Once in a blue moon Nanny really does surprise me. Thus I see blue moon in the heavens, as Nanny (or rather a very small part of Nanny) has shown that she has a sense of humour.
Gosh!
Nanny, or rather her chums in the Foreign Orifice (FO), has issued a rather amusing internal spoof memo relating to what should be done with the Pope when he visits the UK later in the year.
Seemingly a Papal Visit Team has been set up (money and time well spent!), to ensure that the Pope's visit goes smoothly and without any embarrassment.
Therefore, in order to ensure maximum yield from the visit, the bright young things in the FO decided to imagine an "ideal" visit (from a satirical point of view), and accordingly drafted a memo.
The memo included such highlights as:
- The Pope blessing a gay marriage
- The Pope opening a child abuse helpline
- The Pope blessing an abortion clinic
- The Pope launching "Benedict Condoms" etc.
Needless to say the memo duly leaked, and now there is a right old Hooh Hah!
Sadly for the younger members of the FO there are still those in the establishment without a sense of humour. The FO senior mandarins have grovelingly apologised to the Vatican (kind of ironic given that the Pope has yet to apologise for the role of the church in covering up child abuse) and Auntie (the BBC) is with "hushed tones" asking "what will the Vatican say in response?".
Ermmm...who cares?
However, based on past form, certain cardinals may well attempt to blame the Jews, media and gays again for this.
I dare say that the FO juniors who out this memo together will have rather "sore bottoms" today (so to speak), which is not surprising but rather sad.
Nanny and Auntie really ought to develop a sense of humour.
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Religious lunatics of all persuasions put themselves on offer for ridicule and abuse.
ReplyDeleteIt occurs to me that if you live your life guided by the selective reading of a two thousand year old book, then you are completely deluded and no amount of silly hats, frocks or madcap chanting is going to help.
The Catholic Church is probably the richest institution on Earth, and all this to celebrate the alleged life and teachings of a man who owned absolutely nothing, wore flip-flops and rode around on a donkey.
I do hope the Pope has to go through the CRB checks before meeting any children on his visit.
ReplyDeleteThe question is, would he pass?
I heard a rumour that...
Such strong condemnation. I will bet if this was a member of the 'religion of peace' no one would say a word out of place lest they be 'slamophboic. Jeudao/Christian religion is not perfect, but please do tell last time a rabbi or priest allowed a 13 year old rape victim to be shoved in a hole and beatean to death by 'men'smashing her head in with stones?
ReplyDeleteAny idea where a copy of the leaked memo can be downloaded? I checked on Wikileaks and couldn't find it ..
ReplyDeleteWhatever one thinks of religion, it should be pointed out the the Holy father is not just the spirital religious leader of over one billion people world wide, he is also a head of state....One wonders whether it would be acceptable for a country's foreign office to mock say the president of the USA or our queen.....At least he is the head of a Christian religion and not of an Islamic sect, otherwise we would have fanatics marching in the street and burning down Whitehall.
ReplyDeleteThe Holy Father did issue an apology for the conduct of the church in the abuse scandal however, not all priests and Catholics should be tarred with the same brush. Here are some facts; The total number of priests that have been accused of committing these un godly acts account for about 0.05% of the total number of Catholic priests, this means that 99.95% of priests have behaved as one would expect a priest to do so. The incidence of child abuse is far higher as a proportion of number of priests abusing in non catholic christian sects then it is within the Catholic faith.
The vast majority of those abused were not prepubescent and therefore this is not really a paedophile problem, as technically paedophiles like children and not those that have reached puberty. There was also a much higher level of child abuse amongst teachers and other child organisations such as scouting compared to the Catholic Church.
Any amount of abuse is too much but the Catholic Church has been singled out by the media for their own anti Christian agenda.
I personally feel the Pope is wrong to want to come to this hell hole and feel that it will be a disaster as we as a nation can no longer show respect and we'll have to have every single issue group out to make some political point or another.
Tonk, I'm with you to a point, it isn't *acceptable* for the FO to mock the Pope, but it is *amusing*, to us non-Catholics, at least. It can only be funny as a satire because the RC sets itself out as the font of all knowledge and proper morals, but clearly fails itself (IMHO), embarrassingly so at times.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, how can you be so sure that, statistically, RC priests are less likely to be child abusers than say, a scout master?
Is there really data out there that can be so specific to support such an assertion?
However, I fear that to a degree you may be right, that the RC is being unfairly targeted, and so it might only be a matter of time before another institution is outed for covering up systemic child abuse.
"The vast majority of those abused were not prepubescent and therefore this is not really a paedophile problem"
Hmm, that's a moral and social judgement as much as a legal one. In some places that would be true, but not in the UK or Ireland, so it stands to reason that those priests were in the wrong and knew their actions to be wrong, whether the children were pre-pubescent or not.
Anyone who believes in something
ReplyDeletewill allways be ridiculed by those who believe in nothing.
Non believers hate the idea that there MAY be something that is
more important than they are.
Empty vessels seeking attention.
Ashes to Ashes
Mr Potato Head.
ReplyDeleteThe data is out there....I got mine from EWTN...Global Catholic radio....Perhaps not an unbiased sourse however, if they did pubblish wrong data, I'm sure the media would be all over them.
I don't personally feel anyone should be above having the mickey taken out of them but, this was a government department talking about another head of state....Perhaps, imho, that sends out a bad message about our nation.
Any priest or any other individual should be punished if they have done wrong.....Again, just because a small minority of priests did wrong, it does not mean all priests are bad....For example, if one accountant that belongs to a professional organisation is convicted of theft or fraud, does that condem all others that are members of that organisation?,,,No of course not!!
