Catholic Bishop Joseph Devine, Bishop of Motherwell gets his knickers in a twist

I am not a religious person and therefore do not always appreciate the priorities set by those who are but I do think that the Bishop of Motherwell's congregation members aren't worrying about what he is worrying about and that perhaps he is getting his proverbial knickers in a twist over nothing.

Over on the BBC News website the story is reported this morning;

A Scottish bishop has criticised Prime Minister David Cameron for failing to act quickly to scrap the law preventing Catholics from taking the throne.

Really?  Is this what the Catholic people in Motherwell are really concerned about?

Perhaps I should point him to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg's new website looking for laws to be repealed?

Joseph Devine, the Bishop of Motherwell, has apparently said the Act of Settlement was a "scandalous" law that discriminated against members of his faith.

The Act of Settlement was passed by the English parliament in 1701 and extended to Scotland after the union.
It only applies in countries where the Queen is head of state.

The attack from the Bishop of Motherwell follows comments from UK Constitutional Reform Minister Mark Harper MP that the coalition had not ruled out reform, but that any change would have to be taken "carefully and thoughtfully".

The Bishop of Motherwell said;

"When the monarch is free to marry a Scientologist, Muslim, Buddhist, Moonie or even a Satanist but not a Catholic, then there's something seriously wrong."

Now, don't get me wrong, this is clearly something that should be sorted out in this day and age.  However, is it really that important at the current time given the economical mess we find ourselves in after thirteen years of the Labour Party spending money as if it was going out of fashion or just grew on trees?

I suspect good Catholics in Motherwell are worrying about their jobs and their future rather than being up in arms about who the Monarch can marry.

Just saying.

Pope deplores raids by Belgian police investigating child abuse

Yet again the Pope and the Catholic Church have misread the public mood about the anger of the child abuse scandal that the Catholic Church is shrouded in.

The Belgian Police have started raiding Catholic Church Offices investigating child abuse.

Pope Benedict has attacked the Belgian Police in a message of support to the Bishops of Belgium;

"I want to express, dear brother in the Episcopate, as well as to all the Bishops of Belgium, my closeness and solidarity in this moment of sadness, in which, with certain surprising and deplorable methods, searches were carried out."

So, yet again we see the Pope preferring to cover up the child abuse within the Catholic Church rather than helping the appropriate authorities sort it out and eradicate this awful abuse.

Police in Leuven, central Belgium, last Thursday seized nearly 500 files and a computer from the offices of a Church commission during their investigation of allegations of sex abuse.

They also searched the Church's headquarters and the Brussels archdiocese in Mechelen, north of the Belgian capital.

The Belgian Justice Minister, Stefaan De Clerck has defended the police action, in a series of TV interviews on Sunday, and said the investigation was legitimate.

"The bishops were treated completely normally during the raid on the archdiocese and it is false to say that they received no food or drink,".

Mr De Clerck said the Vatican's reaction had been excessive as it was based on false information.

Prosecutors said the action concerned alleged "abuse of minors committed by a certain number of Church figures".

It is a great shame that Pope Benedict instead of attacking the Police isn't urging the Belgian Bishops to assist the Police so their investigation can be swift rooting out the perpetrators of the child abuse so the Catholic Church can then move on.

Standing in the way of the Police is just proving once again how out of touch Pope Benedict is with the public and others on the awful situation.

Pope Benedict condemns same sex marriage as a "dangerous and insidious" challenge to society

Once again the Pope opens his mouth and utter tripe spouts out.

My apologies to any Catholic readers of my blog, but the Pope really does need to engage his brain before putting his mouth in gear (a saying my Mum used to say to me a lot).

At the end of his four day visit to Portugal Pope Benedict XVI addressed the Catholic faithful during the traditional 13th May annual mass at Fatima's Sanctuary.


Addressing the huge crowd at the shrine of Fatima, Pope Benedict said that same sex marriage and abortion were among the

"most insidious and dangerous challenges that today confront the common good."

In his strongly worded attack, Pope Benedict also insisted that marriage should be founded on the "indissoluble" marriage between a man and a woman.

Now, let us see what indissoluble actually means;
 
–adjective
1. not dissoluble; incapable of being dissolved, decomposed, undone, or destroyed.
2. firm or stable.
3. perpetually binding or obligatory.

