Posts Tagged ‘ “Church teachings” ’

“The corrupt political process in New York State”

Jun 28th, 2011 11:12 am | By

The Catholic bishops of New York state are upset. They are displeased about this pesky new same-sex marriage bill. They think it’s most unfair to them, the Catholic bishops of New York state.

“The passage by the Legislature of a bill to alter radically and forever humanity’s historic understanding of marriage leaves us deeply disappointed and troubled,” the state’s bishops said. “We strongly uphold the Catholic Church’s clear teaching that we always treat our homosexual brothers and sisters with respect, dignity and love. But

Ah yes “but.” Good old “but.” You saw that “but” coming a mile away, didn’t you. The instant they produce the bit about “we always treat our homosexual brothers and sisters with respect, dignity and … Read the rest

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Can we all get along?

Mar 19th, 2011 11:11 am | By

The Vatican knows how it wants this “bring in the atheists” party to go. It wants it to go well for the Vatican.

“The aim is to help to ensure that the great questions about human existence, especially the spiritual questions, are borne in mind and discussed in our societies, using our common reason,” Cardinal Ravasi said.

See? Like that. It wants atheists to pretend to think that the Vatican uses reason when it discusses the great questions about human existence.

Ideally, Cardinal Ravasi said, the conversations begun by this project should resemble not a “duel” but a “duet,” with believers and non-believers offering complementary ideas and helping each other to refine their views.

See? The non-believers are supposed … Read the rest

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A shabby pretext

May 29th, 2010 11:23 am | By

Inayat Bunglawala is pondering (in a rather inconclusive and unproductive way, which I suppose in his case is probably just as well) the tensions between religious freedom and other kinds of freedom, religious rights and other kinds of rights. One thing he mentions needs more second-guessing than it usually gets.

Professor Roger Trigg kicked off last night’s discussion by pointing out that Article 9 of the European convention on human rights guarantees that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to … manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.” However, Professor Trigg argued that, in reality, a number of recent cases showed that this religious freedom was being

… Read the rest

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The pope visits Fátima

May 14th, 2010 3:05 pm | By

The pope is telling everyone what to do, again – not that he ever stopped, but still it’s interesting to see that he apparently feels no shyness or hesitation, no doubts about his moral authority, even now that it has been searchingly and thoroughly revealed that he and his church have been protecting child rapists and bullying their victims for many decades.

This is interesting, in its way. I think ordinarily people who have been morally compromised the way the pope has become a little bashful about pretending to be moral bosses. It’s interesting that the pope doesn’t, especially since the content of his moral bossing is so godawful – so harmful for actual existing people, so fretful about … Read the rest

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