andrewducker: (no glasses)
andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2005-04-19 06:23 pm
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Worst Pope Ever

I'm actually pretty pleased in some ways - by moving, in many ways, even further in a conservative direction the church has made it more likely that it will lose members in the west, and possibly even provoke a schism.
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andrewducker: (Default)

[personal profile] andrewducker 2005-04-19 07:56 pm (UTC)(link)
CofE allows priests - but only allowed women bishops recently (and it's still divisive). The first female priests in the UK were in 1992 - and 470 male clergy left in protest.

And the Pope preached against the Iraq war repeatedly. Did fuck all good though.

[identity profile] laserboy.livejournal.com 2005-04-19 08:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Like I said earlier, I do think religion can have benefits and use the power it has to genuinely help (Mother Teresa is a lovely example), but it's dragged down by telling people whom they should hate and obvious politics.

(Preaching against the war is arguably outweighed by the staggering situation in Africa regarding contraception).

[identity profile] rainstorm.livejournal.com 2005-04-19 09:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Mother Teresa refused to help people unless they converted to the Catholic church, didn't she?

[identity profile] laserboy.livejournal.com 2005-04-19 09:24 pm (UTC)(link)
That I don't know. To most people though, Mother Terasa was essentially a mute. Mother Teresa the symbol was/is arguably more important than whatever she actually said or did in reality. (That's not to run down what she did of course. It's just she remains a tremendously powerful symbol and inspiration for a lot of people who are helping others).
andrewducker: (Default)

[personal profile] andrewducker 2005-04-19 09:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Nope. She _did_ baptise the dying without them giving informed consent (arguably). There are some criticisms on the page here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Theresa

[identity profile] rainstorm.livejournal.com 2005-04-19 09:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Weird, I heard something saying they couldn't be prisets and thought I'd got it wrong. How strange. Fair enough then. But, erm, yeah, they're still horrible sexist.

And the Pope preached against the Iraq war repeatedly.
I didn't say he'd done nothing of value, however what he said/encouraged/did that was detrimental more than outweighs his good points in my opinion.


I'd also like to point out that while Hitler invented the VW Beetle and was apparently quite nice to his secretaries his bad points outweigh that.
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