The Vatican had one of its increasingly hysterical rants last week saying that criticism of the Pope amounts to terrorism.The accusations came after an Italian rock concert hosted by comedian Andrea Rivera. Mr Rivera spoke out strongly against a decision by the Italian Catholic Church to deny a religious funeral to Piergiorgio Welby, a muscular dystrophy sufferer who ended his life in December by having a doctor remove him from his artificial respirator.Rivera told a throng of about 400 000 people at Tuesday?s concert (broadcast live on TV): ?The pope said that he doesn’t believe in the theory of evolution. I agree, the Church has not evolved. I cannot accept that the Vatican refused a funeral for Welby when they had no problems with the dictators Franco and Pinochet,? he said.The Vatican?s propaganda rag, L?Osservatore Romano then went into complete overdrive, and in a ludicrous editorial wrote: ?Attacking the Church is terrorism. Fuelling blind and irrational fury against he who always speaks in the name of love is terrorism. It is vile and terrorist to throw stones at the pope, this time directly, while feeling protected by shouts of approval from an easily excitable crowd,? the daily said.Labour unions that organised the concert regrettably distanced themselves from Rivera’s comments and right-wing groups offered outright condemntation. Some on the left, though, have dismissed L’Osservatore Romano?s comments as exaggerated.
From our colleagues across the pond at the National Secular Society of UK.
Peter Nuhn
The pope now wants to excommunicate the Mexico City politicians who recently decriminalised abortion.
No.
Terrorism: “The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.”
Sounds like most religious groups to me: Threatened use of violence=threat of burning in hell.
Here is an article referring to the bombing attempt at a womens clinic. But who heard about? What you here about instead is the constant mantra about the islamobogeyman. Over and over the brining of toothless cases against hapless islamic “terrorists”.
What:
Here are three “toothless” attacks by “hapless Islamic ‘terrorists’”.
New York, Washington, PA 9/11: about 2973 dead.
Madrid, 3/11/2004: 191 dead, about 2000 injured.
London, 7/7/2005: 52 dead, 700 injured.
This is why people are more concerned about Islamic terrorism than abortion clinic bombers. Islamic terrorists are clearly the more dangerous of the two. Even if some of the exposed plans that you read about in the paper aren’t nearly as organized as the three I listed above, people’s fear is still reasonable.
Apple_Xmas,
It is interesting to note that your statistics lack any mention of the christian motivated invasion of Iraq.
Do you not think the people in Iraq feel terror?
rna,
“Do you not think the people in Iraq feel terror?”
Oh, but they’re the “enemy” so we have to dehumanize them. Fear is only an emotion found in humans afterall, right? I mean, every other creature in the world NEVER feels emotion. Only us good white christian americans do.
Apple
Could you possibly be more morally corrupt? You made not a single mention of the death and destruction due to your support of our first war criminal president. You may not get it yet but the rest of non-evangelical america does and it will destroy your maniacal religion. Good ridance.
Actually no it is not. Not unless you mean expected, given how unreasonable people are about perceived risk.
Adding up those three numbers you give and rounding up to include other smaller ones, we get maybe 4000 deaths in, say 10 years.
In the US alone, there are about 40,000 fatalities per year due to motor vehicle accidents. That’s 400,000 per decade. Yet few are willing to accept the inconvenience of not using a personal vehicle. Many still do not use seat belts.
The terrorists are aided and abetted in their efforts to affect the lives of people by the very bureaucracy that supposedly is shielding them from the threat.
Apparently enough people refused to fly in the days following 9/11 that an equivalent number of people were estimated to have died on the roads.
Pity we don’t have leaders that will tell people that facing our fears is better for us and that they refuse to implement a police state which infringes on our freedoms.
rna2dna & What:
I knew that someone would bring up dead civilian Iraqis. I was about to write something about it in my last post, anticipating your remarks, but I refrained since it’s not specifically pertinent to the discussion.
The comparison I was making was between Islamic terrorism vs. anti-abortion terrorism. That’s all I was referring to. And DD, the motor vehicle stats are likewise not relevant. I’m not saying they’re not significant, or deplorable… they’re just not germane to the discussion here.
What:
Blockquote disaster. Apologies…
Repost:
rna2dna & What:
I knew that someone would bring up dead civilian Iraqis. I was about to write something about it in my last post, anticipating your remarks, but I refrained since it’s not specifically pertinent to the discussion.
The comparison I was making was between Islamic terrorism vs. anti-abortion terrorism. That’s all I was referring to. And DD, the motor vehicle stats are likewise not relevant. I’m not saying they’re not significant, or deplorable… they’re just not germane to the discussion here.
What:
I’ve noticed that you tend to make sweeping statements like this. Do you really feel justified making such a statement based on such little evidence? If you met me, I bet you’d like me. Try not to read too much into the limited discourse here on this blog. I’ll try to do the same too, so I won’t hold this comment against you.
First of all, are you sure he’s our first war criminal? A case could be made for several presidents. And why do you think I support George W. Bush? I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, I voted for John Kerry in 2004 (and not because I was crazy about Kerry… I just didn’t want Bush to win!) I think getting involved in Iraq was a spectacularly bad idea, and that the Bush administration has been a disaster for this country.
FYI, I’m an atheist. Maybe I’m misreading your comments, but did you think I was a Christian?
Apple,
I’ll definitely second the thing about Bush not being our first war criminal president. Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin incident? Reagan and the Iran/Contra scandal? I think those classify as war crimes. Plus there’s still the debate over Pearl Harbor and the Lutsitania. Bush is pretty damn bad, but he wasn’t the first.
dishonest abe was the first war criminal but booth corrected that.
Small potatoes compared to what BushCo has done. Get real.