Protest the Pope

[fredv3b]

The government sold us this fiasco as a "state visit"; that's why we are paying for it.

In a similar vein, if the Pope wants to be treated as a Head of State (State visits, etc.) why doesn't he observe the code of conduct of Heads of State and not comment on the internal affairs of other States?

[marshlander]

In a similar vein, if the Pope wants to be treated as a Head of State (State visits, etc.) why doesn't he observe the code of conduct of Heads of State and not comment on the internal affairs of other States?

You're absolutely right, Fred. I have had to make the same point to many people over the past week. Perhaps he secretly aspires to be the Duke of Edinburgh?

[marshlander]

Interesting article by Amir Taheri. He says that the Pope made five erroneous assumptions about secularism. What do you think?

The first is that ... secularism is not an ideology insofar as it does not offer a total view of human existence and takes no position on specific political, economic, cultural and moral issues...

The second mistake is to take secularism for atheism...

The third mistake is that secularism is a denial of the need for a moral code...

The fourth mistake is that secularism wants to keep religion out of politics...

The fifth mistake is potentially the most serious one. It is the allegation that secularism and religion are incompatible. In other words if you are secular you cannot have religious beliefs...

... Until just a decade ago, the very idea of a state visit by a Pope would have been laughed at as a bad joke. Two decades ago, Pope John Pal II visited the UK as a private tourist because the British protocol and policy, dictated by centuries of animosity towards Rome, would not allow a state visit.

The very secularisation that Pope Benedict criticises changed all that.

Benedict was able to become the first Pope to break that taboo because of the recognition that the public space in the United Kingdom is no longer organised in accordance with the exclusive beliefs and interests of the Church of England of which the British monarch is the Governor.

It was also secularism that enabled Pope Benedict to publicly criticise secularism, and other aspects of British life, in full freedom. While the Pope calls for a restriction of some of the freedoms of others in the name of religious doctrine, he enjoys full freedom of belief, practice and propagation, thanks to secularism.

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