to be getting annoyed at people booing the pope

[yawningprincess]

i know the children abuse issues are pretty horendous but why do people have to stand there booing- its so rude! in other cultures such disrespect simply wouldn't be allowed.

Because maybe there are other parts of our life that override protesting about the pope? Like maybe, being disabled and not wanting to journey into London at great personal discomfort?

Notice nobody apart from kaloki has answered the question about protesting.Maybe i've got it wrong, and you are all there now. Dont think so somehow!

curryfreak - I answered the question about protesting. But I don't suppose your cloth ears heard.

Oh i heard it. Just thought the response was incredibly lame.

It was a perfectly logical response. You just don't like it.

If you are the head of an organization with controversial policies and you go out in public, some of the public will show that they do not approve of you.

/shrugs

What you said was that basically,protesting was not top of your list because other things were more important, and you are obviously right.
I therefore deduce from that that you are not prepared to put yourself out for something that you,on here at least profess to feel very strongly about, but in reality have no real passion for at all!

I am pretty sure the bit about abusing children due to not getting 'it' from elsewhere, i.e. in a formal marriage arrangement thing is wide of the mark. To wish to sexually abuse means you have the desire to do it - being 'married' is not a 'stopper' to that urge.

No, it isn't unreasonable to boo the Pope at all. But I do go along with the notion of 'the Catholics after child abuse' is getting the same as 'Islam after 9/11'.

It's still odd that all of these "aggressive" secularists and aetheists who try to mock any organised religion as 'cosy' or 'living in la la land' are the same ones who lie or move house, or both. to get their sprogs into a 'faith' school.

Pan, just because someone is an atheist, it doesn't mean they are right about EVERYTHING.

Coalition - not sure what you mean? I know aetheists don't know everything. Is that a sort of excuse for applying dishonestly to faith schools?? Not sure what you are indicating, honestly.

Pan - I'm not sure how one applies to a faith school 'dishonestly' you either fulfill the requirements or you don't.

My point is that you can be an atheist and not have read the research that shows that pupils don't do significantly better at faith than non-faith schools, so they ate wasting their time going to church.

Just because you are right about one thing (the absence of any evidence for god) doesn't mean you ate then right about other things (thinking faith schools are better)

Though it could be that in a particular area the faith.school just happens to be better, on which case jumping through whatever hoops are required seems a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Hmm..the research that I have read, in anticipation of dd going ot big school indicates that 'faith schools' across the board out-perform 'non-faith schools' - up to and including GCSEs - Jewish schools score best. One dishonestly applies to faith schools by lying about religous beliefs and practices that you don't actually sustain.

and no, 'jumping through whatever hoops' isn't perfectly reasonable at all. It degrades your own personal beliefs, and ( I imagine) impacts poorly on your dcs. It's horribly hypocritical. There is another debate about whether faith schools should exist at all, but that is exercised regularly here. So your answer WAS a justification in applying to faith schools. ok.

Faith school entry dies not require belief, it requires attendance. You can't prove faith.

School gets better results != pupils get better results.

I'm nor justifying anything, there is nothing to justify.

good grief some of this is like kids in a play ground, mocking someone cos they have a "little crush" is bloody childish curryfreak.
a man liking a girl band is not ycuk, it is normal.
I suppose you will now slag me off for having a crush.

as for people going out to protest, some of us having children to look after.

Why am I not out protesting? Well, I do have three kids to look after, oddly enough. Why aren't you there genuflecting?
What he allowed to be done - well as he as a cardinal personally sent out an order that priests who abused kids were not to be reported to the police but moved to other parishes, I'd say he bears a LOT of personal responsibility for the rape and torture of children. You can support your paedophile-loving Ratizinger all you like, but I don't support child abuse so I applaud those who boo him.

It is ludicrous to accuse 'aggressive secularists' of trying to get their children into religious schools. Where is your evidence? I personally would move house rather than impose that sort of stuff on my children.I actually feel very sorry for children in religious schools.

