Tag Catholicism

Dawkins, Abortion and Catholic Fervour

Someone with whom I once did teacher training is now a fervent Catholic and blogger at his site. We have had many a strong argument on facebook, and recently he alerted me to this blog post to see what I thought. I am now going to critique his piece on abortion and Dawkins.

An attack on egalitarianism and the worst post and comments I have ever seen

I have recently had a conversation on facebook that left me truly flabbergasted. I think it qualifies as the most jaw-dropping conversation I have had. It was with someone whom I did teacher-training with (though who chose not to finish the course). Now I wouldn’t normally go into detail about personal matters when evaluating somebody’s claims and positions, but I think it explains so much in terms of cognitive dissonance, and is so relevant to the topic, that it does need mentioning. The person in question has certain tendencies which are deemed sinful to the Catholic Church. He lives in Brighton, ironically a city in Britain known for its diversity and sense of equality.

Sex, Doubt and the Pope

Many liberal Catholics have been encouraged by Pope Francis’s comments about sexual ethics in a recent interview. His general point was that these are lesser matters, not to be emphasized at the expense of the church’s essential message of healing and salvation.

Pope Francis to visit favela indicative of Catholicism on the wane in Brazil

Tour comes amid division over how to stem flow of believers, particularly from poor communities, towards evangelism

When Pope Francis returns to his home continent on Monday as the first Latin American pontiff, the world’s attention is likely to focus on the adoration of more than a million worshippers expected at a giant open-air mass on Copacobana beach.

But it is during a lower-key visit to a small favela community on Thursday in the north of Rio de Janeiro that he will address the biggest threat to the pre-eminence of the Catholic church in the region: the exodus of believers to US-style evangelical preachers.

Los Angeles Catholic church files show decades of sexual abuse

As I am on holiday, I have scheduled a number of easy news repost for your delectation. From the Guardian:

Court-ordered release of documents reveal what Catholic orders knew of sexual abuse by priests, brothers and nuns

In therapy sessions, the priest confessed to shocking details he’d kept hidden for years: he had molested more than 100 boys, including his 5-year-old brother, had sex with male prostitutes, and frequented gay strip clubs.

Cardinal: Abortion is bigger sin than priest abuse

George Pell says, “I have always been on the side of the victims.” But the archbishop of Sydney has a funny way of expressing his support.

During an inquiry this week into what the Herald Sun describes as “rampant” child sexual abuse by priests going back decades, Pell admitted, “We’ve been slow to address the anguish of the victims and dealt with it very imperfectly.” He acknowledged that his predecessor, Sir Frank Little, “did cover up” sex abuse and that former Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns knew of accusations and destroyed documents and moved suspects to other parishes, actions that were“followed by disastrous consequences.”

Pope Says Atheists Go to Heaven?

The new leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, has been making plenty of news since taking over in March. Not only is it the case that he may have exorcised demons in public very recently (very old school), but now he seems to have blessed the infidels (not-so old school).

In his Wednesday sermon, he stated the following:

Conscientious objection to abortion: Catholic midwives win appeal

The article below is from the UK Human Rights Blog. There is an interesting development in allowing subgroups of a society to exempt themselves from national laws or requirements. Then again, is there a sense that there is an analogy here between this and the rights of someone with dietary requirements (eg Halal) to have certain school meal or job-provided provision for their needs?

The disgrace of papal blessing for Ugandan homophobia

Earlier this month, Pope Benedict XVI joined Twitter in an effort to galvanize the faithful and modernize the Catholic Church for a younger, increasingly secular generation, making him the last person after your grandpa to join the social networking site. The Vatican also hired a former Fox News correspondent to bring their communications strategy into the 21st century, since that network did such an impressive job during the 2012 US presidential election.

Guns and Violence – Vatican Bank is the main shareholder in ‘Pietro Beretta’ arms company…

Perhaps few people know that Pietro Beretta arms factory Ltd. (the largest arms industry in the world) and is controlled by the Holding SpA Beretta and the majority shareholder of theBeretta Holding SpA after Gussalli Ugo Beretta, is the IOR(Institute for Works of Religion [commonly known as the Vatican Bank]) private institutionfounded in 1942 by Pope Pius XII and headquartered in Vatican City.

The Pope’s New Book on Jesus’ Birth. Now He’s in Trouble!

There has been a fair bit of press about the newest publication from the current head of the Catholic Church, Joseph Ratzinger, better known now as Pope Benedict XVI (don’t you just hate sequels?). There was even a humorous take on some of the aspects of the new book from the colossus of comedy Stephen Colbert.