Wendy WilliamsBy Emily Batty-Olivera
IN the run up to Pope Benedict XVI’s arrival in Spain later today, fierce protesters have emerged, incensed by the overt censorship and high cost of the event during Spain’s economic fragility.
Secular protestors have voiced their fury over the tyrannical presence of censorship with officials preventing online communication.
While many opponents to the church have criticised the vast amount of money being spent – some say as much as 50 million euros – during a time of high unemployment.
It has been argued that the six-day event to celebrate World Youth Day, is likely to be a financial strain, with lower transport fares, the deployment of police, high cleaning costs, and the use of public buildings, all elements that are predicted to drain the economy.
However government spokesman Jose Blanco, claims that the 1.5 million pilgrims expected to come for the event shall generate 100 million euros for Spain’s economy.
Meanwhile a 24-year-old Mexican, who volunteered for the World Youth day celebrations, has been accused of plotting a gas attack on those who protested against the pope.
He is due to appear in court today.
Um, why doesn’t the Pope sell off some Vatican gold and a few art treasures or liquidate some church assets, and donate the proceeds to Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland? After all, the above four countries are all Catholic. The Catholic church is the richest, biggest, most profitable private business in human history. Come on, Benedict – stop being such an arrogant old fart and give back to the people who made you a superstar. The Vatican bank could easily bail out Europe. Heck, the Catholic church could bail out the entire planet, if necessary – so great is their store of stolen riches.
The Pope, Head of the Roman Catholic Church, embroiled in accusations of covering up decades of offences of paedo**** across many parts of the world, celebrates “Youth Day”. You couldn’t make it up !
Quite apart from your nasty-minded comments regarding our Pope, Jayne, you really need to delve a little deeper into world financial, and other, matters to improve the accuracy of your statements. A letter to be politely ignored for its intransigent ignorance.
PM, but you must be correct, how can a million of the world’s youth be so misguided as to come to Madrid to see the Pope? A possible answer, your post came to late to stop them.
But isn’t it just possible that they come from all parts of the globe to render support to a Pope beleaguered by anti-religious fanaticism? Just the sort of fanaticism which grew into Hitler’s anti-semitism?
The Church was the main power-source for the destruction of communism in Russia and the occupied satellite neighbours and will continue its fight against all forms of dictatorships. As such it is hated by dictators as much as you do yourself.
As for paedophilia within the Church, unforgivably ghastly as it is, unfortunately the Church has to rely on mere humans, such as we ALL are, for its priests. Some are bound to be unsuitable for the vocation, but you tell me a foolproof way in which they can be detected beforehand? The latest official statistics show that the incidence within the Church is no greater than that amongst the ordinary population. But here’s s figure to make you worried – that means that in Spain alone there could be almost 2 million child abusers, a figure which does not include possible women child-abusers, as against a possible 800 within the Church.
Antonio2,
Catholic youth is’nt misguided – it’s brainwashed from birth.
What would the Hebrew Josiah say about an estimated €100 million being spent to further the despicable Roman ‘cult of the personality’. Would’nt he have said “stay at home and spend it helping the poor and sick” ?
The Catholic church was set up by the Romans for two reasons = as a nice little earner and in an attempt to keep the Roman Empire together. It actually was/is no different from all the rest of the Pagan religions they practised.
I’m glad you mentioned fanaticism – something the Roman church has practised from it’s very beginnings, a very good example being the extermination of the Cathars in France because they di’nt recognize the degenerate Roman Pope and because they dared to practice real Christianity and did’nt treat women as inferior and indeed had women preachers.
There is nothing in the teachings of Josiah about the dysfunctional need for celibate male priests – this was mandated by a Roman Pope to protect the wealth of the Roman church – this is a matter of fact.
Why does’nt this arrogant little Nazi Pope obey the Law of Poverty and stop wearing gold rings and robes that cost thousands of Euros per piece
Only a fool would call ‘state capitalism’ communism – have you never read the chapter in the New Testament – communism in the early church – obviously not.
You need to find the courage to deprogramme yourself – there is absolutely nothing in the New Testament about Bishops/Archbishops or Popes or that they should live in Palaces.
