Maryam Namazie’s speech at the Protest the Pope Rally

by John Cornford Sun Sep 19, 2010 20:38

Richard Dawkins speech. Full text at link.

Should Joseph Ratzinger have been welcomed with all the pomp and ceremony due to a Head of State? No. As Geoffrey Robertson has shown in The Case of the Pope, the Holy See's claim to statehood is founded on a Faustian deal in which Mussolini handed over 1.2 square miles of central Rome in exchange for Church support of his fascist regime. Our government chose the occasion of the pope’s visit to announce their intention to “do God”. As a friend has remarked to me, presumably we should expect the imminent hand-over of Hyde Park to the Vatican, to clinch the deal?

Should Ratzinger, then, be welcomed as the head of a church? By all means, if individual Catholics wish to overlook his many transgressions and lay out the red carpet for his designer red shoes, let them do so. But don't ask the rest of us to pay. Don't ask the British taxpayer to subsidize the propaganda mission of an institution whose wealth is measured in the tens of billions: wealth for which the phrase 'ill-gotten' might have been specifically coined. And spare us the nauseating spectacle of the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and assorted Lord Lieutenants and other dignitaries cringing and fawning sycophantically all over him as though he were somebody we should respect.

by Sceptic - None whatsoever Mon Sep 20, 2010 03:24

Indeed as a non believer of the teachings of Ratzo & Co , and for good reason i can assure you , i too agree with anti pope
comments , that is my prerogative as is also catholics who believe in the pontiff & his powerful pillars of poverty .

Do i have to go back & research history ,not on your life would i spend a miniscule in doing such a wasteful job of work .

Let people believe as they wish & should they find comfort in such a belief well so be it , in the meantime i will paddle my
own canoe , sink or swim i'm sure i'll end up somewhere , where ever that somewhere may be .