The Unholy See

I am an Atheist, I don't believe in any deity or the self-claimed authority of any organised religion, sect or cult. I would even go so far as to call myself an antitheist.

From such a position I automatically have an issue with the head of any religion visiting a secular country and it being called a 'state visit', and yet this is exactly what will be happening in a few days as Britain braces itself for a vastly unpopular papal visit.

[WARNING: this post has the potential to quickly breakdown into a disjointed rant, carry on at your own peril]

So, what exactly are my grievances with his visit?

Well, firstly that it's being classed by the government as a state visit, which means that the British tax payer is funding it, this simply should not be the case because, contrary to popular belief, the Vatican is NOT a state.

The US State Department is required by congress to compile an annual report on the human rights record of every government with which it has diplomatic relations. There is no such record for The Vatican, Vatican City or The Holy See, the reason for this? Official’s state that for human rights purposes the Vatican is not a state (If it was it would have some of the worst discrimination policies of any state on the planet, including Iran and North Korea).

At the UN the Vatican is not granted statehood and was only granted ‘observer’ status until 2004, when it was granted admission as a non-member state (but only because the US blocked it from becoming a full member) meaning that they have the same rights as member states except voting, meaning they have very little to no impact upon policy (Although that didn’t stop them from preventing a declaration on ‘sexual orientation and gender identity’ being passed to all member states).

The Vatican has also essentially admitted that is it not a state, after a (you guessed it) molestation charge in Oregon the plaintiffs asked that the priest in question be treated as an employee of the Vatican (mainly due to the fact the priest had been moved to the Oregon after similar charges had been made against him in Ireland and Chicago), the Vatican’s response was that the pope exercises ‘spiritual authority’ and not ‘managerial control’. This pretty much abolishes the Vatican’s claim to be a political and accountable state. Interestingly, the church was more than happy to move a holocaust-denying bishop back to the Vatican from Argentina. Had the Oregon priest been in the employ of any multi-national corporation that had moved him on after a molestation case against him, only for him to do exactly the same again, twice, that company would be held to account in a court of law, and rightly so.

Add to this that the Vatican has no police force meaning Italy carries out any legal proceedings and criminal trials that happen within The Vatican.

In 2005 The Vatican had 557 ‘citizens’ living in its whole 0.17 of a square mile, 74% of which are clergy, 18% were members of the Papal Swiss guard leaving a total of 46 lay people who are citizens of the Vatican.

To summarise, the Vatican is not a state, it has no authority to call itself a state, and yet does so on a regular basis, but only when it suits it. For the British taxpayer to be wasting millions of pounds hosting this self-righteous prick in a time of severe economic deficit, when we can’t even afford to build new schools, is an insult.

The Pope wants to visit Britain, a country that only has an 8% population of Catholics, that’s fine, but let the Catholics and the Holy See pay for it, not me, I’ll have some school buildings instead please.

And this is only half of my problem with his visit, I haven’t even touched upon the moral beliefs of the pope and the Catholic church yet. In fact, there’s so many things they believe and teach which I disagree with that I’m just going to list them:

• Pope Pius XII stood idly by during the Holocaust, never taking sides or condemning the killing of millions.

Granted, this happened a long time before Ratzinger held any power in the church, so here are some more modern examples…

• Priests took an active role of violence during the Rwandan Genocide; the Vatican did not condemn this.

• The church promotes segregated education.

• They deny abortion to even the most vulnerable of women.
• Even stating that rape victims should not be allowed abortions.

• They oppose equal rights for lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender people.
• Ratzinger himself called gay sex “Evil”.

• Ratzinger has failed to anywhere near adequately address, and even covers up the many cases of abuse of children within the church.
• 10,000 victims have come forward from around the globe, The church (with Ratzinger in charge of the issue) insisted all cases be kept from the police and dealt with by their own ‘canon’ law – which can only ‘punish’ child-rapists to prayer or penitence or, on rare occasions, defrocking.
• As a result only a tiny percentage of the victims of this horrific cover up have seen any form of justice.

• The church opposes the distribution of contraceptives, which increases large families in poor countries and exacerbates the spread of HIV/AIDs.
• The Pope told Africans that condoms “increase the problem” of HIV/AIDs, and African priests preach that the “westerners put tiny holes in them”.

And this list could continue for much longer, for an organisation that claims to be benevolent and kind, it sure has a funny way of showing it.

Now I’m not saying that all Catholics are anywhere near as deluded, corrupt, self-righteous and evil as the pope, far from it, to those British Catholics considering turning out to see the pope in the next few days I would like to finish up by quoting Johann Hari’s fantastic article on the matter.

“I know that for many British Catholics, their faith makes them think of something warm and good and kind – a beloved grandmother, or the gentler sayings of Jesus. That is not what Ratzinger stands for. If you turn out to celebrate him, you will be understood as endorsing his crimes and his cruelties. If your faith pulls you towards him rather than his victims, shouldn’t that make you think again about your faith? Doesn’t it suggest that faith in fact distorts your moral faculties?

I know it may cause you pain to acknowledge this. But it is nothing compared to the pain of a child raped by his priest, or a woman infected with HIV because Ratzinger said condoms makes AIDS worse, or a gay person stripped of basic legal protections. You have a choice during this state visit: stand with Ratzinger, or stand with his Catholic victims. Which side, do you think, would that be chosen by the Nazarene carpenter you find on your crucifixes? I suspect he would want Ratzinger to be greeted with an empty repulsed silence, broken only by cries for justice – and the low approaching wail of a police siren”.

Shep.