In September this year Pope Benedict XVI plans to visit England and we, the British public, have to pay for it. We have to pay the costs of the Pope’s visit, including all the high security costs, yet the Pope heads up one of the richest institutions in the world.
I certainly won’t be going to see the Pope when he is here. More and more I find myself repulsed by the Catholic Church, by its treatment of women and their rights, their ignorant and intransient opposition to contraception and the use of condoms to prevent HIV, their vitriolic homophobia and the decades of covering up the sexual abuse by their priests. The Pope has proved as vocal in his reactionary views as the church he heads up. According to him, I, as a gay man, am far more of a risk to the world then global warning (!!). Before he became Pope Benedict XVI he was head of Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Canon Court of the Catholic Church, and now more and more dirt from the sexual abuse cover-up is sticking to him.
What does anger me is that my taxes still have to pay for this man to come to my country and patronise and insult me from my own land. Why can’t Catholics and the Catholic Church pay for this visit, why do we as taxes payers have to foot the bill, especially when the huge majority of us are not practising Catholics.
There’s now a way to protest. There is a petition, on the 10 Downing Street website, to sign that calls for the government to distance themselves from the Pope’s repressive views and assures us that British tax payers will not be footing the bill for the Pope’s visit. Here’s the link:Drew.
P.S. I have Paul Burston’s blog to thank for the link to this petition.
1 comment:
I am a bit puzzled by your comment, did you read the posting you commented on? It was about my unhappiness over the Pope's planned visit to Britain. I'm not a Christian, I find a lot of what is done by the Christian church distasteful or even down right prejudiced, and I do speak out about it. You can read more about my views with these postings: http://drewpayne.blogspot.com/2010/01/true-meaning-of-christian-equality.html , http://drewpayne.blogspot.com/2007/12/based-on-true-story.html , http://drewpayne.blogspot.com/2007/08/publish-and-be.html , http://drewpayne.blogspot.com/2010/05/step-back-and-see-full-picture.html . If after reading these you still want to collaborate please let me know and we can talk (I tried to visit your blog but found it blocked to the public, which I again found odd).
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