Pope Francis - No Longer Mr Nice Guy
In a new book published in January, Pope Francis appears to have abandoned his attempt to make the Catholic Church look a little more civilised, even slightly humanitarian, by not being quite so hateful towards gays and transgender people.
He has now reverted to the tradition name-calling and threats, playing on people's ignorant superstitions, phobias and anthropocentric arrogance to enforce the Church's historical dogmas and policies of hate, demonisation, dehumanisation and division.
Giving the Church a more human face after the snarling excesses of his extreme right-wing predecessor, was the reason the smiling, jovial, "Who am I to judge?", ever so humble, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was installed as front man for the Church, whilst the 'former' Nazi and paedophiles' friend, Pope 'Emeritus' Benedict, was shut away in a back room, well out of sight.
After his attempt to get the synod of bishops meeting in Rome last October to acknowledge that gay people are actually worthwhile human being was unceremoniously vetoed, with the bishops reaffirmed the Catholic Church's traditional intolerant, condemnatory bigotry and hatred for them, it seems Pope Francis has dropped the mask of tolerant affability and resorted to type. Maybe he's already feeling insecure, fearing that he too may soon 'decide to take early retirement and spend his time in spiritual contemplation and prayer' and 'wrestling with hard questions of faith' in a Vatican backroom, now the precedent has been set and the Curia have discovered their powers.
In this book, published in Italy and entitled Pope Francis: This Economy Kills, Pope Francis tells his readers that transgender people are like nuclear weapons which can "annihilate in a few instants a very high number of human being". He also compared them to "Herods", presumably alluding to the Judean puppet King who died in 4 BCE, whom the author of the Gospel of Matthew tells us ordered the death of all Judean male children under two years old in the hope of killing the infant Jesus, an Earthly manifestation of an indestructible god. For some reason, no one else seems to have noticed this genocide which appears to have missed six month-old John the Baptist. But that's bye the bye.
The point here is that Pope Francis is comparing gays to a reputedly infanticidal, genocidal megalomaniac with the destructive power of nuclear weapons. The connection is obscure but Pope Francis obviously felt that no insult is too extreme for transgender people. Gone is the nice, touchy-feely, non-judgemental, tolerant, live and let live Pope and we're back to the traditional venom-spitting of which any spitting cobra would be proud.
Pope Francis has now reverted to a primitive, egotistical view of humanity's place in the Universe, rooted in Bronze Age paranoid superstition and grafted on to the perverted interpretation of Darwinism used as an excuse for fascism. And this has convinced him that transgender people are beneath contempt and threaten to destroy us all by bringing down the wrath of his imaginary friend. "If you don't do what I say you're gonna make my invisible friend really mad, and then you'll be sorry"! The threat would be laughable if a large number of people didn't take it seriously. Imagine being threatened with the wrath of an invisible pink unicorn.
But Catholicism isn't a joke run by clowns. Catholicism is never far removed from the fascism it gave rise to and nurtured in early 20th-century Europe. Gays and transgender people are to be hated and despised, not because of what they actually do to people but because of what Pope Francis imagines his imaginary friend will do to us because it hates them, and this gives Pope Francis the moral authority to tell everyone who looks to him for a moral lead to hate them too.
Arrogantly placing yourself above others and abrogating for yourself the right to say who should be hated and who should be tolerated; who should have basic human rights and who should be denied them, is the essence of fascism. It is a short step from there to deciding who should live and who should die. Fundamentalist Christianity provides the perfect excuse to dehumanise, demonise and persecute minorities.
Ten Reasons To Lose Faith: And Why You Are Better Off Without It
This book explains why faith is a fallacy and serves no useful purpose other than providing an excuse for pretending to know things that are unknown. It also explains how losing faith liberates former sufferers from fear, delusion and the control of others, freeing them to see the world in a different light, to recognise the injustices that religions cause and to accept people for who they are, not which group they happened to be born in. A society based on atheist, Humanist principles would be a less divided, more inclusive, more peaceful society and one more appreciative of the one opportunity that life gives us to enjoy and wonder at the world we live in.
Available in Hardcover, Paperback or ebook for Kindle
I hope Rosa feels better now that she vomited all her feelings about Francis...
ReplyDeleteSmugly bigoted condescention noted. So proving once again how religion is used to provide excuses for people why need excuses.
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