Dogma and democracy
19 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
in abortion, abuse, anger, belief, Catholicism, Christianity, democracy, dogma, education, faith, homosexuality, human rights, liberalism, London, Pope Benedict XVI, protest, Rome, The Vatican, traditionalism, United Kingdom
We sure live in a funny old world. While our music charts are saturated with songs about sex, and the Saturday night TV schedules consist of talent contests for the mentally subnormal, a church leader from Rome with questionable beliefs is able to come here on a grand state visit at the taxpayer’s expense. The Pope’s weekend in London wasn’t going to go by unnoticed, at least not by me. As time has passed, and as more and more of his views about the world have come to light, I have found myself increasingly bothered by the great position of power that he has, and the deafening silence in the British media about his dark side. We all have a dark side, of course, and the Pope is no different. He’s entitled to his views, he’s an old man from a different era who grew up a member of the Nazi Youth. It’s the universal, unwavering support from the media that bothers me, as well as his apparent belief that everyone should think the same way as him.
He says that homosexuals have a tendency towards evil, that women have no place in the priesthood because they don’t have the same spiritual capabilities as men, that condoms exacerbate the HIV epidemic, that priests who sexually abuse children should be protected rather than punished. Any state political leader who had said these things would not be welcomed to our country with open arms. They’d probably be arrested as soon as they landed at Heathrow Airport for inciting hatred and perverting the course of justice. When it’s the Pope, it’s different. The official cost to the taxpayer for this trip has been stated as £10 million. Not only are we expected to be grateful for his presence, we are expected to keep our mouths shut if we disagree with him, otherwise we risk being blamed for the world’s problems. I think the pontiff reached his lowest point yet the other day, when he blamed atheism for the holocaust, as if the death of millions of Jews in the second world war was simply down to a lack of faith amongst the Nazis. I wonder what the Pope would have to say about the incontrovertible fact that Adolf Hitler was a Roman Catholic.
I was so alarmed and infuriated by all these things yesterday that I knew I had to do something to express it. I went to Hyde Park, where I knew an anti-papal protest was due to be taking place in the afternoon. I didn’t know what to expect when I got there; I thought maybe there’d be a few hundred people like myself gathered in front of a small stage, with a few angry speakers shouting into microphones about all the injustices we know have been caused by the Catholic church. When I did get there, I was stunned and somewhat thrilled to find approximately 20,000 people getting ready to march into central London. It was a beautiful autumn day, and together with 20,000 others I marched through the main thoroughfares of our great city, taking advantage of my democratic right to protest at what I see as the brazen dogmatism of a church that is supposed to be caring and spiritual. I didn’t have a placard or a t-shirt to show the particular message that I wanted to get across, but I didn’t really need one; there were plenty of placards there, some funny, some angry, some downright insulting. One particularly memorable banner simply said: ‘Fuck off back to the 14th century’. I don’t think I could have put it better myself.
When we got to Whitehall everyone stopped, as a stage with speakers had been set up in the middle of the road. On stage I saw the great Peter Tatchell and Richard Dawkins getting ready to make speeches. My heart leapt into my throat, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who experienced that. I’ve read books by Richard Dawkins and I’ve seen Peter Tatchell speak at political rallies before; I’ve admired both of them for a long time. When Dawkins started speaking the entire crowd of 20,000 fell silent. It was quite incredible. In the space of ten minutes he eloquently and vociferously demolished the Catholic church’s remaining, tiny bit of credibility. It was quite a pleasure to listen to. He talked of the abuse scandal, the unjust and arrogant way in which the church tries to assert its moral authority by blaming everyone else for the world’s problems; he ended up on the subject of atheism and the holocaust, which the Pope has brought into the spotlight in his own narrow-minded way. I could hear the anger in Dawkins’ voice – ‘how dare he compare atheists to Nazis, free-thinking liberalists to psychotic dictators who openly practiced Catholicism?’ – everyone in the crowd felt the same anger, even I did, though I don’t consider myself an atheist. Most of the people in the crowd, but not all, were gay, and we’ve all spent our lives being compared to monsters by a religion that is supposed to be there for all. We’re all tired of being insulted by some rich, bigoted old man in Rome. We’re all exhausted with being told what to think, how to live our lives, by a detached papacy that sucks masses of money up every year while millions in the third world starve to death.
After Dawkins had stepped down to rapturous applause we were treated to ten minutes of Peter Tatchell, who was similarly scathing of what he saw as the Pope’s self-righteous vitriol. Whoever you are, whatever religion you practise, even if you have no religion, you cannot possibly ignore the blemishes on the current Pope’s record, if you have any intelligence and awareness of the world. Being at that rally yesterday wasn’t just exciting. It was exhilarating, and I felt truly alive when I was there listening to these courageous, intelligent men with 20,000 other people who, like me, aren’t prepared to shut up and let the Pope enjoy his publically-funded holiday in peace. Ten years ago I thought no one in the world could possibly feel the way I felt, but yesterday I had it proved to me that the world is full of people who also feel attacked and let down by the church. At the heart of the matter is this hand-wringing disdain for difference that the Catholic church promotes. People like me, people who through no choice of their own were unlucky enough to be born different, have been wholeheartedly abused by the Catholic church, maybe not with fists and feet but always with words and ideas, for words and ideas, as I found out in my childhood, can be just as powerful as physical force. Even though I grew up in one of the western world’s most liberalized cities, I still got taught that my difference from everyone else made me bad, and wrong, and sick. It is the Vatican that has to take ultimately responsibility for these teachings, because I don’t believe for one second that God whispers them in the Pope’s ear direct from heaven. The doctrines of the Vatican are created and promoted by men who are as human as you and I. Fear of anything different is an intrinsic part of human nature – it’s really unfortunate that for 2,000 years the Christian church has been able to justify its fear with the doctrine of original sin.
After the rally was over I came home feeling that, for the first time in ages, I’d done something that could really make a difference. Just by showing up I added to the numbers showing their disgust at the Pope’s sick teachings. We couldn’t stop the Pope’s visit, and we probably won’t be able to make the Vatican change its policies on contraception, abortion, homosexuality etc. But we have shown the world that we are not going to accept everything the Pope says, just because he claims to be God’s representative on Earth. I, for one, am proud to live in a city like London where you can protest in that way with thousands of like-minded individuals, without fear of retribution or social exclusion.