Actually, I tell a lie, I am justifying something. I'm saying that despite the fact that faith schools in general not getting better results for pupils, in the specific case where the faith school happens to be better, then if you send your child to the faith school in the hope of better results you aren't actind irrationally.

Coldcomfort - dd and I thank you for your sympathies.

Aetheists DO lie etc to acheive places in faith schools, as performance in faith schools outstrip non-faith schools. I have personal experience of two sets of really 'zealous' aetheist parents who have done this ( in one case a mother doing the full conversion thing to catholicism - as a person who was struggling with his spirituality at the time it was a lot to bare.

Lots of other reported experience - people do it. So it isn't really ludicrous. Just tricky to reveal at times.

curryfreak - what you are saying is utter nonsense. People can feel strongly about something without taking to the streets about it, especially when they have parental and work commitments that prevent them from doing so.

As your attempts to ridicule and discredit me are proving so unsuccessful, why don't you try another tack? Like telling us what is so great about the Pope and why we should all be welcoming him here?

omg!!! this thread took off somewhat! i didn't intend for it to get so deep just think that there are better ways of getting your point across than booing, its a bit like a pantomime!

Unquiet, i too have parental and work committments, but i would take to the streets if there was something i felt so strongly about. I'm simply saying that you obviously dont, cos you're here and not there. It's a no-brainer!

Oh and fwiw, i couldn't give a toss whether the pope was here or not. I'm not at all religious. However, seeing the utter bile directed towards catholics in the last few days, has once again confirmed my suspicion that anti-catholicism is alive and well,- masquerading as concern for victims of abuse in particular which is quite sick really.

Apologies, apologies, apologies. But what have the heads of the church actually done about these priests? I don't know - have they done anything?

I don't think I'm anti Catholic at all. I couldn't care less what religion one is. Whatever you choose.

I am anti hypocrisy. And anti child rape. And anti poverty. And the Catholic church has actively participated in all three.

"i am not saying i abide by this but the church preaches abstinence.
so if you don't have sex you wont a)get pregnant or b) spread aids.
i am not sure which bit of that you aren't getting."

There's a massive difference between preaching abstinence and forbidding the use of (barrier) contraception. The latter to my mind, is really quite wicked.

Preaching abstinence too is ludicrous. We are designed to procreate. And believe or not, we are also allowed to have a fulfilling, enjoyable sex life where we are allowed to make choices to reduce the risks of disease. But why doesn't the Catholic church allow people to be fully rounded, responsible adults? Because that's frightening to the church.

The pope and the Catholic church will and should be criticised because not everyone thinks the same way as them. And because we live in a democracy, we are allowed to do that. Free thinking is allowed. Critical thought is allowed. Not total brainwashing.

You can bet that most people critical of the church are very critical of terrorist organisations. Governments that wage war - weren't there mass demos against the Iraq war?

And wasn't he a member of Hitler Youth? He should recognise the rise of Nazism in the form of secularism then, shouldn't he?

And I feel there is a lot of, "Is it cos I'm Catholic" going on too.

Why can't we criticise the Catholic church? Why not? Refute one criticism.

it is true that there has been a very long history of catholic persecution - right after the Reformation, and into the events of Northern Ireland in the 70's when catholics were being blatantly discriminated against in basic social provision, such as housing and employment.

The other thing about the child abuse issue is that we were all pretty slow at developing an awareness,and at times referring the victim back home 'to sort things out' .i.e where the abuser resided. In 1989 it took 10 adults to be aware of an alledged act of abuse before something was done, this meaning the police were informed of a 'complaint'. My point being that if such info. about child abuse were available, say 20 years ago, our society was not sophisticated enough to pick up on this and create the storm it should have.
Also, as we know, our children are not being predominantly abused by priests, are they? They are being abused by fathers at home, uncles, friends of the family, and anyone else with access to children and the urge to abuse them.

The church hierarchy DOES have a requirement to safeguard children, and suggesting they should NOT inform the local police to investigate is indefensible.