There’s a Catholic archbishop in Germany who’s fed up and not going to take it any more. He wants a blasphemy law, and hurry up about it.
“Those who injure the souls of believers with scorn and derision must be put in their place and in some cases also punished,” said Bamberg Archbishop Ludwig Schick on Wednesday.
He said there should be a “Law against the derision of religious values and feelings,” the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported.
And men in purple beanies. A law against the derision of that is seriously urgent.
I wonder if that will count for other religions or just his own? These people never really seem to think through their blasphemy laws when there isn’t a state religion. The same freedom that allows catholics to mock the religion or lack thereof of other people allows those people to mock catholicism.
Yeah, about that…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCoHX_-O9y4
That word, “Scorn,” keeps coming up. Some reactionary here in USA used it in reference to CFA’s Cathey having the 1st amendment right to free speech “without scorn or ridicule.”
This sounds like a pretty well organized campaign to begin shifting public sympathies toward blasphemy laws in Europe & USA.
I don’t think we’d better laugh. I think we’d better get ready for this.
After all, look at all the lovely people who went to CFA yesterday, cuz Jeebuz died to sell chicken and marriage was invented by dinosaurs on Noah’s ark. dafuq.
Believers’ souls must be really delicate.
Tell you what, your Archbishopness, when you folk stop supporting and protecting child rapists, then I’ll consider letting up on the scorn and derision. Until then, stand by to stand by.
Note to Bamberg Archbishop Ludwig Schick: the Catholic Church used to have that power and used it. Those times were called the Dark Ages.
For having an all-powerful god on their side (who apparently can take on anybody) they sure do act like the kid on the playground who threatens you to a fight, then runs home and tells his mom they were being mean to him.
jnorris #6
His Archbishopness wants to bring back the good old days of the Inquisition and burning heretics at the stake.
Heer Schick of the Christstapo reporting for duty.
*Herr
(gah!)
“Injure the souls” – must be some more sophisticated theology there, because I don’t see how that’s different from “hurt feelings” and there’s no law against that. And there ought not be!
Where was this asshat when Marvin Gaye died? Now that was an injury to soul.
Ridiculous beliefs deserve ridicule. That’s what blasphemy is, ridicule of ridiculous belief.
I wonder how one would prove in a court of law that his or her soul has been injured. You might say a judge would have to take that kind of proposition on faith.
Anyway, I find this especially interesting because Pope Benedict XVI condemned Pakistan’s blasphemy law just last year:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/world/europe/11pope.html
Wonder if the Vatican will respond in any way.
Also:
Article 166 of the German Criminal Code states that, “Whoever publicly or through dissemination of writings insults the content of others’ religious faith or faith related to a philosophy of life in a manner that is capable of disturbing the public peace, shall be punished with imprisonment for not more than three years or a fine.”
I guess that doesn’t do far enough for Schick.
If the Archbishop thinks that people should be protected against the injurious effects of “scorn and derision” then what about the injurious effects of the Bible on atheists? The Bible describes people who say there is no god as “fools” – a rather hurtful description, who likes being called a fool? Perhaps those who promote the Bible should be “put in their place” and punished?
The entertaining thing is that if such laws were passed believers would use them on each other far more than on sceptice. We could stand back until the believers have gaoled and/or bankrupt one another and then point out the consequences of their beliefs and behaviour.
It seems to be that it was a cover (and back-cover) of the German satirical mag ” Titanic” of the Pope soiling himself that may have hurt Archbishop’s Schick’s presumed soul to the extent that it gave rise to citizen Schick’s perception of an intolerable gap in Germany’s laws.
The picture purported to show how the Pope found the source of the Vatican leaks “scandal.” The Pope is already suing the magazine. This issue of the magazine has been banned in Germany, they were replaced by an issue with blacked out covers, saying “Verboten.”
The original cover can be seen here:
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/07/10/satirical-mag-shows-pope-with-pee-stain
Yeah? Well fuck YOU, Bamberg Archbishop Ludwig Schick!
Q: What did the Pope say to the Archbishop?
A: My Holy Father can beat your Holy Father.
Q: What was the Archbishop’s reply?
A: I’ll see you and raise you two choir boys and an altar boy.
Is that blasphemy or just ad-hokinem?
He looks like he is upset because his propeller has come off his hat.
Earlier this year a German court decided that it was fair game for a blogger to call the Roman Catholic Church “Kinderfickersekte” (child fucker’s cult), and in the Titanic case the sole ground on witch the pope was able to sue the magazine was personal defamation.
There is actually a blasphemy law in place in Germany (§166 StGB) but it was reformed in 1969. In the modern version the legal interest isn’t God anymore but “public peace”.
