AVANTI
- INDIETRO
Tag Archive: Ratzinger
AVANTI
- INDIETRO
Pope Benedict has added another ultra reactionary bishop to what I’ve decided to call his ‘rat pack’ . Not content with endorsing Holocaust denying Bishop Williamson, the news today is that Ratzinger has promoted Gerhard Maria Wagner to the post of auxiliary bishop in the Austrian diocese of Linz.
Wagner believes Harry Potter is “pure satanism” and that Hurricane Katrina and the Tsunami in Thailand were not natural disasters but God’s way of punishing sinners. Continue reading
For the Vatican City the season of goodwill clearly does not extend to the Gay community.
Homosexuals are ,according to Pope Benedict (aka ‘the rat’), “a deviation. an irregularity and a wound” . Apparently it’s OK if they are celibate i.e. if they follow the holy catholic priesthood in denying sexually fulfilling loving relationships. Presumably they are meant to redirect their desire into worship.
Bizarrely, he regards practising gays as a threat to the stability of the planet akin to the destruction of the rain forests. Quite apart from the fact that equating issues of sexuality with those of environmentalism defies logic, the Catholic church is also guilty of inciting a fresh wave of homophobia at a time when the need for tolerance and understanding is more important than ever.
I always pray (I’m not sure to whom!) that such reactionary bullshit will turn more people away from Catholicism and other brands of religious fanaticism but I realise that this is a faint hope. In these troubled times people are desperately seeking scapegoats and bigots like Ratzinger are more than happy to provide them.
Personally, I’m counting on deviancy and irregularily triumphing in 2009
Photo (The Priest, 2005) by Sarah Saudek
Fifteen years ago Pope John Paul II officially conceded that in fact the Earth is not stationary and that Copernicanism was not a heresy after all. No one can accuse the Catholic Church of acting hastily when it comes to admitting mistakes.
Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) doesn’t even seem to think the inquisition acted that badly – he called their verdict against Galileo (in a speech made in 1990) “rational and just”.
The Vatican should hardly be shocked at the wave of protest at Rome’s la Sapienza University about the fact that the rector invited Ratzinger to inaugerate the University’s new academic year.
An editorial in La Republicca deemed it a step backwards for Italy’s world image -personally, I think it shows a healthy disrespect towards the all things Papal. Usually speaking out against the Vatican is as taboo as public criticism of the Queen in England.
President Georgio Napolitano called the protests “incompatable” with free expression. Presumably ‘compatability’ would involve staying silent on this issue!
The problem is that politicians and the mass media are likely to make a meal of this affair and use what National Alliance leader Gianfranco Fini called the “anti clergy atmosphere” to launch a conservative backlash against Academia.
