The Pope Bashing Begins

So the Pope touched town in Edinburgh this morning, amidst a flurry of activity online as the protests gather momentum.

I’ve been watching the news unfold and have been amused by a number of tweets. This one being my favourite.

But all joking aside, people really are up in arms about the Pope’s visit. While birth control, gay rights and abortion are issues of widespread disagreement among all Christians- it’s the recent church/child abuse scandal that we all view as inexcusable. How the Catholic Church could have allowed such widespread abuse to happen is beyond me.

But rather than continue to slate the Pope on that issue, perhaps we should take a moment to remember his apology on June 11 when he said the church must “insistently beg forgiveness from God and from the persons involved, while promising to do everything possible to ensure that such abuse will never occur again”.

The Pope continues to meet with the victims and their families to offer personal apologies over this whole issue. Of course that could never put things back to the way they were, but what more do we want Benedict to do? (And please do not mention the disgusting practise of flagellation.) Although this issue of abuse is by far the biggest issue the Catholic church has had to deal with in recent decades, this is not the issue the “Pope Protests” will focus on.

Instead the problem appears to be a religious leader making comments (from a religious point of view) on issues such as homosexuality and the distribution of condoms in Africa. Although his comments are controversial, isn’t it his job to make statements on such things? Sure, we don’t have to agree with his words (I often don’t), but that’s no reason to slate him. He’s perfectly entitled to say what he likes. He knows better than most that the majority of people in the world (including some Catholics!!) won’t be paying a blind bit of attention to what he says. So let him speak!

Then again, perhaps I’ve missed the point? Maybe the point is that the government has invited him over, not the Catholic Church. So in theory- tax payers money is funding his (utterly ridiculous) pope mobile, and all other costs which will inevitably result from this visit.

Fair enough, I agree the money would be better spend elsewhere, but is that really a reason to take to the streets and protest against this figure? After all, as a friend was saying to me today- we often have expensive state visits from other world leaders that no one complains about.

For the record, I don’t like the way the Catholic church is structured, and I find the idea that the Pope is infallible quite ridiculous, however, I think we need to cut this guy some slack and remember there are millions of Catholics in the UK, for which this is a highly significant event. As a Christian I would like to stand beside my Catholic friends and whilst acknowledging our differences in theology, be happy for them that their Pope has made the effort to come to the UK and encourage not only Catholics, but all of the Christians in the UK.

So go on, tell me I’m wrong…