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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

... to Protest the Pope?

508 replies

stubbornhubby · 08/09/2010 09:03

A friend of mine told me at the weekend that this will make me an extremist...anyway we had a long thread about this in July and a few people said they'd be keen, like me, to wave a banner as he parades around the country.

There's a big march in London on Sat 18th, Hyde park Corner @ 1.30pm
details here
www.protest-the-pope.org.uk/

Also, if you live in SW London, a Small demo in Strawberry Hill on Fri 17th @9am. (NB official visti website says you will not be able to see the pope arrriving/departing SMUC - I think he must be using helicopter. Or apparating Smile)

OP posts:
OhYouBadBadKitten · 08/09/2010 14:00

slug - which bit came across as a complaint?

edam · 08/09/2010 14:19

Of course people can - and should - protest against anyone who protects and enables child abusers and prevents those abusers being brought to justice.

Altinkum · 08/09/2010 14:39

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

tokyonambu · 08/09/2010 16:05

"sorry edam pope B has not been found guilty of anything as of yet, however he is being accused of aiding and abetting child abuse, however this is atm a CLAIM and one that has not been proven in court"

It's a little tricky to try heads of state for much other than war crimes and genocide. Ratzinger would have to sign off his own prosecution, which is unlikely, and before that the Vatican City would have to decide to prosecute him, which it won't. Aside from anything else, it would need a secular legal system, which it doesn't have.

Italy could impose travel restrictions on him unless a trial takes place, which given there's no airport in the Vatican might clip his wings a bit, but how likely is that to happen?

So apologists for child abuse can have their cake and eat it: they can claim that Ratzinger has not been convicted of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice (which would be a minimum charge), while being safe in the knowledge that there's no way for him to actually be charged or tried. Running your own country is a handy trick if you and your friends want to engage in crime, because any prosecution relies on the International Court taking an interest.

StrictlyTory · 08/09/2010 19:33

and yet Tokyo you are head of no known state and yet spout all the poisonous lies you fancy....

I see who have no reply at all for the actual evidence that he isn't a Nazi. But hey, why worry about simple things like evidence and fact? Racism afterall is not normal something condoned by rational people.

RunawayWife · 08/09/2010 19:47

Burning the koran, protesting the Pope, the worlds gone mad

edam · 08/09/2010 23:04

Altkinmum, he is not only the ruddy Pope and therefore by definition responsible for the entire Church but as I'm sure you know, he is also the former head of discipline - the previous Pope's 'enforcer'. He knew full well what was going on and there is documentary evidence to that effect.

There is also clear evidence that he dropped one investigation, allowing the guilty abuser to go unpunished by church authorities. And of course it never occurred to him to alert the police... I could go on, and on, and on. Ratzinger is in it up to his neck. Oddly all that stuff his church pretends to preach about honesty, about atoning for one's sins, about 'suffer the little children to come unto me' is ignored when it comes to the behaviour of the priesthood and the Pope in particular.

What's really depressing is that there are so many apologists for abuse. Presumably generally normal, reasonable people who would call the police if they themselves had evidence a child was being abused. But are prepared to collude in a cover up where priests are involved. Shameful.

hairytriangle · 08/09/2010 23:06

YANBU. The pope stands for a lot of things I disagree with, and whilst I agree with religious freedom, I disagree with holding any human above any other, and I disagree with MY taxes being used to 'host' his visit, when we have people seriously on the breadline in our country.

RainbowRainbow · 08/09/2010 23:28

YANBU to protest. Why would you be?

But YABU to say "protest the Pope" - shouldn't it be "protest AGAINST the Pope". Or IABU?

tokyonambu · 09/09/2010 01:26

"Racism afterall is not normal something condoned by rational people."

Rational people would not use the word "racism" to attempt to deflect the suggestion that members of a Nazi organisation were members of a Nazi organisation. It is not remotely racist to point out that brave young people did resist Hitler - one might point to Sophie Scholl, executed at 22 - and Ratzinger
wasn't one of them. You might say it is unfair, inaccurate, unreasonable or holding his to higher standards than can be expected. But unless you believe it's racist to criticise anyone German for anything that happened 1933-45, in which case Albert Speer is on the phone to remind us he didn't know anything, it has nothing to do with race.