Okay, now I really do see that Pope Benedict has lost the plot, number one alone shows you it is pish as so many marriages collapse, end up in divorce or just fade apart and number two can just as easily apply to a gay relationship as it could a straight relationship.  My partner and I are celebrating our 18th anniversary this year.

So, Pope Benedict, let me tell you what one of the "most insidious and dangerous challenges that today confront the common good" is in my opinion (as you have cared to share yours with all of us), it is paedophiles, paedophiles who prey on defenceless children and organisations such as the Catholic Church who just turn a blind eye and actually assist to cover it up.

When you and your speech writers sat there last week writing your speech for your Portugal visit did you write this speech against abortion and gay people to try and move the agenda from your own problems within the Church and try and create anger amongst Catholics once again, but not aimed at you and your Church but instead at others.

Others who have done nothing wrong.

I am pleased that you and the Vatican have finally started to act against those within your organisation who preyed on children but I urge you to re-think your policies and beliefs about condoms.

Instead of visiting Britain later this year (where I will be protesting at your visit) I urge you to go to Africa instead, go and visit the millions dying of AIDS, look those people in the eye as they lie dying in their beds and try and persuade them to understand why you are against condoms so much?

But you won't will you, why bother when no one will bother to listen to your outdated views.

Pope Benedict's visit to Portugal is somewhat ironic - a law allowing same-sex marriage was passed by parliament in February.  President Anibal Silva, himself a practising Catholic, is expected to sign the bill into law by May 17, just three days after the end of the papal visit.

The ratification by President Silva would make Portugal the sixth country in Europe to allow same-sex marriages after Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Norway.

In Britain, same sex marriage is not legal, but since 2005 homosexual couples have been allowed to enter into civil partnerships, which carry the same rights and responsibilities as marriage.

Pope Benedict wrong to describe criticism of child abuse in the Catholic Church as "petty gossip"

I have blogged about paedophiles and child abuse within the Catholic Church before, you can read it here.

So, regular readers of my little blog will be happy (or not) to see me say a small well done to the Catholic Church for finally highlighting publicly some of the work they are doing to eradicate this despicable behaviour by some of it's own clergy.

Of course it is not just the actual deed of abuse that is wrong, it is also the cover up by various people in senior positions within the Catholic Church that is as wrong.

Pope Benedict however needs to learn and understand the pure anger felt by those who have been abused, not just by those within his Church but by anyone and this weekend the Pope spoke and said not to be intimidated by critics, in a veiled reference to recent (and long term) anger at himself and the Catholic Church over sex abuse scandals.

At a mass in Rome's St Peter's Square, he said his faith would help give him the courage to deflect "petty gossip".

Pope Benedict has recently been accused of failing to act over the case of an American priest, Father Lawrence Murphy, who it is alleged to have abused around 200 deaf boys in Milwaukee.

The Pope told the tens of thousands of people gathered to hear him this weekend that God helped lead "towards the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion".

He also went onto say man sometimes fell to the "lowest, vulgar levels" and sunk "into the swamp of sin and dishonesty".

In my opinion, yes, I do have personal opinions the Pope has chosen his words very carefully, but cowardly.

He seems happy to deflect the criticism of child abuse within the Catholic Church as petty gossip but not to criticise those within the Church who have become, or joined as paedophiles, why is that?

The Pope has apologised to victims of abuse before and recently said sorry to them in a pastoral letter to Irish Catholics.

He said he acknowledged the sense of betrayal in the Church felt by victims and their families.

Those of dominant opinion are absolutely sickened by the continuos stream of stories of child abuse and paedophole priests within the Church (not just the Catholic Church, although mainly) that come out month after month, year after year.  Perhaps Pope Benedict should think on that before criticising the masses.

The Vatican press team do not like the continued criticism and put out rebuttal after rebuttal trying to make out the Catholic Church is holier than though.

When will the Catholic Church stop chasing headlines and just put a stop to this?  Paedophiles and child abuse in any organisation is wrong, within the Church it is actually worse as the Priests are there in a position of trust and they abuse that trust when they abuse a child!

SNP candidate for Glasgow North East David Kerr quits

No, I am not re-running the Glasgow North East by-election stories about the the first and second candidates quitting and David Kerr being the SNPs third choice.

This is about David Kerr quitting himself as the SNP candidate and now very happy to talk about the Opus Dei sect, something during the by-election he was not so keen to talk about.

