"as we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a 'reductive vision of the person and his destiny" (BBC News website, 2010)
Yes, I feel sorry for the Pope, what with the fact that he gets to live in Vatican City, which is a small, self-contained Christian, city nation. I feel sorry for him with his Pope-mobile, I feel sorry for him with his white, flowing ceremonial robes. I feel sorry for him because when he grins, you can suddenly imagine him as a clown at a six year olds' birthday party, wherein a room of small mites have suddenly burst into tears.
The Pope's visit was historic, according to several media accounts. It may have been, but it wasn't Iraq War historic, it wasn't Coalition government historic; it was smaller than that. He gave a few speeches, blessed a few babies, beatified someone, apologised for a legacy of child abuse within the Catholic Church then got into Thunderbird Pope and went home. I also say it wasn't a historic event because, well, that seems to be what some of his critics are saying too. One Mary Hewson was quoted as being worried about the £1.5m cost of the UK visit, saying
"I'm not a Catholic, I'm Church of England and I couldn't do anything without my faith, but I object to the cost of this event and the inconvenience."
So the Pope's visit is either a historic landmark, or a waste of taxpayer's money, or its both -and Mary Hewson is Christian. According to David Cameron, the Pope has made everyone sit up and think. (Cut to shot of a family sitting up and thinking). Cameron is right, insofar as the Pope's visit has re-awakened, or given new fire to, a religion/secularity debate. But, the "waste of taxpayer's money" argument is a boring and very British complaint. I could argue that I don't want the Pope coming here because he's a endemically homophobic, anti-feminist, anti-contraception and anti-abortion. I could, if I wanted to, also argue that I resent my taxpayers' money being spent on benefits for a person who holds any, or all of those views. He might be Catholic, he might not be. You might question the sanity of someone who shows up in the pouring rain to see the Pope speak. I might question the sanity of someone who did the same to see U2 or Madonna play at a big concert of festival (think Live Earth or Glastonbury)
I happen to know a few U2/Madonna fans, and I already feel a bit sanctimonious for having knocked them to prove a point. But that is exactly what some of the 'protesters' of the Pope have been guilty of. Such celebrity exponents include Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry; I have a lot of respect for the latter, but his over-enthusiastic Twitter following is becoming irritating. My example of just how smug the secularist camp can be is below
http://freethinker.co.uk/2009/10/20/catholic-church-humiliated-by-fry-and-hitchens-in-an-historic-london-debate/
This website offers a commentary of a debate last year, wherein Hitchens and Fry were in attendance; the commentary is fairly crowing. My personal favourite, I shall copy and paste below. CH refers to Christopher Hitchens, PB refers to Peter Brietbart, a contributor to the Freethinker website from which this is drawn.
PB: If all writings from throughout human history were to be destroyed, and you could choose to save the writings of a single author, who would you choose, and why
CH: That’s a very good question. Well, here’s what I would look for. I’d look for the author from which you could reconstruct the work of many, many other writers because of references, quotations, allusions that one is supposed to get.
PB: That’s a cunning answer. Very tactical.
CH: Yes, well, that would put Shakespeare very high, for example. From that there’s a great deal of Biblical stuff, classical, Italian renaissance, history, mythology … there’s a huge amount of other learning in it. I don’t think there’s any other writer of bodies of canon in that way. So from that we could work out quite a lot about what we were before, as a species. But for that reason, not because of it’s extraordinary beauty and wisdom. Otherwise it would be Darwin. It would have to be Darwin. His work, too, is full of great references, and teaches us a great deal about the natural world. He was a literary type.
PB: Ah, I had hoped you might say Darwin. That might just be my choice, too.
PB: Next, what can we do, as individuals or groups, to further the cause -if you can call it that- of reason and unbelief?
CH: Well, it may sound like a religious, or confessional answer, but you have to start with yourself. We all have to overcome our own irrationalities and superstitions first. That’s a lifetime of education, and it’s worth having. I try and do it everyday. I expose myself to other people’s opinions, writings and so forth, so that’s the main thing. Oh, and if you do well enough, you might just get asked your opinion.
