Four rows of priests in white robes and pointed white hats
He’s not a very pleasant-looking character, is he – he looks pissed off, not to say violent. He looks as if he’s going to take a swing at you as soon as somebody fastens his arms on. He looks as if he thinks you’ve got a fucking nerve cluttering up his world the way you do, with all your talking and breathing and walking to and fro.
Makes sense. The pope thinks so too, after all. No more messing around; let’s get this straight: God is the boss, and the pope is God’s enforcer. We don’t want none of your poxy seculsrism around here; you’ll do what the pope says God says, and you’ll like it. Capeesh?
Pope Benedict XVI defended religion from critics Sunday as he dedicated the Sagrada Familia church, a still-unfinished emblem of the Spanish city of Barcelona.”This is the great task before us: to show everyone that God is a God of peace not of violence, of freedom not of coercion, of harmony not of discord,” he said.
Peace correctly understood, that is; freedom ditto, harmony ditto. Secularists of course have a completely wrong understanding of all those items.
And he pushed back against what he sees as increasing secularism in the world, saying, “I consider that the dedication of this church of the Sagrada Familia is an event of great importance, at a time in which man claims to be able to build his life without God, as if God had nothing to say to him.”
Quite right; how dare we claim to be able to build our lives without the hidden magical deity that only the pope gets to talk to. The pope will set us straight about that all right, thank you very much. And if the pope should happen to want one of your children, you are to curtsy and say “Yes your majesty” and hand that child over; do you hear me?
Spain’s King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia were in the full-to-overflowing church as the pope poured oil on the altar and rubbed it in with his hand, then swung incense over it.
He was surrounded by four rows of priests in white robes and pointed white hats, their mitres the same shape as the pope’s own headdress, as he honored the architect of the church.
Do you detect a hint of amusement in those lines? Do you think this devilish “wire staff” is having a little fun with the papal ceremony-type deal? I think I do. Secular bastards.
In my more generous moments, I could maybe credit Benedict’s predecessor for having at least some modicum of tolerance and decency. But this sort of casual secularist-bashing is a staple of the current pontiff’s stump speech. John Paul II never seemed to make it a point to say these things about non-believers. (Though his views on the subject hardly differed with Benedict’s; it’s a difference of emphasis rather than substance.) Dissing secularists is a special priority for Benedict, clearly.
I hope one of the fruits of the gnu atheism will be that more and more people will begin to see such papal declarations for what they are—hypocrisy, abject bigotry, and arrogance masquerading as humility. The “outspoken” criticism of religious belief found in the gnu atheist canon gives the public a model for seeing this kind of stuff with fresh eyes. In the MSM, religion is always good, always deferred to, and whatever a religious leader says must be profound because he said it. The gnu atheism, I believe, has helped a great many people develop the antenae to realize just how intolerant and arrogant such statements are.
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I know this isn’t the popular view, but the Sagrada Familia is a catastrophically ugly bastardised compromise of overblown pomp and a yearning for unachieved spirituality, the brain child of an extreme right-wing imagination, the epitome of intellectual prostration before Catholic authority. Ratzi probably loves it.
So he doesn’t care whether women build their lives without god? Woo! Yeah! *high-five*
Oh wait.
Dear briclondon,
I think if you substitute the phrase “Catholic Church” for the words “Sagrada Familia” you have just about got it right. Actually, although I don’t entirely agree with the ideas of the Catholic Church, I did find bits of the Sagrada Famila (I was there about 30 years ago and it hadn’t been finished) quite interesting and exciting. Which is more than I can say for the Catholic Church.
If memory serves me right, the architect was killed by a passing tram when stepping back to take a good look at a bit of his creation. Is it true then to say that time and trams stop for no man? What a lovely bit of symbolism, but I’m sure the current Holy Incumbent is not going to leave the safety of his mobile Throne.
Of course there was also a gay kiss-in to welcome His Eminence. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/popes-visit-to-spain-is-met-by-gay-kiss-protest-2128050.html And briclondon – God yes. Thing weirds me out.
If Europe becomes completely irreligious, it really doesn’t bode well for the Catholic Church. The various governments already have people looking into the Vatican bank, and all the various priestly abuses of power. I read Benedict saying less “secularism is bad” or “science is bad” but more “Catholic special privilege is great”. The Pope and the RCC could change their minds on gays, priest marriage, and abortion/contraception tomorrow, and they would be able to easily justify it with the other parts of the Bible that contradict the parts they use to justify their current positions. The RCC has changed a lot before, but the difference today is that the rest of Europe doesn’t need their say anymore. I wonder if the Vatican would move to another country that would let its keep its exemptions from law (and common decency) rather than have its capital in a country that treated it no different than any other large church or NGO.
@Sajanas: of course they’re hoist with their own petard on things like contraception – because of infallibility, they can’t really admit they’re wrong, though I suppose they could blame Satanic influence.
The RCC, the evangelicals and so on are now setting their sights on the underdeveloped world, just like the tobacco companies!
There’s an interesting cathedral in the Spanish town of Mejorada del Campo, which has been under construction by the same guy since 1961, nearly all of which work he has done on his own.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justo_Gallego_Mart%C3%ADnez
Reads like he was just being inducted into the Klan.
Re: the statue being put up. this sentence at the end of the report summed it up perfectly.
“”There are far more important aims to which we could put the money – sick children, for example, orphanages, old people. Do we really have to build a big Jesus statue to make people believe?” asked Mieczyslawa Hundert.”
This was the detail that killed me:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40050737
Sexist, down to the last detail… Down on their knees cleaning up after Il Papa.
The thing that got me were his comments about it being as bad as during the Spanish Civil War when- long before the Comintern intervened – the spontaneous reaction of poor Spanish peasants and workers were to slaughter every priest they could get their hands on, as hated allies of the wealthy, greedy and corrupt ruling class.
Does that mean that the Pope is standing behind the Church’s absolute support of Franco and the Falangists?
Though I think it’s heartening that the duly elected leader of the country made apoint of being out of town when the Pope showed up, and could only make it back in time to meet him at the airport as he was leaving i.e. don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out….
I’m not sure it’s fair to describe Gaudi as a right-winger. He was a Catalan nationalist, for one thing. He does seem to have been a mystic of sorts. I’m not particularly fond of the cathedral, but his houses are definitely treasures.
Is being a Catalan nationalist necessarily left-wing, or incompatible with being right-wing? Nationalism in general tends to be very right-wing, although it does get confusing (at least for me) what with underdogs and dominant powers and colonialism and so on.