No one is saying that those that did not resist are inherently morally compromised, but those that did not resist - especially those that knew, from the death of their cousin, just what the Nazis were up to - might have the decency to keep quiet about moral compromise. Women who have abortions after rape do so because they place their own life above that of the child they are carrying, as is entirely their right; Joseph Ratzinger placed his own life above that of the people being killed in Dachau because he was not brave enough, which is entirely his right. Many other people did the same, as would most of us be, because resistance was suicidal.

The difference is that those of us that know we would be morally compromised were we in Germany 1944 don't go around telling women who have abortions after rape that they are murderers, because we don't have that moral certainty required to make that condemnation. Ratzinger was not brave enough to be involved in the Widerstand, but from the safety of the Vatican expects others to display a moral courage that, when tested, he did not possess.

Wojtyla had many failings, but although he is not amongst the 6195 Polish Righteous Amongst the Nations, there is no serious doubt that he behaved anything other than in an exemplary fashion in wartime Poland. And Polish Catholics in many cases carried out acts that, although someone concealed because of Cold War sensitivities, now shine like beacons: Google for Irena Sendler. More to the point, Google for the Podgorski sisters: Catholics aged SIXTEEN AND SIX: "During the Holocaust, sixteen-year-old Stefania and her six-year-old sister harboured thirteen Jewish men, women and children in the attic of their home for two-and-a-half years. Both were later honored as the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem as well as by the Jewish and Polish organizations in North America, for their wartime heroism."

Remind me, what was it that Ratzinger did to show us his moral courage? The Podgorski sisters are still alive: if Cameron wishes to spend a few million touring them around the country, that would a different story, wouldn't it?

bethjeff · 09/09/2010 01:45

Im not going to wade in here but the way I see it is
if you're not religious you shouldn't have to pay to facilitate somebody elses beliefs

So Catholics should pay for their Pope

Whoever's behind the orange walks should pay for that (£1.8 mill last year in Glasgow!!)

If you're Jewish and want to hold a parade- you should pay for it (I dont know if they have one-sorry!)

Muslims can pay for the upkeep of mosques

Church of Englands can pay for their churchy stuff.

Etc etc ad nauseum

I think that is fair.

Heracles · 09/09/2010 01:56

"I see who have no reply at all for the actual evidence that he isn't a Nazi."

How do you prove you're not a Nazi? Open a bagel factory? Hmm

scaryteacher · 09/09/2010 07:05

Have to agree with Edam; there was not much going on that Ratzinger didn't know about. I wasn't that keen on JP2 either; the last one I had any time for was JP1 and look what happened to him.

stubbornhubby · 09/09/2010 07:13

tokyonambu great post

OP posts:
gorionine · 09/09/2010 07:29

Sorry, I have just skimmed the thread but am not sure I understod correctly, will people really be charged to go and se the Pope? Confused.

gorionine · 09/09/2010 07:32

understood even

stubbornhubby · 09/09/2010 07:32

Pilgrims have to pay to get in to the main events
Protesters stand outside for free (smile)

OP posts:
stubbornhubby · 09/09/2010 09:19

for anyone that is interested some examples of how the pope is personally involved in dealing with child abuse cases

www.protest-the-pope.org.uk/2010/09/johann-hari-catholics-its-you-this-pope-has-abused/

the catholic church is a vast organisation and contains many decent people; and I wouldn't travel round the world campaigning against it.

but next week the pope is coming to me. he's coming to my country, to my town, to my part of town even, and has the nerve to parade around for four days with children, and to put children at the heart of the visit.

i don't see how anyone would not think that he deserves a boo or two, under the circs.

OP posts:
StrictlyTory · 09/09/2010 14:07

Tokyo tbh I think you're on the wind up.

You are a rascist for saying that THE POPE is a Nazi for being forced to join the Hitler Youth, so essentially you are saying that everyone who was forced to join was a Nazi which is bulls**t.

You also cannot clearly tell the difference between Scholl who was 22 and the Pope who was 14....

tokyonambu · 09/09/2010 15:19

"You are a rascist for saying that THE POPE is a Nazi for being forced to join the Hitler Youth, so essentially you are saying that everyone who was forced to join was a Nazi which is bulls**t."

