The Pope is planning to visit the UK. He shouldn’t be welcomed; he should be turned away at the border as an undesirable fraud. There is a petition to sign to let the government know what people think. They make a good case:
- That the Pope, as a citizen of Europe and the leader of a religion with many adherents in the UK, is of course free to enter and tour our country.
- However, as well as a religious leader, the Pope is a head of state and the state and organisation of which he is head has been responsible for:
- opposing the distribution of condoms and so increasing large families in poor countries and the spread of AIDS
- promoting segregated education
- denying abortion to even the most vulnerable women
- opposing equal rights for lesbians, gay, bisexual and transgender people
- failing to address the many cases of abuse of children within its own organisation.
- rehabilitating the holocaust denier bishop Richard Williamson and the appeaser of Hitler, the war-time Pope, Pius XII.
- The state of which the Pope is the head has also resisted signing many major human rights treaties and has formed its own treaties (‘concordats’) with many states which negatively affect the human rights of citizens of those states.
- As a head of state, the Pope is an unsuitable guest of the UK government and should not be accorded the honour and recognition of a state visit to our country.
That first point is far too kind.
Oh yeah the poop should well and truly either:
-Pay for himself (maybe he can’t afford it from molestoring compensation?)
-Or fuck off.
The Pope should be arrested & tried for crimes against humanity.
It would be an open and shut case.
Then locked away in Spandau for the rest of his un-natural life.
I strongly disagree.
They should let him in by all means…then arrest his arse and charge him with crimes against humanity (also against reason, but sadly with state leaders, that is not a crime).
Darnation, beaten to it.
Oh well, at least I’m not the only one who thinks Pope Rats deserves to be put on trial.
Let him in. Freedom of speech is the freedom to offend people and make a dick of yourself.
The RCC has steered itself into a position in Ireland and (I think) the UK where it can only lose more support by making sweeping pronouncements. Every time the Fellow in the Fabulous Frock opens his gob he’ll just make it worse for his apologists. Expect him to grovel in shame for being caught, and then dump the blame on those liberals and trendy lefties, Vatican II, and other diminutions of Purity of Essence.
The stupid old fart will bury himself.
This is awesome.
Thirded!
All very good points being made by the petition, hopefully it gets a lot of support.
I know how to turn him away. Invite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as well and tell the Pope they’ll be seated next to each other.
Nah, they’d probably suck it up and blather religious tolerance at each other.
Instead of President Alphabet invite Pz. Pope Ratz-arse would beshite himself.
You can fight him all you want, but he’ll use is sith mind powers. He keeps his light sabers and a blaster under that hat, why else would it be so ridiculous?
Shnoak’s ark.
Will people please go to KTLA.COM and Pharyngulate the poll re: “forced” health care?
Thank you.
I’ve petitioned for him to pay his own way. I hope that when he does come here, either with government assistance or not, there’s a massive protest at his speech against his awful values.
lettersalad #3
Spandau prison was demolished shortly after the death of the last prisoner there, Rudolph Hess.
Aaaah, so this word isn’t limited to German ^_^
Indeed not, though it is rare. A contemporary of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, used it, “Alas, they will beshite us.” (thanks to Google for that).
Also, spooky, spooky, Google returns your post at #3 when searching for the word. That’s very fast given you only posted it a few minutes ago…Googlebots must really hover over Phayngula!
I wonder about those concordats. What were exactly in them?
London Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7072904.ece
“Benedict XVI is expected to use his visit to Britain in September to preach moral virtue.”
(Gag choke splutter)
The article is about some religious leaders walking out of the British government’s advisory group on religion because of the presence of humanists and secularists.
Well, as a simple citizen of Germany Joseph Ratzinger is certainly allowed to go everywhere he wants to go. However, the pope is the monarch (and citizen) of an absolute theocratic nation which is not part of the European Community nor of the United Nations. Really, he shouldn’t be allowed to go anywhere except to court.
PS: For those who say that the pope should pay his own trip. You are totally right. Unfortunately, you probably don’t know that if the UK is not paying for it, Italy will do (notice that Italy and Vatican City are two different nations as United States and Mexico are). Airplanes and/or helicopters for pope’s journeys are “kindly” offered (for free) by the Italian government as well as funding for “little expenses”. Enough to say that in 2007 Vatican City received a little bit less than a billion Euro withdrawn from Italian taxes.
OK i understand these people have been brainwashed by a cult, the few catholics i have known don’t seem to talk much about god or jesus but spend alot of time talking about the pope,bishops and bragging about how great their priest is.
What does the pope have to say before his followers get it.Lies about condoms and rules about abortion that cause people to die,covering up and enabling paedophillia*,lecturing about materialism while living in a palace etc-when will there be a collective “i’ve been deceived by a corrupt organisation for years but enoughs enough”.
By all means they can pray to a non existant sky daddy if it makes them feel better but why do it through a corrupt middle man.