There is an ongoing discussion in Germany if that law should be wiped out completely.
The bishop’s demand goes just in the opposite direction and is flanked by some catholic intellectuals who wrote about it recently.
I think they don’t have the slightest chance to get it.
errata:
I’ve misspelled “Kinderficker Sekte”
When the archbishop can demonstrate the existence of this “soul” he’s talking about, and demonstrate that it’s been “hurt”, then maybe we can talk about the state of the laws.
“in a manner that is capable of disturbing the public peace”
This seems to codify terrorists always winning. All they have to do is demonstrate that, if someone does some certain thing, they will reliably riot.
Everything seems to depend on the level of frenzy the offended can whip themselves into, regardless of its reasonableness, the intent of the offensive ones, or innocent interpretations of the offensive ones’ acts (e.g., distributing their own holy book that reliably incites violence. Not that I’d expect this statute to ever be applied in such cases).
That’s exactly one of the reasons why the current blasphemy law is criticized in Germany.
That bishop looks like Mr.Bean but without the funny touch.
What I would like to ask the dude is what are the penalties he would suggest; it’s quite curious that these catholic bigots always ask for punishments but are never sincere enough to tell exactly what they think should be done with the guilty. I guess they learned this with the inquisition, when they condemned the poor people but it was the “civil” authority who did the killing and the burning…
They are showing more and more often how weak they currently really feel over here.
Author Martin Mosebach publicly supports stricter blasphemy laws as well, with rather scary thoughts such as “It will be beneficial for the social climate if blasphemy once again becomes dangerous” in a public essay. (only in German, but for those interested: http://www.fr-online.de/kunst/kunst-und-religion-vom-wert-des-verbietens,1473354,16414828.html) Luckily, the vast majority of comments are shooting him down for it.
This is the same man who called unbelievers “impaired in their full development to a human being” when interviewed in response to the study published by the University of Chicago which showed that the former East Germany is still the most irreligious region in the world and any post-unification missionary efforts made by the different religious entities have proved to be quite in vain.
That’s absolutely what I want to post in response.
Guess I should hurry with that; I live in Germany.
A “soul”? What’s that? He’ll have to procure one and present it in a testable way before anyone will have to listen to him.
The only people who have to obey a religion are those who belong to it. The buffoon in question is under the delusion that he can dictate to non-members. But then, that’s what he’s after: to dictate to all of society, not just those gullible enough to listen to him.
If he’s really bothered by people’s words, he should be filing libel and slander suits, not asking for the farce of “blasphemy” laws. Libel and slander laws have teeth, and if there actually were any, he’d be able to sue and silence people. However, labelling the pope a protector of pedophiles in not one he’ll want to try in court.
Speaking of which, another kiddy-fiddling priest has been caught, this time in Boston. He used to be a priest in Poland, but they moved him to another country. I wonder why….
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-priest-pornographybre8701ne-20120801,0,558818.story
hmm, a little of the auto de fe too? It’s so cute how this bishop wants people “punished” for ridiculing a man who intentionally has allowed priests to continue harming people, believes so little in his own faith that he uses modern medicine rather than Lourdes, etc.
left0ver1under #30
We see this all the time. Muslims don’t want anybody to draw Mohammed. Orthodox Jews get bicycle lanes removed so women won’t ride by wearing shorts and tank tops. Catholic bishops objecting to paying contraception insurance for their non-Catholic employees. All these godbotherers want non-believers to follow the dictates of their particular cult and whine when non-believers object.
Believers’ souls must be really delicate.
It’s not the souls that are delicate, it’s the belief. I think it was Molly Ivins who described American fundamentalists as having a belief a mile wide and an inch deep. I strongly suspect that German Catholics are similar. They see evidence of their belief being nonsense all around them and can’t deal with it. But instead of changing their belief system, they’re trying to force a change in the evidence. Ultimately, that will fail, but they could do a lot of damage finding that out.
USAmericans should not be too quick to pat themselves on the back vis-a-vis Germans. Per Wikipedia, several states still have anti-blasphemy laws on their books, although the leading Federal caae implies that those would be unenforceable. But with a majority of the supreme court now self-identified as RC, who can predict?
BTW, in neither the US nor Germany do the pronunciamenti of the RC hierarchy have a lot to do with the behavior of individual Catholics. In the US it’s known that this is true about birth control; in Germany and Austria a large number of Catholics have been ditching the hierarchy and going Konfessionslos, an action which takes big Euros away from the RC.
Are any USAmericans patting themselves on the back here? I for one am under no illusions about our local subservience to the Vatican – I think it’s a fucking outrage.
He probably wouldn’t appreciate the finer points of Codco Humor then.
