- They are vehemently homophobic.
- They are extremely sexist.
- They are responsible for so much misery in Africa because they oppose to the use of condoms as a means to deal with HIV/AIDS - get real, people are not going to give up having sex just because you're gonna tell them it is a sin. But you can tell people that they can minimize the risk they take when they have casual sex by using a condom - but oh no, these Catholics are so far removed from the real world that they think that even masturbation is a sin.
- They are responsible for so much misery in places like South and Central America and the Philippines because they oppose birth control - so these people who are so poor go on having 5, 6, 7, even 10 children despite being unable to feed these poor kids but these Catholics go to church and even their priests tells them not to use birth control.
- There have been decades of cover up when it comes to the scandal of children being raped by Catholic priests and this goes right up to the very highest powers in the Vatican - they are just such total hypocrites when it comes to preaching all kinds of virtues when it comes to sexual affairs but their own priests are busy raping vulnerable children left in their care.
Monday 15 June 2015
LIFT Vlog Episode 46: At the Vatican
Hi everyone, time for the latest installment of my vlog from Vatican City, showing you one of the most popular tourist attractions in all of Rome. I hope you will like it - it is slightly different because I talked a lot more in this vlog piece, normally when I am on holiday I just film the sights and sounds of the places I visit, just to give you an idea of what I am experiencing in these places. But in this piece, well, as a committed atheist, I couldn't just visit the Vatican without letting you know my strong feelings about the Catholic church. My encounter with the crazy toilet attendant there didn't exactly leave me with a good impression either! Thus, I am extremely vary of Catholics for the following reason:
I hope you can separate the very imperfect Church from the religion and the wide range of Catholics out there. For example, yours truly is not homophobic. I don't consider myself one anyway. In fact, some of my heartthrobs are gay. I meant Anderson Cooper and Barry ManILOVE. And Rupert Everett. Knowing that they are gay does not make them less attractive. Well, I wouldn't say Barry is attractive, straight or otherwise, but he is lovely to listen to. I know that you have heard it before, "I am not homophobic because some of my friends are gay!" In my case, I really do not care what people do in private. In public, I do not want to see people in intimate moments, gay or straight. Ok, ok, go ahead and kiss. I am not a prude! Just do not grope each other in public! LOL! I digress.
ReplyDeleteI love being Catholic, but I do not follow the church laws blindly. I do not think it makes me less Catholic than someone who preaches that homosexuality is the work of the devil. Indeed, there are al lot of hypocrites out there in any religion. I choose to separate the secular from religion.
I do hope that Pope Francis can guide us into the new century with a more practical and sensible approach to life.
I am not surprised that the Italians are homophobic. The men are alpha males. I should know, My son goes to school with many of the boys. They work very hard to show that they are MEN. They make fun of my son because he is not your usual alpha hockey-player type. I have to say, those Italian men are good-looking, Why is that relevant? I don't know. I am just rambling on.
It's super hot here where I am. I get hotter just thinking of David. Sorry, couldn't resist. Ciao.
I don't think I said that Italians are homophobic, Italy is mid-range when it comes to the gay rights barometer: not as liberal as some of the northern European countries like Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and the Netherlands, but certainly much better than the ex-communist Eastern European countries. Gay rights in Italy are somewhat behind say Germany, UK and Sweden but light years ahead of Eastern Europe.
DeleteThat's right. You said the Catholics were homophobics.
DeleteI think I said that the Catholic church preaches homophobia and as a result many Catholics are homophobic if they were to blindly follow what the church preaches without questioning it. I refer you to Shane's story below about the way Filipino Catholics pick and choose what they want to listen to and what they want to ignore...
DeleteHence, the Church is neither practical nor realistic.
DeleteIsn't homophobia or sodomy mentioned somewhere in the Old Testament? Correct me if I'm wrong as I'm not a Christian. I guess it's a question of whether you choose to follow everything a religious text says. ...Anyway, I'm quite surprised that you find the Catholics to be the most homophobic. From my experience at least in Singapore, the ones preaching all the time and generally spreading anti gay vitriol,tend to be the Protestants. The cup of course goes to Pastor Khong and his Flock.
DeleteThe old and new testaments are against homosexuality and sodomy.
DeleteProtestants are also anti-homosexuality. Just look at the conservatives in the States.
I am not against the Church teachings. I just believe we need to separate religious beliefs from legislations for the masses because it is not fair to impose my religious beliefs on others. Pastor Khong forgot that Jesus taught us understanding and tolerance.
Hi Alex. I know the catholic church had not lent itself very well to LGBT and STD issues. A lot of it probably stems from ignorance, blind faith and self rationalisation and more likely from a combination of all three. We can only hope that with Pope Francis who seems rather more down to earth and rational, things may improve. I really suspect that a lot of what was done was all out of fear and desperation as the relevance of the church in a secular society is slowly eroded by science, technology and social awareness. It is always easier to go into a siege mentality and rally your flock to arms, rather than to take the more painful realisation and adaptation route.
ReplyDeleteI used to have several Filipino technicians reporting to me. One of them at the age of 26 was already a mother of three and her eldest daughter was 10 at that time, so clearly she was already a mum by ~16. The only reason why she was not producing more was that she is in Singapore while her husband was back in Manila. What I learnt from the Filipino girls was that divorce, family planning and contraception were basically taboo and they were taught that these were all sinful, so it was their "duty" and "God's Will" to give birth and be mum when they got pregnant. I was very young and brash then and told them that the bible also preached against premarital sex and abstinence before marriage, so why did they only follow one area (no to contraception) and conveniently ignore the other (premarital sex)? The outcome was not pretty :(
I guess it sums up what you said, that much as you can preach on sin, folks are not going to stop having sex. It is the classic battle between idealism vs the real world and unfortunately, the latter almost always will win. It is only when we refuse to acknowledge the reality that it all goes down bad.
