights, but only want to serve the community; UNICEF should not be supported because it was no longer a children's agency and was involved in abortion; and adolescents have no right to confidential sexuality education. Yet, these positions are regularly taken by representatives of the Roman Catholic Church-a "country" that many people are shocked to hear exists, and outraged when they learn the United Nations has accorded it the status of a state (albeit a non- member one)."

Granted, there are other "religious" states at the UN ...but I often cringe to think of their power too.

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author and agitator of church and state
Posted by: eileen_flmng on Apr 22, 2005 7:54 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
What the world needs now are more well balanced, deep, critical thinkers like Lakshmi Chaudhry who write Truth.

As a progressive Celtic-Christian, I am grateful for all such truth telling for 'the truth will set you free'.

www.olivetreesfoundation.org

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It's A War, Not A Debate!
Posted by: thirdmg on Apr 22, 2005 7:57 AM   
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We've heard this same argument for decades: the religious lunatic fringe isn't as powerful as you imagine - it's actually weakening. Then, each time the argument is proven wrong. Now this "weakening" movement even controls the presidency and Congress, and we're closer to a theocracy than ever.

Chaudhry's article, while offering some useful information, is a good example of how progressives end up deflating and disarming their own movement. How long will it take Chaudhry and others to realize that the cultural wars are exactly that - wars. The religious right understands that and implements no-holds-barred strategies to win the wars.

Fighting a war requires passionate motivation with the goal of defeating the enemy. You don't win a war by convincing the troops that the enemy isn't really much of a threat after all.

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Not Dangerous? Maybe for the American middle class......
Posted by: haystack1317 on Apr 22, 2005 8:03 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Ratzinger not dangerous? Maybe for someone who easily dismisses the idea that he is the direct representative of God or for someone living in a country where priests have little power. But for hundreds of millions of people, any thought of contradicting his strict vision for the church is weighted with the possibility that they might be participating in evil and doomed to hell. To deny that this is dangerous is to deny the forces that have led to the some of the deadliest times in the history of the world. Just his stance on abortion will cause untold heartache and suffering. It is most certainly dangerous to millions of people who do not find dismissing the Pope such an easy thing to do. The author, in downplaying the untold personal tragedies which will result, is missing the trees for the forest.

It also seems to me that the author's nonchalant position is largely a reaction to the perpetual "liberal hysteria" myth which I'd hoped Alternet was legitimately undermining. Instead, it seems the senior editor belives in it herself. Unfortunately, people use the "liberal hysteria" and "conservative conspiracy" myths to disctract from real discussion. I'd hope Alternet was above both of these distractions.

Ratzinger might or might not be dangerous to most of those who visit the Alternet website, but he is extremely dangerous to our world. To dismiss his power as if it didn't matter is to play right into his hand. He would be more than happy to have liberals feel he's irrelevant while he shapes the minds and lives of hundreds of millions of his "flock."

I'm personally disappointed in this piece, which is reactionary from its very conception. I'll keep an eye on Ratzinger and I suppose I'll keep a closer eye on Alternet, which I have always felt offered perspectives that didn't buy into the "liberal hysteria" or "conservative conspiracy" myths. We get enough of both everywhere else.

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. . .And Now for Something Different. . .
Posted by: monkeywrench on Apr 22, 2005 8:39 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Just for fun – to the tune of "The Theme from Mr. Ed" (If anyone remembers that TV show):

A Pope is a Pope, who gives us hope–
But no one can talk to a Pope, ya' dope–
So let's all hope, that our Pope will cope–
And let 'em all use the Pill.

But. . .

To the need to elope, the Pope says nope–
Because that would lead down a "slippery slope"–
And on that slope, there would be no hope–
For the church up on the hill.

. . .Forgive me, I couldn't help myself. . .

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NET
Posted by: NET on Apr 22, 2005 9:51 AM   
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"Not Dangerous?" is right. When both "sides" are seeking to calm the informed (liberal) response, you know there is something truly hair-raising happening. While what "the faithful" profess and what they practice are often oceans apart, that which fuels their external support for entities is generally fear for themselves and to heck with the: environment, women's rights (even among that gender), the right of children to grow up wanted and loved with access to the basic necessities for a healthy life and the global right to seek and embrace a personal truth which "harms none". / "Passion" supporters with their fantasies will think they have a green light AND political support of the highest order, for heaven's sake. / The response must be reasoned and realistic to counter the behemoth fear that fuels the "faithful right" and the "faux faithful" who only pander to the former to advance their agenda of power and greed. / It IS the poor and lower class that suffers, wherever they live, all the more horrifying when they do it to themselves for what they've manipulatively been led to believe. / Bushies AND catholic evangelicals (Vatican II---HA!) give not a twit for anything except their own agendas. Check it out. / I for one will not respond in fear, but won't be whistling in the dark, either. Progressives of all and "no" faith will keep watch. Peace.