BTW if there are any sheep er apologists reading this post saying “catholic priests are not the only ones who behave like this”.Thats not an valid argument ok-WAKE UP.
Feel abit better now-until the next pope post.
*Sorry it’s impossible for me to make a comment about the pope without using ‘paedophile enabler’ or simular.Not apologising for the description just with his visit coming up it’s going to get repetitive.
Oh dear.
I kinna wonder how seriously I’m supposed to take any of these comments when no one can seem to get the Holy Fathers’ name right.
@ Ibyea
I don’t know about other concordats but the concordat with Italy was first signed in 1929 (by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini) and re-established in 1948 and in 1984. The State of the Church (which covered more then half of Italian territory) officially ended in 1870 when the Kingdom of Italy was unified. The first concordat was signed in 1929 to guarantee the independence of Vatican City from the Kingdom of Italy. It also recognized the catholic religion as the only State religion and made mandatory the class of Catholic religion in elementary, middle and high schools.
In 1948 the concordat was accepted by the newborn Italian republic, with the modification of those parts of the concordat that were in contrast with the Italian Constitution (for example since 1948 there is no official state religion and any religion is equally recognized by the State). In 1984 Italy did a step back with a new revision of the concordat. Since 1984 Catholic religion is taught also in preschools, though it is now possible, but very difficult to obtain the exemption. Moreover part of Italian taxes are used to fund the Catholic church. Few other religions have also right to be funded by Italian taxes, but in 2003 the Catholic church was granted with 89% of the available funds. Thanks to this mechanism in 2007 the church received from Italy a little bit less than 1 billion Euro.
Hope this answered to your question.
When the Great Litany was first written for the Book of Common Prayer, there was a petition that said:
From the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities: Good lord deliver us.
I would love to see that on T-shirts for his visit, perhaps substituting the appropriate substitute deity for “lord”.
Wait, sorry Fri @ 18 did at least get his born name right.
There are multiple popes?
I just realised that if Ratzinger were to be tried and executed we would really have a “Pope on a Rope”!
Then again, if he got the chair in the southern US, would he be a zinger-burgher?
Well, let him in and arrest him for obstruction, or conspiracy, I’m sure there’s something in UK law to arrest and try him for.
On what basis is a religious person practically immune from the law, how can this even be justified? How do they get through with this without people standing up and saying “sorry mate but it’s the law and we’re all meant to be equal under it, so please put those arms behind your back” ?
Hitchens’ article in Slate on the topic
Sanditard:
People have been spelling the man’s names correctly. Ratzi, Panzerfaust, the Father in the Fabulous Frock, Ratzi the Nazi, Joey the Rat–they’re all perfectly acceptable terms to call a person who has dared to deem himself a world leader. You do that, you don’t get to dictate how the world responds. Deal with it. I also appropriately spelled the name you deserve, as well. It’s called freedom of speech. Deal with that, too, you pearl-clutching fucktard.
Go away. You’ve been far too tedious far too long.
Holy Father?
Strikes me as terribly strange, I mean, biologically one would not expect any issue from man on boy sex now would one?
Wow. I would ask what the RCC has done for Italy lately, but I do understand that it is a tremendous tourist draw, but that’s a heckuvalotta money to give to a criminal organization.*
*resists urge to make Mafia joke
The who ?
Dan Barker did a debate with our Cardinal Pell here the other week, and called him George throughout it, pointing out in his speech at the GAC that without being appointed by a non-democratic obscure ring of old male virgins who gave him his title, hat and funny robes, he would just be George.
Same goes for your holy father.The guy is a mass murderer by proxy through his actions wrt HIV and condoms, and a conspirator to organised pedophilia.Holy father, my ass.
@Sandiseattle- you won’t take any comments seriously because you think if we are getting his name wrong we don’t show enough respect to the holy father.
I think you’ve just proved my point.Not thats it’s going to happen but if jesus did appear on earth people like you wouldn’t notice because you’d be too busy kissing the popes arse.
I’m guessing The PopeTM is not going to use a single dime from his pocket. His trip will be subsidized the UK taxpayers.
The Stato della Città del Vaticano is a city-state, and Ratzi is the head of state, with diplomatic immunity attached. He’s already been given a free pass by the US Justice Dept over a lawsuit that covered his pre-papacy period. IOW, the fucker cannot be held responsible for his past acts. [There are times I wish I believed in Hell as a suffering place for people who conspire to hide child abuse for PR reasons…]
I would really abhor any collateral damage, but I wouldn’t blame an ex-choirboy with some Semtex.
Holy smoke, the Pope’s on fire!
The elements of that petition would keep many Texans out of the UK, and come to think of it, a few Minnesotans I can turner overdrive.
But the proper thing to do would be to let Pope Zinger of Rats into the UK, then arrest him and throw him into the London Tower, where the rats have a fighting chance.
