« Thou Shalt Not Question Their Authoritay | Main | Hasso Herring is an Ignoramus »

November 30, 2007

Irony in the Vatican

Pope Benedict's latest encyclical, released today, says that atheism was responsible for some of the "greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice" in history.

Against the backdrop of the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition and the Catholicizing of Central and South America, where all to frequently the natives were offered the choice of converting or being murdered, I'm thinking that Benedict's not exactly in a position to... uh... pontificate about belief system-based cruelty and violations of justice.

None of that justifies anything done by or in the name of atheism. I'm just saying that the Catholic Church has no moral authority on this particular subject. And Benedict, as a conservative, has less than others in the Church.

To paraphrase a bumper sticker I recently saw and which was aimed at the Republican Party...

Jesus helped the poor
Conservatives help themselves.

Posted by Kevin at November 30, 2007 11:05 AM