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The Fear Culture
Posted by: Lakshmi Chaudhry on Apr 22, 2005 11:48 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is mainly a response to the number of you who wisely warn against the dangers of complacency, but perhaps mistakenly so in this context. First, I did not anywhere in the article dismiss the hardcore religious right. This is what I wrote: "This isn't to say that our fears are baseless, but in refusing to recognize the religious right for what it is -- a formidable, well-organized and -funded political force -- we run the risk of substituting hysteria for strategy, and therefore impotent wrath for effective action. "

In other words, it's hardly a call for inaction or complacency.

Since the religious right is indeed a formidable force, we need to fight it with a clear-eyed determination and well-thought out strategy. Yelling "The Crazy Christians are coming!" at the top of our lungs is not going to help us win. In fact, I would argue that it is self-defeating. One, it plays right into the hands of Karl Rove who can represent us as crazy loons to the media, who are only too eager to believe the myth of liberal hysteria that some of you mention. Two, it helps shore up GOP support among the evangelicals and helps paper over differences between them. Sloppy rhetoric can be presented as yet more evidence that those God-hating liberals despise all people of faith.

Finally, winning requires recognizing exactly what you're up against -- what is the opposition's strengths, what are it's weaknesses. What I'm trying to say here is that looking at the Christian Right as both almighty and homogenous makes for bad strategy. Neither of those assumptions are true. I hope you all will read a great op-ed that we plan to publish tomorrow by a devout evangelical -- he calls himself an eco-evangelical -- calling for an alliance with enviros to save the planet. We have immense opportunities for success even in this current situation -- let's not allow fear to blind us to them.

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But it does matter...
Posted by: Meta4Life on Apr 22, 2005 12:19 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I think that this article, and the commentary voiced on it, are superb. As usual, AlterNet gives any reader a lot to ponder. I do have one observation on the Pope's power, which goes far beyond the physical. I expanded upon this in my blog entry for April 19th, but here will simply point out that as head of a church of over 1 billion persons, any pope has a lot of influence over a sizeable minority of the world's population. "What this man thinks, what he says, and his actions have effects that spiral out beyond his Catholic flock. His attitudes, whether liberal or conservative, set the tone for a large percentage of this world."

The world-wide Catholic church is also one of the wealthiest multi-national corporations imagineable, and they put their money where their doctrinal mouths are. It's worth remembering, when we start assessing the ways and means of power, the effects that power has, and how far it reaches.

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Not mistaken nor afraid.
Posted by: haystack1317 on Apr 22, 2005 2:13 PM   
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Ms. Chaudhry writes "This is mainly a response to the number of you who wisely warn against the dangers of complacency, but perhaps mistakenly so in this context."

This statement implies that it is probably right to be complacent when it comes to the new Pope. Is it not possible to raise questions without being labled part of the "fear culture" by someone who seems to find the whole issue practically irrelevant? Was Martin Luther, the least complacent Catholic in history, part of a fear culture? I don't think so. Seems like he might have been rather brave. It is through questioning the Pope, which in itself was punishable by death for centuries, that the church has been forced to meet the needs of its members. Ms. Chaudhry may not be a member, but she should not so easily dismiss the hundreds of millions who are.

I'm disappointed as well in Ms. Chaudhry's simplistic lumping together of the Catholic Church and the Protestant religious right in her last post. The complexities simply cannot be reduced to the level at which she addresses them. It is indeed troubling that the abortion issue is bringing bitter enemies together to fight what they consider a greater enemy - a woman's right to choose.

I am not afraid, but I am troubled. I'm troubled that the new Pope stated that giving John Kerry communion would be participating in evil. I'm troubled because the enormous amount of people who look to the Pope for the definition of God will now have a less compassionate and less forgiving vision. I'm not troubled for myself, but for them. It seems that these millions don't enter Ms. Chaudhry's view of the world.

Ms. Chaudhry's original headline, "A Pope is a Pope is a Pope," makes it clear that she has a simplistic view of the situation. If I wrote an article called "A President is a President is a President" I wouldn't be considered intellectually capable. The Pope has a completely different sort of power, of course. Some would say more, some would say less, but I would think all could agree that he is not someone to dismiss out of hand. The senior editor of Alternet is not someone who I would have expected to downplay his importance.

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Gantina
Posted by: Gantina on Apr 22, 2005 3:13 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Talk about being out of touch with reality. Namely the author of this article and those responding positively to it. What comes to mind is the image of a large auditorium filled with communists, who are all clapping in agreement with Stalin. The Catholic Church is the only institution that consistently stands up for human rights and the sanctity of human life from birth to natural death. You claim the Catholic Church aided the Nazi's. Try taking a look at real history and listen to those who lived through it. They tell a quite different tale than those presently trying to rewrite it. Get a clue people.

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» RE: Gantina Posted by: catroina
» RE: Gantina and Catroina Posted by: thirdmg
Only Conservative Popes Are Powerless
Posted by: scsmith on Apr 23, 2005 8:39 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I will agree that Pope Benedict XVI is basically powerless, but only insofar as he is refusing to provide a bold new vision for a hopelessly jaded, out-of-touch Catholic Church. A radical pope (imagine that!) could do significant damage to the global power elite, if only he had the balls to confront them. Think of the power that a Gandhi, or a Martin Luther King Jr, or Jesus Christ himself could wield as Pope! But we'll never see such a pope, because the Church is as much an arm of the power elite as our government is.