This would spark another European/World War, but the Catholics have what, Italy? And then a bunch of third World Latin Nations, that’s about it.
It would be a route, we could eliminate a third of the population just with conventional weapons, and revive the economy.
This so-called war against Islamic terrorism is not paying off, we have to return to butchering larger and more developed populations to drive technological advancement through competition for survival.
That’s where the action is.
Well, England is the land of manners (‘Hook’, Spielberg, 1991). So of course he should be allowed in and treated as a guest. He should also have to face the tough questions.
I don’t mind what religion Italy is. The world’s best cars come from there and so does some of the best art & design. :-) If English isn’t the world’s unofficial lingua franca, Italian (the Florentine version, of course) should be.
Okay, I’m trivializing. But attacking the Pope too much will just make him a martyr. Unfair, but you know it’s true.
true.
Attacking the Pope in any physical way would of course be a vile thing, never to be accepted, despite the failings of himself as a man and as an employer. The last thing this world needs is more physical violence created by Catholicism.
Attacking him via mockery, satire, or even better, via the law would be long overdue. Also, attacking not his office but him personally, as simply Joe Ratzinger, bullshit artist and micro-manager of a nasty organisation, is more closely allied to reality…a reality that he and his temple of lies steers well clear of.
To misquote Brian’s mum, he’s not an infallible Pope, he’s a very naughty boy…now piss off. ;-)
For the record:
Pope.
Pontiff.
sandi:
There’s more than one now? Nasty Ratzi might be your Holy Father, but he’s certainly not mine. I owe the man no respect; considering all he has done, he’s certainly shown no respect to others, to say the very least.
Thanks for that enlightenment (lol).
For the record though, you are most likely addressing many people who, despite this age, are still comfortable with Latin, myself included (thanks to my beatings at the hands of the unChristian Brothers). Actually, that’s a lie, I taught myself Latin properly after I got away from those ill-educated bastards.
But what would I know?
I’m just another weird-beard.
Meh, philosophum non facit barba. ;-)
@34 “IOW, the fucker cannot be held responsible for his past acts”
It never occurred to me before, but that may be a perk of being Pope For Life: he will never be out of office and thus never lose that immunity, unlike Pinochet, for instance. Still, there is precedent: Bashir of Sudan is a sitting head of state and that did not prevent the ICC from issuing an arrest warrant. So I say off to The Hague with Pope Palpatine to stand trial before the ICC for crimes against humanity without delay.
sandiseattle | March 23, 2010 10:44 PM:
Pope Benedict XVI is a rapist-enabler, a liar, and a charlatan. Thank you for taking my criticisms seriously. I expect to see you advocating his deposition, trial, and imprisonment by sunrise.
In 2001, when Ratzi was head of the Inquisition, he ordered all RCC officials to participate in cover ups. He was presumably on Vatican City territory when we wrote that letter. That would be a crime if he would have done it in any other country.
If the nation-state of the Vatican does not have laws that conform with reasonable ethical standards, and will not prosecute or extradite criminals residing on their territory that have committed crimes in other countries, then the proper response is to cut off diplomatic relations with the rogue nation-state of Vatican City. If you can’t arrest Ratzi because he has diplomatic immunity, then ping the bastard. (Declare him Persona non Grata.)
Remember that the Taliban government of Afghanistan did not commit crimes in the US, but they harbored criminals that did. That was considered a causis belli.
Good point tho.
I think on the whole, I’d rather pay for Robert Mugabe to visit us; he’s marginally less evil.
#44:
Are you suggesting we… bomb the Vatican?
Moggie, I think the Electric Monk’s Horse is highlighting double standards, not advocating violence.
“Holy smoke, the Pope’s on fire!”
But he’s burning white smoke so we immediately get another!
Where is the point “conscious and active protection of pedophiles”?
Fil:
Here’s another naughty boy: :0)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/19/raj-patel-colbert-report-benjamin-creme
Hum, right. I just hope somebody notifies me an hour or so before, so I get the time to pack my stuff and move ~10 km north… I hear Switzerland is pretty cozy in wartime…
It would be a shame. Tens of thousands have given their miserable lives (all senses of the expression apply, methinks) to build those palaces of marble and gold. Gas it, or ship a few dozens hungry tigers — that’d do it.
The UK are inviting random Texans and Minnesotans for state visits??
The petition isn’t seeking to ban him from the country, just to prevent him being afforded the honour of a state visit.
Gav
And in addition to all the above points, the Police want to cancel or move the last stage of the Tour of Britian bike race. It has been run, for the past few years, up and down the banks of the Thames from Parliment Square to Tower Bridge. All because this jumped up cleric wants to visit London.
Uh? There is no such thing as a European citizenship. The pope is a citizen of Germany and of the Vatican State.
John @ 39:
Very informative. Not the first time I’ve gained something from your commentary. Thank You.