Pope: abortion and gay marriage "threat to world peace".

 Pope Benedict: “In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,”

by Frankie Durr

The head of the Vatican state has been praying for hours for peace and other such things as popes have done for centuries when they haven’t been warring and colonizing, spreading Jesus’ word, or their version of it. The Vatican’s public relations managers tell him that the average person would love to have peace and more leisure time to go along with it.   The pope took note of this and in his Christmas message he definitely appears to be moving to the left, even calling for a shorter workweek telling the crowd, "The faster we can move, the more efficient our timesaving appliances become, the less time we have.

This subtle call for more leisure time is not all; “And God? The question of God never seems urgent. Our time is already completely full,", the pope added.  Well, more leisure time would give people more time to go to one of his churches which would increase revenue, but we have to understand that the pope has to be careful how he phrases things otherwise he might lose the support of the hedge fund managers. 

But don’t cut him short.  When he says, that “…the more efficient appliances become the less time we have.” he is telling us that technology and labor saving devices because they are owned by the capitalist class are used to exploit us further, extract more surplus value from fewer workers while they throw those they don’t need on the dole.

The pope spoke eloquently from beneath his ermine fringed robe. I do not recall Jesus Christ being fond of ermine when I was involved in god worship as a kid but no matter, the pope seems to be moving to the left.  Let’s hope he supports this shorter workweek with no loss in pay.

I do have a few questions about Benedict’s approach though as I read more of his message.  When he said, "The great moral question of our attitude towards the homeless, towards refugees and migrants, takes on a deeper dimension: do we really have room for God when he seeks to enter under our roof?" I’m not sure who he is talking to.  The reason I say this is that most people in the world are homeless or near homeless, millions of us are refuges and millions more migrants due to being refugees or homeless. I mean, he appears to be talking to the homeless refugees and migrants and their attitude to themselves.  It’s a bit confusing.

Pope Benedict also called for societies to be built on justice and an end to the conflict in Syria.  I don’t know if he said anything about Afghanistan and Obama’s drone wars in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia and other parts of the world.  He called on Israeli’s and Palestinians to have the, "courage to end long years of conflict and division".   Hmm! I have a bit of a problem with this you see because I’m not sure it’s just an issue of courage.  And it would be helpful if the pope had mentioned that Israel’s approval of 5500 new illegal settlements on Palestinian land just in the last week might hurt the chances for any settlement at all.  I know throwing stones at Israeli tanks and bulldozers can dent the paintwork of these machines but he could recognize that there is a bit of a difference between the roles of the two sides here. 

And look, the pope did manage to have a go at the gays saying that gay marriage destroys the “essence of the human creature.” and that gay marriage, like abortion and euthanasia, is a “threat to world peace.”.  Oh dear, I’m not sure I agree with these remarks.  I think capitalism, Wall Street crooks and the thugs in the Pentagon are a greater threat to world peace than gay marriage.  As I read on I am not liking what I read; apparently the pope thinks paedophilia wasn't considered an “absolute evil” as recently as the 1970s.  Whaaat! When I was young I was taught that the pope was “infallible” that means he could not sin.  There’s no such thing as sin but I didn’t know that then. Could it be that the pope is saying this to cover up the horrific level of child sexual abuse in his organization?  I think this may be the case; in fact it gets worse as the pope claims that child pornography has been considered  “normal” in our society.  A Catholic victim of sexual abuse by one of the pope’s employees responded differently, “That is not normal. I don't know what company the Pope has been keeping for the past 50 years.” He says.

Perhaps, Der Spiegel, the German Magazine’s ongoing investigation in to the Pope's role in covering up sexual abuse by priests and allowing perpetrators to continue to work with children in the church has some merit.

I think I have to re-think my support for the pope’s call for a shorter workweek. And if you are still a member of the Catholic church and can’t bring yourself to leave it, please don’t ignore the cancer and consider trying in some small way to fight openly to change it like the Nuns on the Bus are doing.