I think it is because the Catholic church has stood so firmly on its moral values and not changed its theology just to be fashionable on many issues, that the media target us....They love to see something/someone that's great, fall or fail.
Many of the things that are being held up as examples of abuse were the norm then....I am sure that for many people over say forty or so, had they been brought up by their parents today, the way we were then, our parents would be doing time for child abuse.
I personally feel the word paedophile is banded about too often these days, speaking as a former forensic psychiatric nurse, I know what the real meaning of the term paedophile is.....It is an attraction to young people that have not gone through puberty....Remember, in the past the age of consent was much younger than it is today....A law doesn't change what a paedophile is attracted to....Jerry Lee Lewis married a girl of tweleve as I recall. Our legal system may well define someone of 15 as a child but, most paedophiles will not be attracted to that person if they are truly a paedophile in its true meaning.
What worries me more in this country is that, if atheists are so convinced that they are right, why do they appear to fear religion so much?.....What harm can it do to them if a person of faith wishes to practice their religion?....There seems to be a real militant athiest movement in this country, again a single issue group given too much say, that just wants to destroy what is a comfort to many people.....I do no one any harm practicing my faith and should be allowed to do so without the state, media and athiests trying to undermine and mock me all the time.
It does seem in this country that Christians are fair game for people to attack and mock whilst other religions, especially the one who's founder had a twelve year old wife, are beyond question and treated very differently.
To all;
ReplyDeleteI apologise for both the spelling and grammatical errors in my previous post.
Tonk,
ReplyDelete"They love to see something/someone that's great, fall or fail."
That is, of course, very true. It's a disease rooted in so many of us, and does us no favours, except for maybe keeping those in power wary of the masses?
"What worries me more in this country is that, if atheists are so convinced that they are right, why do they appear to fear religion so much?"
I think (from my perspective) what many atheists fear and dislike is the enforcement of religious values against the masses without choice, whether Christian or other. This does happen today IMO. My son goes to a non CofE state school, but is still required to perform in a Christian Christmas play, attend church services and perform a "Christian themed" act of daily worship. I don't entirely object, but I'm not 100% comfortable with this either. If he chooses to follow religion, then that should be his decision when he is mature enough to understand what it means, not the schools choice to push it upon him. Maybe, as a parent it could be argued that I can reasonably force a particular religion on my children, but that's another discussion really.
In any case, my son is being slowly indoctrinated with the Christian faith without anyone asking me if I mind, and yet they require permission forms in triplicate to take him out of the classroom and cross the road to visit the old folks home!
Going beyond that, the issue that the militant atheists have, is that they believe that people with faith are being hoodwinked and manipulated by their faith into doing things detrimental to their own or others health or well being. Hence the row over birth control/abortion with the RC church, and some aspects of Sharia Law in extreme Islamic states.
I don't believe there is a significant number of people that actively seek to enforce atheism on all, although such extremists are sure to exist, just as there are extreme evangelical types of the religious persuasion. Both types can, and should be ignored by the reasonable majority.
It may be that the RC church is merely resisting modern fashions in holding firm to what others would say are outdated ideas, but they have changed their views on major issues in the past to keep up with the times, so why not now?
As a sidebar, I would agree that you cannot tar all priests with the same brush. Clearly, there have been bad eggs, but also many priests who have striven for nothing but good works in their lives.
As you may guess, I'm something of an Atheist myself, but wouldn't define myself as militant (some of the people who post on Richard Dawkin's forums are shocking, almost psychopathic individuals). I'm willing to live and let live and not interfere with others lives, as long as I get the same respect granted towards me, which I'm happy to say, is the norm in the UK.
I also wonder (despite what I say above about schools) whether the move towards a secular society is a dangerous one. Is for instance, the Nanny State an inevitable and odious result of this secularism? I also think churches are, or have been, an important part of social cohesion, and even as an atheist, I would be sorry to see them all dissolve and be replaced by something as shallow and fickle as Facebook or other half-baked modern institution.
I fear I'm straying far from the point now!
Mr Potato head;
ReplyDeleteI don't know how the school system works these days but I would expect that if my child went to a C of E, Catholic, Jewish or Islamic school, they would teach that faith.....I agree that religion should not be rammed down people's throats nor should children be indoctrinated into a faith without a parent's consent....I do fear for our society as we turn away from religion.....It seems to me that, since we have turned away from religion, so our society has gone downhill, I think crime and teenage pregnacies as just two examples.....Is the decline of our society and our nation's move away from religious values related?....Who knows?
All Marxists/Socialist/Trotshyist states always try to replace people's religion with the religion of the state.....We are starting to see that happening here now.l....People do appear to need to believe in something be that, religion, the state, science or even the new religion of climate change....I say live and let live as do you......I don't feel one person's belief or opinion is any better than anyone else....Regarding religion, none of us will know for sure until it is too late, I would prefer to live my life believing there is a God only to find out after my death that there is not than to live life believing there is not a God only to find out after death that there is!!!
As Dave Allen would say;
May your God go with you.
Interesting timing for this.
ReplyDeleteUK election 'campaign, Greek financial crisis and possible collapse of the Euro, Belgian government needs to be replaced though a Belgian now nominally runs Europe whilst a Brit is the 'Foreign Minister'. The Catholic Church and representatives under some sustained media attention for all the wrong reasons and suddenly this alleged document becomes public.
I assume The Vatican is not politically a member of the EU and therefore the involvement of the Foreign Office is not inappropriate. If The Vatican is part of the EU then I would have thought the Interior Ministry would have had responsibility, thus making the incident an entirely administrative matter for an uninvolved department.
I look forward to - equally amusing - 'draft programmes' for visits from VIPs of other religions & other ethnic origins.
ReplyDelete