Not exactly general election politics per se, but interesting all the same.
Pope Benedict XVI plans to visit Britain later this year (September 16th 2010) and with the Catholic priests child abuse controversy it’s expected to be a turbulent visit with groups protesting at the Popes stance on issues like pedophilia priests, abortion and gay rights.
Pope Benedict XVI will fly to Edinburgh from Rome on September 16th 2010 assume we don’t have any volcanoes grounding the Popes plane, act of God an all that :-) He’ll meet the Queen at Holyrood Palace (the Queen will be on her annual holiday to Balmoral in Scotland at the time).
Should Britain Welcome Pope Benedict XVI’s Visit Poll?
[poll id=”15″]
The Foreign Office has made a bit of a gaff this week with a leaked document containing the following suggestions of what the Pope could do while visiting Britain:
Launch of ‘Benedict’ condoms
Review of Vatican attitude on condom use
Bless a civil partnership
Reversal of policy on women bishops/ordain woman
Open an abortion ward
Speech on equality
Statement on views over adoption (change of stance)
Training course for all bishops on child abuse allegations
Harder line on child abuse—announce sacking of dodgy bishops
Vatican sponsorship for network of AIDS clinics
Meet young unemployed people
Apologize for… …
Canonise/pseudo canonise a group
Announce whistle blowing system for child abuse cases
Go to job centre
Debate on abortion
All catholic schools should be free entry to all
Speech on democracy
Vatican and C of E funded committee on dialogue
Launch helpline for abused children
Most of these are reasonable ideas, but some are pushing it and would never get past the ‘brainstorming’ phase:
Launch of ‘Benedict’ condoms
Bless a civil partnership
Open an abortion ward
Other than the above three suggestions, with only the first being the “take the piss” suggestion, I don’t see the problem?
I bet you would see the problem if the above was changed to criticise/take the piss out of the Religion of Paedophile Worship
This was just a bit of fun I think – how many of these `funny’ e-mails go round all the time. It really has had more coverage than its worth
The website, www.catholic.com says,
” People are subject to a wide variety of sinful desires over which they have little direct control, but these do not become sinful until a person acts upon them, either by acting out the desire or by encouraging the desire and deliberately engaging in fantasies about acting it out. People tempted by homosexual desires, like people tempted by improper heterosexual desires, are not sinning until they act upon those desires in some manner. ”
Nick Clegg doesn’t agree with that, but he cannot think it is OK for people to act upon their improper desires. When he says, “I don’t agree,” he must be saying he has different ideas about what constitutes an improper desire. But how does Nick Clegg decide what is proper and what is improper? Clearly he does not take his lead from what the law says. For example, adultery is legal, but Nick Clegg cannot think it is OK. If he did, he would not have made his wedding vows in a Catholic church.
It is not at all clear how Nick Clegg can square his very publicly expressed political views on homosexuality with his private duties towards his family. Surely his wife would not be happy for their children to be adopted and brought up by practising homosexuals? Nick Clegg, for his part, when he married his wife, will have been asked to promise to help to bring their children up in the Catholic faith.
How can he fulfil that promise, and maintain his integrity, while publicly opposing Catholic Church teaching on homosexuality? He says, ” My wife Miriam is Catholic, my children are being brought up in her faith.” Nick comes across on the TV as a genuine enough fellow, so we mustn’t assume that he had his fingers crossed when he made his wedding vows, but how else can he explain this conundrum?
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The Pope shouldn’t be allowed to visit this country, he obviously isn’t welcome here and should not even try to come to this country – we are a nation of intellectuals – we don’t want scum like that coming here!
Get real
Nick Cleg would publicly declare he a homosexual, a devil worshiper, a Jew, or a Muslim, if he thought it would win him votes. In reality he doesn’t care not one jot or jittle about any religion or sexual orientation.