David Kerr is quitting politics (short time and not a good effort) to join the Catholic Church media office and will play a key role when Pope Benedict XVI comes to Scotland.

According to the Scotland on Sunday;

[SNP] party managers are understood to be unhappy at having to find a new candidate at such short notice, with 6 May the probable election date.

David Kerr added;

"The papal visit is of huge significance not just to Scotland's Catholics but to the country as a whole.  I am looking forward to working with people across Scotland's faiths, parties and communities in putting this visit together."

I bet Scotland's LGBT community can hardly contain it's excitement of the Pope's visit, I for one am certainly looking forward to it and letting him know how utterly ridiculous his views on safe sex and condoms really are and the damage that view does to hundreds of thousands of people across the world.

Pope Benedict gets LGBT equality wrong (again)

Pope Benedict is certainly not serving out his term quietly as expected is he?

The latest rubbish he is spouting, forgive my ranting, it's certainly making my blood boil, but then often that is exactly what the Catholic Church want, is to get a reaction - well they have succeeded this time, with me anyway.

As reported on the BBC News website:

Pope Benedict XVI said the legislation "violates natural law" and could end the right of the Catholic Church to ban gay people from senior positions.

Forgive me, but what is wrong with ending a ban that prohibits LGBT people working within the Catholic Church?  Who gave them that right and why does it deserve that right?

The Catholic Church seem to think it is totally acceptable to criticise and lambast the LGBT community, in fact I blogged when Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan started on the gays recently.

It is a great, great pity Pope Benedict isn't trying as hard to search his organisation, root out and get rid of the paedophiles that litter his Church isn't it?

There is a problem, because actually the Catholic Church are split on whose fault paedophilia actually is, there are some who blame gay priests pointing to the fact that Catholic Priests abuse more boys than girls.

Again, this completely misses the point, in many prisons gay sex takes place, not because the inmates are gay, far from it, but there are no women.  In the Church there are more boys in church choirs than girls, and so on highlighting that this was less a matter of attraction than availability

The worst part for me of the whole paedophile issue within the Catholic Church has been the years of continued cover ups, that senior members of the Church, including archbishops have actively covered up the disgusting actions of albeit a small proportion of priests, for many many years.

And now, here back to 2010, with these cover ups taking place the Catholic Church still thinks it is right and acceptable for them to actively discriminate against employing LGBT people within their organisation.
So much for the Church and it's Priests being part of a caring profession.

Catholic Cardinal in homophobic rant - shock!

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, a leading Catholic cardinal and retired head of the Vatican's Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers has today said that gay and trans people "will never enter the kingdom of heaven".

Now, I will be honest, and this is purely my own opinion, I don't give a damn what he thinks.

However, there are many people who respect and listen to the Catholic Church and that is where I therefore get angry about things such as this, because people like Cardinal Barragan get listened to and can sway opinion, although the Vatican is distancing themselves from Cardinal Barragan, they are on the whole as bad.

Cardinal Barragan went on to say; "People are not born homosexual, they become homosexual, for different reasons: education issues or because they did not develop their own identity during adolescence.

"It may not be their fault, but acting against nature and the dignity of the human body is an insult to God."

Now, for those who know me, will know I have known I was gay for years and years, in fact I recall at least from 7 years old that girls did not interest me as they did other school friends. So I really do disagree, because yes I was born gay (and am very proud of it).

Now slightly in his defence, he sometimes does talk a little sense, back in 2006, Cardinal Barragan reportedly said that condoms could be the lesser of two evils if one partner in a marriage was HIV+.

Now, although on its own that does sound awful, now see what the Pope himself said "don't use condoms - even to prevent the spread of Aids".

Not only is he ill informed but then he went on to say "the traditional teaching of the Church has proven to be the only failsafe way to prevent the spread of HIV/Aids".

Utter crap.

The Vatican have stepped in on the Cardinal Barragan comments and Father Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, has said that the official Vatican stance was that while homosexual acts are sinful, gay people have a disorder and should be treated with respect.

The Times have reported that it was "highly unusual" for the Catholic church to indirectly criticise a high-ranking Vatican official.

When all said and done though, the Catholic Church is sort of split on this, like any organisation there are individuals who have their own opinions, but they really do need to think what they are saying here, as their opinions are listened to and acted upon.

Safe sex should always be practised and I am afraid Cardinal Barragan and Father Lombardi gay people are gay, as Stonewall say "get over it".