Sunday, October 12, 2003
Fuck The Pope
Just watched Panorama: Sex And The Holy City from which earlier news reports about the Vatican lying about the effectiveness of contraception came from. It was a fairly wretched program about how the Church has been moved, by the efforts of the present incumbent from a pro-contraception stance to an strongly anti stance and that it uses some rather underhand and morally questionable tactics to do so.
We start in Nicaragua- The Vatican insists that girls of thirteen, fourteen should have children even when they're raped. Even a young girl of eight who was pregnant, they tried to prevent her having an abortion.
According to someone (I didn't catch the name) who worked for the UN, the Pope blamed women for getting pregnant, it's their fault they get raped, they are tempters.
In The Philippenes the Church opposes sex education and people use Colgate toothpaste because they believe it's a spermicide. The parliament is debating a Reproductive Health bill and the Church has warned it will campaign to unseat any politicians that vote for it, so it's unlikely to be passed. The mayor of Manilla has banned contraception from all the clinics. They've had to throw out all their pills or condoms and get in anti-abortion posters. But when it comes to the prostitution and sex in the country the Church just tuts censoriously and talks about how it's bad and one day we'll outgrow it and look back ashamed. Liberal Catholics have seen the Vatican's observers at the UN work with countries such as Libya and conservative Muslim countries to try and prevent women's health bills.
Africa- World Health Organisation recommends abstinence or condoms, people in Kenya and Nairobi don't trust condoms. The Archbishop of Nairobi blames AIDS on condoms. Kenyan bishops claim that condoms have pores that allow the AIDS virus to pass through, which just isn't true. The bishop refuses to accept he's 'peddling superstition and nonsense', though as he's a bishop he probably can't tell one load of 'superstition and nonsense' from another. There are Catholics, including a married man with AIDS, who repeat this and say there is no reason for ever using condoms. This is a view put out by the Vatican who claims that scientists accept this. When they are challenged that the WHO disagree with that, the spokesman huffily insists "Well, dialogue isn't possible with people who believe that. It is simply not true."
It's not something I would normally say but hopefully God will soon be calling his 'good and faithful servant' to his side and there'll be a small chance that someone will replace him who'll be able to find a way to reverse the policy without seeming to contradict that whole 'Papal infallibility' thing.
Just watched Panorama: Sex And The Holy City from which earlier news reports about the Vatican lying about the effectiveness of contraception came from. It was a fairly wretched program about how the Church has been moved, by the efforts of the present incumbent from a pro-contraception stance to an strongly anti stance and that it uses some rather underhand and morally questionable tactics to do so.
We start in Nicaragua- The Vatican insists that girls of thirteen, fourteen should have children even when they're raped. Even a young girl of eight who was pregnant, they tried to prevent her having an abortion.
According to someone (I didn't catch the name) who worked for the UN, the Pope blamed women for getting pregnant, it's their fault they get raped, they are tempters.
In The Philippenes the Church opposes sex education and people use Colgate toothpaste because they believe it's a spermicide. The parliament is debating a Reproductive Health bill and the Church has warned it will campaign to unseat any politicians that vote for it, so it's unlikely to be passed. The mayor of Manilla has banned contraception from all the clinics. They've had to throw out all their pills or condoms and get in anti-abortion posters. But when it comes to the prostitution and sex in the country the Church just tuts censoriously and talks about how it's bad and one day we'll outgrow it and look back ashamed. Liberal Catholics have seen the Vatican's observers at the UN work with countries such as Libya and conservative Muslim countries to try and prevent women's health bills.
Africa- World Health Organisation recommends abstinence or condoms, people in Kenya and Nairobi don't trust condoms. The Archbishop of Nairobi blames AIDS on condoms. Kenyan bishops claim that condoms have pores that allow the AIDS virus to pass through, which just isn't true. The bishop refuses to accept he's 'peddling superstition and nonsense', though as he's a bishop he probably can't tell one load of 'superstition and nonsense' from another. There are Catholics, including a married man with AIDS, who repeat this and say there is no reason for ever using condoms. This is a view put out by the Vatican who claims that scientists accept this. When they are challenged that the WHO disagree with that, the spokesman huffily insists "Well, dialogue isn't possible with people who believe that. It is simply not true."
It's not something I would normally say but hopefully God will soon be calling his 'good and faithful servant' to his side and there'll be a small chance that someone will replace him who'll be able to find a way to reverse the policy without seeming to contradict that whole 'Papal infallibility' thing.