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Is she kidding?
Posted by: Elfits on Apr 28, 2005 4:25 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is a joke, right? Alternet should have published this:

Polly Toynbee
Friday April 8, 2005
The Guardian

The Vatican's deeper power is in its personal authority over 1.3 billion
worshippers, which is strongest over the poorest, most helpless devotees.
With its ban on condoms the church has caused the death of millions of
Catholics and others in areas dominated by Catholic missionaries, in Africa
and right across the world. In countries where 50% are infected, millions of
very young Aids orphans are today's immediate victims of the curia. Refusing
support to all who offer condoms, spreading the lie that the Aids virus
passes easily through microscopic holes in condoms - this irresponsibility
is beyond all comprehension.

The scale of it is breathtaking yet not at all surprising: most humans are
sexual beings. A Vatican edict in the 1960s threatened to excommunicate
anyone breaking secrecy on child sex allegations, and guaranteed that ever
more children continued to suffer. And within its walls the Vatican shields
an American priest from allegations.

Still the Vatican turns a blind eye to this most repugnant and damaging of
all sexual practices, the suffering little children whose priests come unto
them. Yet at the same time it thunders disapproval of sex in every other
more innocent circumstance, blighting the lives of millions with its
teaching on gays, divorce, abortion and unrealistic self-denial. There is no
reckoning how many of the world's poorest women have died giving birth to
more children than they can survive; contraception is women's true saviour. In 1971 I interviewed Mother Teresa and asked how she justified letting
starving babies be born to die on Calcutta streets for lack of
contraception. She said sublimely that every baby entering the world was
another soul created in praise of God, even if it lived only a few hours.
She was never keen on cures: suffering was a gift of God that enabled those
who cared for the afflicted to demonstrate their love. She was beatified by
John Paul II for their shared religious mania. Those who met them talk of an
aura of love, power, listening and intensity. But goodness is in doing good;
good intent is no excuse for murderous error

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Peter Pan
Posted by: Peter_Pan on Jul 7, 2005 10:41 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Praise the last post and the person who wrote it and not the flawed ethical ideals of Pope John Paul II - - - - condoms saves lives, not a religious dogma that is out of touch with mdoern times

AIDS is affecting roughly 30-something-million people around the world, 90% of victims in poorer countries like Africa, where the Pope has around 100 million Catholics to influence his power over. The common Catholic view that the Pope provides as a path to 'salvation' is that contraception of any form, for whatever situation or reason, is ethically immoral because contraception prevents conception of life from the moment of conception until death. Yet suggesting that contraception is ethically wrong in and of itself, in any situation, doesn't allign with the complexities of life - you can't say contraception is wrong straight out because condoms saves lives and prevents the transmission of AIDS which is slowly destroying how many millions of people and orphaning how many millions of children? How is preventing the spread of a life threatening virus ethically wrong, or do we want babies carrying AIDS as well to die in a few short months as well?

Is it moral and righteous to let millions of people die because the belief system which you follow doesnt allow for contraception? Is it moral to support life when you arent using contraception and moral to support genocide because theres no contraception involved? If Jesus himself was alive He would never let people die unreasonably when they could have been saved by condoms, no matter what the Catholic dogma teaches.

To every Catholic that reads this, i ask you this: What would you do if your partner had AIDS and both of you were/are sexually active? Are you willing to die for your religion or will you give your life for a belief that contraception is evil? If you will then you will join the 75% of Catholic couples who use condoms in richer countries.

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Peter Pan
Posted by: Peter_Pan on Jul 7, 2005 10:42 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
To spread misinformation about the unreliability of condoms is immoral! How can Catholics decieve people in order to make people conform to their views when their views are killing people! In poorer countries where religion and destitution is at its greatest influence is also where AIDS is at its highest transmission rate! Modern science explains how reliable condoms are, to go so low as to say they dont prevent AIDS is simply lies - which by biblical law and Catholic teachings (i would believe) is totally immoral - what do biblical religions call Satan, the Prince of Darkness and the One responsible for all the evilness in the world - Father of Lies?

I dont like fundamentalism because you can't possibly deduce reality down to a belief system - the universe and humanity are simply too old and too complex for that. To suggest that condoms are evil is to suggest that no good can possibly come from them, in any situation - but surely this view isnt the truth! The truth is that they can save millions of lives, regardless of what label the Pope puts on them.

Surely the Catholic Church can change it's views on contraception, abortion and euthanasia and other complex issues, yet first must come an acceptance that the religion is simply a belief system which cant do more than point to the truth. There has never been anything more destructive to humanity and the earth than our dogmas, i just hope the new Pope can see that his 'views' and 'perceptions' and 'beliefs' are consequentally letting millions of people die, because thats all they are - views and perceptions and beliefs, and beliefs have nothing to do with reality.

I never thought spirituality had anything to do about conforming to a religion or a belief system - besides - true spirituality doesnt need labels but an ability to transcend one's own beliefs to do whats right. So Pope - are you so far from 'God' that you can't see the ubsurdity of the teachings on condoms?

Peter Pan

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