If the Nazi Pope had been a real Christian, and this applies to his father and brother – then they would happily have denied Hitler, been killed and gone straight to heaven.
Antonio2 – The “facts” that you put forward about child abuse in the Catholic Church are laughable. Do you not realise that most of the abuse in the Catholic Church has been swept under the carpet for years and the actual numbers will never be known? So your statement about it being the same as in the general population is laughable. And even if it were true surely if these priest were men of religion the number should be much much smaller as “holy” men wouldn’t hurt innocent children.
Do you not realise that the main problem that people have with the Church is not the number of the pedophiles, but the fact that the heads of the Church actually sanctioned the pedophilia to go on by moving the beast from one location to another to rape and molest over and over.
Your “pope” is one of those who was directly in the chain of command when that happened and for that reason alone he should be locked up and not worshiped.
As you said, the church has to rely on mere humans, and for that reason is a disgusting corrupt money making machine, as this is the nature of humans in power.
Of course Stuart, a million of the youth of this planet, from China, Australasia, Europe, North and South America must be brainwashed if you say so. But have you ever been broad-minded enough to consider that maybe you are a victim of the rampant frenzy of anti-religious brainwashing put out by the media in the last 25 years? Any Tom, Dick or Harry comedian, as an example, has been allowed to ravage the Church for a few bucks. If they had done the same to Islam the UK (and possibly Europe) would go up in flames. Christian religion is an easy target for the ignorant and the increased surge of secularism throughout the UK will have dire consequences, the recent riots being just the tip of the iceberg.
You’ll need to re-read your school history books I’m afraid; the Church was initiated by Jesus Christ, the first Pope was St. Peter in the 1st century AD, in Rome. The world power of Rome tried to eradicate Christianity, driving the Christians underground to the catacombs of Rome. St. Peter was executed by crucifixion, upside-down. After several hundred years of persecution, pagan Rome adopted Christianity, perhaps it was spreading quicker than Rome could annihilate it, or perhaps like Franco, seeing the Church as a convenient arm of organisation or even repression. I am sure that had you lived in those days your persecution of Christianity would have been very well received by the Emperor.
That part of the world community of Catholic Churches is called Roman to distinguish it from the mainly Eastern Catholic Churches.
Charity? It’s part and parcel of Christianity, every Christian knows it and has practiced it for the last thousand years or so, setting up the very first hospitals and charitable institutions in the land. No use leaving that to secular or pagan society.
We all know about the teachings of Jesus Christ, which some call ‘communism’ for their own purposes, but the communism we have known is a vast military controlled evil, still practiced in places like Burma.
Do you follow those teachings of JC? If you have two coats, do you give one to the poor? If you have two houses, ditto, etc., etc. Of course not and neither do I, but I know I should.
The majority of the cost of bringing a million of the world’s youth together was paid by the Vatican and the city of Madrid is that much wealthier as a result. Think additionally how much each person would have spent in Madrid on lodgings, food, transport. That must amount to 100 million alone.
My only comment for Brimster, what do you think happened to the perpetrators of potentially a million or so who have suffered abuse outside of the Catholic Church in Spain alone? Like you say, swept under the carpet. Why? because no society could deal with abuse on such a vast scale. Just think, one in every twenty or twenty-five people who pass you by, work with, socialize with, etc., could be an abuser. But the Catholic Church is a convenient scapegoat, the problem much more easily manageable.
As a sidenote, abuse is widespread and culturally acceptable in many areas of the world and has existed since time immemorial, an example being child-marriages.
Your vitriolic hatred, Stuart and Brimster, seethes through your words like venom, you both need either to see a psychiatrist, or simply spend a few hours in a Church contemplating peace and goodwill to all men. Even Christians.
Some very interesting comments, which only shows me how ignorant and misinformed the majority of you are.
Antonio, the Church worked hand in hand with Franco…and if I am right..mainly turned a blind eye during the Hitler years…. !!
Ad, agreed in principle, but the Church doesn’t have tanks, guns and aircraft, cannot fight back, and under threat of total annihilation by either Franco or Hitler has little choice but to capitulate and live to ‘fight’ another day.