Hahahahaha Shane, I like what you said about giving in to premarital sex but not contraception. It just doesn't make sense,, does it?
DeleteImagine the situation in the Philippines being replicated across every third world country that's primarily Catholic. Oh dear. You have families living in grinding poverty trying to bring up 8 kids when the parents barely earn enough to put one meal a day on the table - WTF? What the hell is going on - don't these people have any sense not to put themselves (and their children) in such a situation?
And oh, they preach against condoms in countries where AIDS is spreading like wild fire - to me, that's the Catholic church committing mass slaughter.
It seems to me it is also a matter of education. Whilst there are some families in my parish with 9 kids and counting, 98 percent of us have 1-3 kids at most. Catholics or not, we are not baby machines. I don't think Catholics in Singapore have many kids either. Many do not practise blindly what the Church dictates. I agree that we need to get on with the times in a practical way. "Go forth and multiply" was when the world's population was ... a million?
DeleteAs for STDs and not using condoms ... no, not practical.
Abortion ... I have refused to sign petitions that supports anti-abortion legislations. I know that while many Catholics say that they are against it, they will secretly have it when they are affected. That is why I say they are hypocrites.
It is ironic that Italy, where the Vatican is located, has one of the world's lowest birth rates as their birth rates plummets to an all time low http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/13/italy-is-a-dying-country-says-minister-as-birth-rate-plummets And Italians are mostly Catholics - but here's the difference, your average Italian Catholic is far more highly educated than your average Catholic in somewhere like the Philippines or Mexico or Peru. So education makes the difference: well educated Italian Catholics, like you, are choosing not to have that many kids whilst those in the third world are pumping out babies because they don't question what they are told in church.
DeleteI think it's just cruel to bring a child into the world when you have no means to support the child, feed the child, clothe the child, educate the child etc.
Cruel and irresponsible. That is why I only have one child. The right education teaches us to question everything --- from religion to politics to what our parents tell us.
DeleteSadly, I see blind followers everywhere.
Hi Di, the world would be a much simpler place if people are a little more enlightened and aware like you. Sadly, the reality is that those who are ignorant and intellectually lazy often fall back to selective religious teachings as the catch all about why they are not practising family planning. It does not just happen to catholics. I also had a very young muslim part timer under me previously who was already a mother of 4 at 24 years. She went on a week medical leave for an abortion and within the same year, she told me that she needed to go on scheduled medical leave again for another abortion. Mind you, we were all working in a hospital, so I suppose I expected better knowledge of unwanted pregnancy prevention. Unfortunately for her, she and her husband simply couldn't afford another child and even their extended families were stretched. When asked if she practised any form of contraception, her reply was that her husband said that as muslims, use of condoms and pills were against islamic fatwas. When I responded that abortion is to me an even bigger issue since it kills both the foetus and places more risk on the mother than practising contraception, next thing that happened was her husband came confronting us all. The amount of hypocrisy and ignorance is just mind numbing. Ultimately, it took a lot of persuasion from a muslim gynaecologist to convince them that it was not a sin to implant a reversible long active contraceptive. Those two incidence from the Filipino Catholic technician and the muslim assistant simply confirmed that a lot of ignorance and selective reading of religious text is really the norm and a lot of public education is needed to address those.
DeleteYes, how ironic she decided to abort and kill a fetus than to not have the fetus form at all. Education is so important. My mother than 9 children. My aunt had 13 children. My siblings have 2. I have 1. One sibling has 3. That was it. The Church can preach all it wants. In the end, they are still governed by men who think they know better. As lay people, we need to decide what elements of a faith we can to hold on to. To me, the belief in the Trinity and the resurrection is more key than "Go forth and multiply."
DeleteSigh. Di, unfortunately, folks like you who adhere to the basic principles and tenets instead of focusing on the outward forms of practice are getting rare. Objective principles, deliberation and reflection are not intuitive practices in so many Singaporeans who function in many ways, on a theocratic levels. Moral priests fear the loss of their version of moral standards, encroachment of other beliefs, junior clergy dash to support their superiors’ wishes, rules are tossed up as religious rights as they go along. An unquestioning servitude mindset from years of LKY propaganda facilitates hanging on to dogma and a descent into further mindlessness. Then you end up with people like my former Filipino technicians and muslim assistant. With the state also supporting that religious thoughts are "sensitive" (i.e. dun question!), slowly, softly, you see the talibanisation of Singaporean society. I am fortunate enough that I can and have secured the option to uproot with a new job posting and housing but I pity those who don't even have that option available.
DeleteUnfortunately, for many people, religion is also about optics. It looks good to portray a certain image to the parish community. You know, hardworking family, soccer mom, Dad helps mows the neighbours' lawn, Chip and Jane (or Mohammad or Fridah) on their bicycles, family attends religious services, pro-life, anti-gays --- good old solid citizens with faith foundations to keep them grounded. Everyone fits into a mould. It defies stereotypes that a Catholic can be pro-choice, a Muslim can drink beer, or a Hindu can eat beef because if they do all these things, they must be bad. To me, it's what's inside that matters. You can be religious but not spiritual. You can be spiritual but not religious. I am a little of both. As you said, Shane, the basic principles and tenets of my religion is more important than the optics of me signing a pro-life petition or marching in an anti-gay protest. What is the point of doing those things to show that I am a good Christian/Muslim, or whatever and then going to work to backstab my colleagues or walking my dog and not picking up after him after he does his business on my neighbour's lawn? A good heart and good citizenship is more important than good optics.
DeleteI still can remember reading Dan brown Inferno where one of the characters saying it is funny that Catholics are taking sex advice from clergyman that never had sex before.
ReplyDelete