The Pope is due to visit Britain later this year, though that visit has been put in jeopardy by a leaked Foreign Office memo which made the silly suggestions that the Pope might open an abortion clinic, preside over a gay wedding and launch a new brand of 'Benedict' condoms while he was here.
This is the sort of puerile joking that young men are prone to when in their cups. The perpetrator, was probably still drunk when he circulated the 'joke' in an e-mail. Thanks to the Daily Telegraph we now know his name. Steven Mulvain was educated at the £9,279-a-year King’s School, Tynemouth, before studying English at Balliol College, Oxford. He taught at a summer school in northern Germany in 2006, where he said in a podcast that his hobbies included “drinking a lot and reading more or less what I want”.
A spokesman for the Foreign Office said “Many of the ideas in the document are clearly ill-judged, naïve and disrespectful” and the department was “deeply sorry for the offence which it has caused”.
Mulvain has not been dismissed, but moved sideways in a curious reprise of the Catholic Church's response to the exposure of pedophile priests.
I happen to agree with the pope over abortion and gay marriage, though I believe that Roman Catholicism has it wrong on contraception and unmarried priests. I suspect that the pedophile problem is at least added to by the fact that RC priests don't marry, though this is more an indirect than a direct consequence. I suspect that the priesthood provides a sanctuary for those with pedophile tendency partly because those who are married are not competing for the posts, partly because of the availability of choirboys, partly because the Catholic Church is held in such high esteem in some places that parishioners will hear no word against it and partly because of the forgiving attitude of a church that believes in redemption. It has to be said that Islam has its own problems with pederasty, and most child abuse occurs within the family.
Nonetheless, the cover-up was unforgivable.
5 comments:
LOL, it never ceases to amaze me how no matter what the issue you are discussing, even criminal activity of Chritian clergy you still manage to fit in something nasty about Islam!!!! typical
I wonder why that is?
I personally dislike Muslims, since they killed 3,000 Americans. OK, Mr. Anonymous.
And, of course, our poster realizes that in Islam, they stone to death homosexuals and in some countries, forbid girls to go to school. Nice.
My real reason for writing is that I agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Hamblin on the whole issue of the Catholic church and married priests.
Of course, you will find priests in the church. Nicely, the Catholics do not force married Episcopalians priests to divorce if they covert to the Catholicism. So there are at least a few married priests in that church.
I have a good friend who was molested by a priest while he was in seminary. I can relate that this totally destroyed his life; it took years for him to get over it. He finally did marry and have a son.
But what damage that priest did!
Barry
I am not against Muslims. Many are perfectly integrated, law-abiding citizens. Like all humanity, Christ died for them and they are offered the chance of salvation through belief in him. Unfortunately, the Koran, written hundreds of years after the Bible, contradicts the Gospels and conceals the truth from Muslims.
For someone who really doesn't like Islam try reading this from a widely circulated blog:
Barack OBAMA, during his Cairo speech, said:
"I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America 's story."
AN AMERICAN CITIZEN'S RESPONSE:
Dear Mr. Obama:
Were those Muslims that were in America when the Pilgrims first landed? Funny, I thought they were Native American Indians.
Were those Muslims that celebrated the first Thanksgiving day? Sorry again, those were Pilgrims and Native American Indians.
Can you show me one Muslim signature on the United States
Constitution?
Declaration of Independence ?
Bill of Rights?
Didn't think so.
Did Muslims fight for this country's freedom from
England ? No.
Did Muslims fight during the Civil War to free the slaves in America ? No, they did not. In fact, Muslims to this day are still the largest traffickers in human slavery.
Your own half brother, a devout Muslim, still advocates slavery himself, even though Muslims of Arabic descent refer to black Muslims as "pug nosed slaves." Says a lot of what the Muslim world really thinks of your family's "rich Islamic heritage," doesn't it Mr. Obama?
Where were Muslims during the Civil Rights era of this country? Not present.
There are no pictures or media accounts of Muslims walking
side by side with Martin Luther King, Jr. or helping to advance the cause of Civil Rights.
Where were Muslims during this country's Woman's Suffrage era? Again, not present. In fact, devout Muslims demand that women are subservient to men in the Islamic culture.
So much so, that often they are beaten for not wearing the
'hajib' or for talking to a man who is not a direct family
member or their husband. Yep, the Muslims are all for women's rights, aren't they?
Where were Muslims during World War II? They were aligned with Adolf Hitler. The Muslim grand mufti himself met with Adolf Hitler, reviewed the troops and accepted support from the Nazis in killing Jews.
Finally, Mr. Obama, where were Muslims on Sept. 11th, 2001? If they weren't flying planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or a field in Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people on our own soil, they were rejoicing in the Middle East ... No one can dispute the pictures
shown from all parts of the Muslim world celebrating on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and other cable news
networks that day. Strangely, the very "moderate" Muslims whose asses you bent over backwards to kiss in Cairo , Egypt on June 4th were stone cold silent post 9-11. To many Americans, their silence has meant approval for the acts of that day.
And THAT, Mr. Obama, is the "rich heritage" Muslims have here in America .
Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to mention the Barbary Pirates.
They were Muslim.
And now we can add November 5, 2009 - the slaughter of American soldiers at Fort Hood by a Muslim major who is a doctor and a psychiatrist who was supposed
to be counseling soldiers returning from battle in Iraq
and Afghanistan .
Thanks for tonight's giggle fest! this is really fun, kettle and black
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