The other thing is not to give anything the go-by. You have to get up and say no when someone suggests there should be a tax break for churches, or that the bishops should sit in the House of Lords, or anything like it. Oppose anything that trespasses on the secular line of the separation of church and state, because civilization begins where the separation of church and state begins. There are no exceptions to that in any country. So it’s in the general interest, as well as your own, that we patrol that line with great vigilance.
PB: It’s been a pleasure. Thank-you.
CH: You’re very welcome!
Mr Brietbart is not that much older than me, but even he can't be accredited with 'freethinking' since he just seems to spend the majority of the interview agreeing with what Hitchens says. Hitchens cites Shakespeare as that writer he would salvage, and Darwin of course. His use of Shakespeare is interesting, since Shakespeare's literature is steeped in the Biblical, classical, Renaissance literature that preceded, and surrounded him. Religion, when its being so vehemently criticised, is sometimes completely divorced from the histories and cultures through which it has endured. Religion in today's society is painted as the domain of the ignorant and the stupid, especially when you have Hitchens and Fry on your panel, both of whom are Oxford and Cambridge educated. A lot of what is taught in the English departments of universities of places like Oxford and Cambridge wouldn't exist were it not for the role played by religion, even Cambridge itself was founded by a bishop. Dante is one medieval example. His Comedy is an amazing poem in three parts, made perhaps even more so because it is religious, albeit a religious poem that attempts to understand the contradictions within the Christianity of 13th and 14th centuries. You wouldn't have elements of art, architecture, music, poetry without religion.
If you want a Catholic perspective on events, look at this alternative view of the Pope's (then forthcoming) visit
http://archive.catholicherald.co.uk/features/f0000574.shtml
To clarify, I do not agree with a majority of the Catholic Church's teachings. Maybe because the teaching in all the other subjects I took at school was good enough that I was educated to be fairly critical of Catholic doctrines, maybe because I resented being forced to go to non-credited RE lessons, where our chaplain would try to convince us that the Bible could have happened. When talking to religious people, it's sometimes frustrating to try and divorce them from deeply held beliefs, until you realise you're showing that same intransigence yourself, in a way. The idea that religion is responsible for atrocities in a way that secularism is not, is a narrow and counter-productive argument.
True, wars fought in the name of religion are probably too numerous to mention: however in a post-Enlightenment age, wars have since been fought for even shallower reasons: for weapons of mass destruction, in the name of 'the balance of power', or 'living space' or because one country had a treaty with another. The last priest who served as a chaplain at my school got a lot of flack, mainly because he was held onto a faith that seemed to some, at best, outdated and at worst, bigoted. But he never lost his temper, or his patience, with teenagers who, with the benefit of five years hindsight, might have seemed pretty self-assured and smug because they had an excellent private education and were about to go off to good universities. I try not to ignore people who stop me in the street to talk about their religion, if only because they seem interested in talking to you. A few weeks ago, some Chinese students asked to tell me a Bible story on my doorstep. Again, they were perfectly friendly. The Christian Union at my university gave me squash and biscuits whilst they explained the difference between the Old and New Testament to me.
Catholicism needs to join the twenty first century in many ways. Also, the Pope should get a better PR team (I think I can recommend two lads actually), if his speeches are going to compare atheism to Nazism in a country that fought the latter so completely, and where the monarch is, importantly, still the head of the Church. He also conveniently forgot to mention that the Catholic Church signed a Concordat with Hitler wherein the Fuhrer agreed to leave the Catholic Church in Germany alone. The Catholic Church is like NewsCorp, or the Republican Party, or the BBC, other powerful institutions, in that it looks, nay it is, fairly corrupt from the top downwards. The reported cases of child abuse are starting to look terrfyingly widespread - they have that in common with the MP expenses scandal, which was more trivial, but seemed to receive twice the media coverage.
Both sides in this week's visit have come out with some fairly ill-thought out comments, or have re-iterated old views, or at least made me want to look up the different sides of the debate a bit more. Evan Harris in the Guardian, gives a fairly nice clarification of the differences between religion, secularism and atheism. It's worth a look, if anything. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/sep/18/secularist-manifesto-secularism
Perhaps, if you want an example of the differences between how real faith can bolster a person sometimes, look at the President of the United States. If you want an example of how it can turn you into a bigoted, close-minded, homophobe, look at some of the people in the Tea Party who would call themselves his opposition....but that's for another time.
