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April 21, 2005

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

This is likely going to be my only post on the Pope. I'm not Catholic. Heck, I'm not even Christian. The "Head of the Church" thing really means nothing to me.

The Pope is a figurehead of state, I suppose. But the real power has to do with his religious influence.

I could care less what ideological proclivities the Catholic Church wants to embrace. It's their church..their religion. As far as I'm concerned they can dive right in to whatever whackoness (or nonwhackoness for that matter) that they want. They can get all pruney in it if that's what gets them through the day.

Where I cross swords with Benedict (and did with JP2 as well) is his influence over political lawmakers. The Catholic Church needs to keep it's nose out of American government. It should keep it's nose out of everybody's government but it's own, for that matter.

The problem is, Catholic influence over laws having to do with gay marriage, birth control, end of life issues, etc. has seeped it's sewage into American politics. With a lot of help from their Evangelical Protestant counterparts, Catholic doctrinalists have helped push America into a major political schism.

If the Catholic Church wants to remain in the Dark Ages with it's beliefs...more power to them. But keep it away from me. Stop foisting your backward, bigoted, conservative sludge on those of us who don't want it. This country was founded on a fundamental separation of religion and government for a reason.

I also don't really understand why a religious institution would give their head job to a guy who doesn't much give a crap about personal responsibility. At least for himself. I'm speaking about the former Ratzinger's dalliance with Hitler Youth. Ratzinger claims he had no choice but to be conscripted to join the Hitler Youth.

Ratzinger did have a choice. He could have been a conscientious objector. The Jehovah's Witnesses were, for example.

I'm not grudging Ratzinger for having a youthful indiscretion. Most all of us have them, being human. But Ratzinger should own up to what he did, apologize for it and make recompense. Real leaders take personal responsibility for their actions.

Posted by Carla at April 21, 2005 04:10 PM