by Karen on March 21, 2009
After some bitching about the response to the pope’s absurd remarks about how condom use can increase the spread of HIV, the Vatican edited the interview on their site to make it seem as though he was misinterpreted:
Taken aback by outrage worldwide, the Holy See altered the Pope’s remark yesterday to read that condoms merely “risked” aggravating the problem.
The Vatican website published an edited text of the Pope’s comments the day after a question-and-answer session on his flight to Cameroon. It was a question from a French reporter that elicited an unqualified response about condoms.
By introducing the word “risks” the Vatican softened the message. The website at first also altered the Italian word the Pope used for condoms, from “preservativi” to “profilattici”.
It’s now switched back to what he actually said with his spokesman stating that he’s just saying what his predecessors said as if that makes it okay.
by Karen on January 30, 2009
I missed this when it first came out, but a top official at the Vatican had this to say about President Obama getting rid of the global gag rule:
The same day, the secular Milan daily Corriere della Sera published an interview with a top Vatican official lashing out at the new U.S. President. Archbishop Rino Fisichella, head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, told the newspaper that the repeal of the abortion-funding ban was done with “the arrogance of those who, having power, think they can decide between life and death.”
This would be the same Vatican which not only opposes the use of condoms in African countries such as Kenya, which is plagued with high rates of HIV infections, but has bluntly lied about the effectiveness of condoms in combating HIV in it’s irrational attempts to stop people from using contraception.
The “arrogance of those who, having power, think they can decide between life and death”? Perhaps someone placed a mirror in front of the archbishop, eh?
by Karen on January 30, 2008
The Bishop of Rome has once again opened his mouth about science, this time declaring that science must be accompanied by research in “anthropology, philosophy and theology” to give insight into “man’s own mystery, because no science can say who man is, where he comes from or where he is going”, the Pope said.
Science, of course, has already answered those questions. Thanks to some brave folks (theist and atheist) we know we’re nearly hairless apes who evolved from other primates in a “line” that stretches back billions of years and after a very brief stretch of time we die and and the atoms that make up our bodies go on to make other things.
That the pope and other like minded individuals and groups don’t like those answers means absolutely nothing. Of course, the truth of the matter is theology has lost so much ground over the centuries it’s almost amazing. The ground it lost is now occupied various branches of science.
Theology really has only one factual issue left and that is where life itself came from and the scientists are closing in on the answer to that question. Theology is quite at risk at being the things fairy dust and magic men are made of and is in fact one of humanity’s greatest testaments to the sheer arrogance we are capable of.
Why does the Bishop of Rome rail against (implicitly) godless science? Because various branches of it undermines the theological idea that our species is the center of everything that was, is and ever will be. We cannot be “”respected as the centre of creation” because we are not.
Science has humbled us and it’s essentially kicked theology’s arrogant little ass and one day we may finally get to the point where we look all the theologists in the eye and state in a clear voice:
“Dude, you’re fired.”