Your grasp of the concept of racism is sketchy, to say the least. It would be racist (well, if you believe that non-Jewish Germans constitute a distinct race, which almost no-one outside the National Socialist Arbeiterpartei has ever done: you should try to keep better company in your definitions of race) to argue that it's inevitable that Germans in 1939 would be up to no good because, well, they're Germans. Racism is the assumption of inherent or immutable properties of "races", which purport to make discrimination rational.

Moreover, one of the most dreadful aspects of the Holocaust was to deny Jews their German-ness. German Jews went to their deaths believing to the last that they were German, having never quite believed that their Jewishness in any way made them lesser Germans. The belief that Jews were not truly German made the expulsion of Jews from German possible; it appears to be a belief that you share, given your cry of "racism" defines a race including only non-Jewish Germans (Jews were, obviously, German and yet not members of the Hitler Youth).

It is quite clearly not racist to point out that members of the Nazi Party were members of the Nazi Party. You may wish to argue that people were forced to join (although some refused), you may wish to argue that they were threatened (although some left the country), you may wish to argue that it didn't really matter because everyone was doing it (although everyone wasn't). But to start throwing words like racist around in this context is entirely spurious.

You may think you are being terribly understanding speaking up for the poor traduced Germans of that generation (although I suspect you are only actually speaking up for one of them), and it's true that authors like Daniel Goldhagen overstate the argument that eliminationist anti-Semitism was absolutely universal in German culture of the time (aside from anything, like you do, it denies German Jews their nationhood). It was a country where madness and evil got in, and once they're in it takes huge force to remove it. But that doesn't mean that there were no people who resisted - Hans Braxenthaler shot himself rather than be captured a few hundred metres from the Ratzinger house - and we should be very careful about ascribing virtue to passive acquiescence.

And as I cited, one of the Righteous Among The Nations was six at the time, and didn't even have the spur of a cousin being murdered. I don't think you quite understand who the Righteous Amongst The Nations are. They are a tangible proof that moral leadership exists. Even in Austria: look up Florian Tschögl. And in Poland, Jews were hidden by Catholics at hideous, terrible cost:

"In the night of 23-24 March 1944 German police came to Markowa from Lancut. They found the Jews on the Ulma farm and shot them to death. Afterwards they murdered the entire Ulma family - Jozef, Wiktoria, who was seven month pregnant, and their six small children - Stanislawa, Barbara, Wladyslawa, Franciszka, Maria, and Antoni. The eldest of the Ulma?s children had just begun to attend classes in primary school."

Ratzinger did nothing whatsoever in the war to resist. He just went along. As I said, none of us can say how we would behave and few of us would have the bravery to resist. But I think that most of us, if we emerged alive and relatively well from a morally corrosive experience like the Third Reich, would be a little silent about others' moral compromises, and realise that sometimes people are passive in the face of evil because bravery is not given to everyone.

TechLovingDad · 09/09/2010 15:27

How is it racist to claim that a German was a Nazi?

TechLovingDad · 09/09/2010 15:29

Here's what really gets me about the Pope and the paedophile priests.

They believe God sees and knows all. They believe God will judge them. They commit, condone, or cover up horrific acts.

Either they are happy to be judged and go to Hell, or they don't believe in God.

Weird.

SauvignonBlanche · 09/09/2010 15:34

The high security costs involved are partly due to protestors so YABVU.

pink4ever · 09/09/2010 15:55

Hi
I am not a person of faith(would describe myself as agnostic at a push.) My dh was brought up catholic but is now a commited atheist!.
I dont have a problem with the popes visit.The argument that is costing the taxpayers is a fatous one as we have no say in what our taxes go towards anyway.
Yes you have a right to protest as we live in a democracy.
Know this is a bit off topic but am also puzzled over the furore surrounding the burning of the koran by those crazies in usa. They are perfectly entitled to demonstrate their feelings towards another religion.I have seen plenty of muslims on tv burning bibles,british/american flags etc and that doent seem to bother anyone?.
It seems that too many people ask for tolerance thst they are not prepared to give in return IMO.

ChickensHaveNoEyebrows · 09/09/2010 16:06

YANBU. We live in a democracy. Protest away.