Ah, the good old days, when we innocents thought the priests only shagged each other, and not the kids.
Thanks for the link Brad !
Ophelia Benson #36: YOU think subservience to the Vatican in the US is a fucking outrage? I live in Michigan, where the RC bishops ponied up $500K t0 get out the general-bigot vote (not just their own sheeple) in the 2004 election, which for them was a twofer: a constitutional amendment against marriage equality and also implicit support for GWB. But the comment immediately preceding mine (#33) imputed properties to German Catholics that are not borne out by my (admittedly small) sample. And as you probably know, when a German Catholic opts out s/he takes the tax-based support of the church away too because of their curious arrangement for supporting religious bodies.
US people who understand that the first amendment is only supposed to protect us from governmental scorn and derision expect it to protect us from blasphemy laws too. All I attempted to point out–agree with other people, actually–was the historically justifiable worry that we shouldn’t be terribly confident.
“Are any USAmericans patting themselves on the back here?”
I am.
“But with a majority of the supreme court now self-identified as RC, who can predict?”
I can predict. The blasphemy laws would be unenforceable. In the US you can make threats of violence so long as they are not incitements to immediate violence. IIRC you can even say that people should eventually commit acts of violence if as things continue as they are and that’s protected.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/world/americas/11iht-hate.4.13645369.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
The US is superior in many ways, much of the time, to other places. In particular, US laws are superior for Americans even when they might not be for others (e.g. restrictions against Nazi praise may be best for Germany. I’m not sure if it is).
I am suspicious of people who always claim that the US is in every respect better than other nations as well as of those who always claim that the US is worse or no better than other nations. There are so many aspects to culture, politics, economics, etc. that we should expect each nation to have strength and weaknesses. When it comes to free speech, the US is superior to places like Canada, England, and the third world. Simply superior, no apologies.
“I for one am under no illusions about our local subservience to the Vatican”
We’re less subservient than other places. Less is better; it’s not perfect. We’re not the Dominican Republic where doctors fear to treat pregnant girls who have cancer.
Shades of gray.
Still you #39: As you pat yourself on the back you might want to look over your shoulder. I respectfully submit that your boundless confidence in freedom of speech (and other civil liberties) in the US ignores historical fact. The Wilsonian oppressions in the runup to US entry into WW1 and the war itself, as well as the Palmer “red scare” that followed the war, are well documented: imprisonments lasting well into the 1920s were a result. The “anti-communist” orgy of the 1950s is closer in time and even better documented: a very large number of people lost their government (all levels) jobs for having, or at some time having had, ideologically erroneous opinions or associations. At least one man personally known to me went to jail for his. “Godless communism” was an epithet heard from politicians of all stripes. As in Wilson’s time, large parts of the bill of rights are now in the shredder, and in addition we have assassinations of US citizens by executive order without trial. That courts would sustain a blasphemy law is unlikely, sure; but would you have expected the recent strip-search without probable cause ruling–oh, say, fifteen years ago?
“…your boundless confidence in freedom of speech (and other civil liberties)…large parts of the bill of rights are now in the shredder, and in addition we have assassinations of US citizens by executive order without trial”
Why do you assume I am so confident in *any* other civil liberties? Central to the point of my post is that separate things are separate.
Don’t succumb to the halo effect. Think specifically, and in detail.
“would you have expected the recent strip-search without probable cause ruling–oh, say, fifteen years ago?”
I’m too young to be able to meaningfully answer that.
What the Archbish leaves out is the clear fact that every religion blasphemes every other religion, simply by not agreeing 100% with it.
It’s a hard one. I don’t know what the answer could be.
Back on subject: references to the archbishop of Bamberg in the German-language press were rather thin on the ground, but Google did find “Facepalm des Monats” (Facepalm of the Month) and a few other references that suggest we’re taking the gentleman in the funny hat more seriously than are the Germans.
And back off subject: patronizing with “Don’t succumb to the halo effect. Think specifically, and in detail” (#41) pairs badly with “The US is superior in many ways, much of the time, to other places. In particular, US laws are superior for Americans even when they might not be for others … ” (#39).
I do think specifically, of specific historical periods in which freedom of speech has fared poorly in the US (#40). I believe that the thesis that civil liberties tend to stand or fall together can be defended with specific examples, but that the host has already exhibited great patience in indulging this digreesion.
Also, Schick might care to blow the dust, cobwebs and cockroaches out of his Bible, and have a look inside, wherein he shall read:
“Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”
No mention of going after them for blasphemy there in the Sermon on the Mount.
But then again, one can always find something else in Holy Scripture that directly contradicts a given something. Still, that at least gives Schick a choice: freedom of the will and all that.
It will be whatever floats his boat.