Antonio2,
as usual for Catholics you are in total denial of the truth. Your Hebrew prophet could’nt possibly have the name Jesus, since Jesus is a Greek word and no Hebrew child would ever have been given a Greek name – his name would have to have been Josiah.
Why the name Jesus because the fairy story was put together by Greeks. The whole ‘father,son and holy ghost is straight out of Greek mythology – professor Sharma did a wonderful dissection of Catholicism a few years ago. Perhaps those Greeks had eaten some moldy rye bread and had a bad trip – outcome the Catholic religion. Indeed St Peter’s square is a classic Greek architecture.
You also never responded to the disgusting display of wealth of the Pope and his total contempt for the Vow of Poverty – classic denial syndrome.
Nor have you responded to the fact that celibate priests were instigated not by Josiah but by the Roman Pope, nor can you find the courage to admit that bishops, archbishops and popes were created by the Romans not by the teachings of your prophet.
The evil Pope at the time of WW11 not only made no attempt to hide his hatred of Jews but actually helped thousands of SS and Gestapo to escape to South America.
Pope John Paul was known for his addiction to self flagellation – typical Catholic sexual deviant. The Irish bishops lied to the Irish people when they said that they would co-operate to root out paedaphile priests.
Vitriolic hatred is something that the Catholic mafia in Rome has had for all those who refuse to accept their control. Your just another sad Catholic imposing on others your own dysfunctional mentality – instead of giving money to fat Cathoic priests who live off the fat of the land – try following the teachings of the hebrew Josiah and give it to the poor and needy – ah but then you would’nt be a Roman Catholic – you’d be a real Christian – try it, discard roman paganism and embrace real Christianity – it’s good for your soul.
S.C., I don’t even pretend to know the origins of the name Jesus, or Christ, the explanation is around in some of the vast learned tomes on Christianity which render my meagre knowledge, and your own, totally irrelevant. The facts are there to study but I’m sure you will always cling to your own devilish conclusions. As for spelling of Jesus, remember that J as a letter in the English language did not appear until the late-Mediaeval times. The letter I was used instead, but with different intonation. If it originally derived from Greek, so what?
The first recorded Church Council was held in Jerusalem about the year AD 50 and was attended by mostly Christian Jews. The oldest fragment of Gospel is dated to about AD 150. In Rome, particularly, for nearly 200 years, Christians were mercilessly persecuted in the most horrific manner known to man. Constantine finally abolished the persecutions and declared that “ all men should be allowed to worship as they please”, or words to that effect, astonishing at such an early period. So much for your Rome-designed Church.
Yes the Vatican is rich, it is a state within a state, but our Pope practises humility and is not of course rich in himself. The Church of 1,100,000,000 people is generally poor, with priests surviving on totally voluntary donations by parishioners. We have two nuns locally, they sleep on the floor and rely totally on handouts by parishioners for their food. No doubt you will infer a sexual motive for that.
If the last Pope practised flagellation it was to lower himself to the level of Christ suffering on the cross. Forget your devious thoughts.
Celibacy, as an example to others, probably began with Christ, with his call to “leave your mothers, wives, children and follow me” Presumably because they would have to devote their entire lives to spreading the Church and die doing it, if necessary.
You are clearly, in all your comments, either deliberately lying, or simply displaying profound ignorance. It is a waste of effort continuing to respond, your comments are meaningless. As a further example of this, our wartime Pope is now credited with SAVING tens of thousands of Jews from the Nazis, but it has taken the meanness of such as yourself for the relevant documents to be released to the public.
The Pope is the greatest power for peace on earth. No other person, political or otherwise, can even begin to match this strength.
If you had watched just five minutes of the Madrid gathering of youth and our Pope, you would have realised what a p..tt you really are.
Thank you Antonio2!
In addition to what you have written, some comments complained about the WYD and the great cost on a weak Spanish economy, well, the tally is in, Spain gained a little over 223 million Euros!
Some of the youth of my parish returned and called WYD the “highlight of their lives”, others told me of their desire to deepen their” faith, and work towards a real evangelization of the church”
We live in a very secular liberal society,where celebrities are given a higher pedestal than God, a culture where millions are murdered through abortions. I hope and pray that those who criticize the Roman Catholic Church first get sound facts and stop making this stuff up as you go along.
I bid you peace!