That is not what this public debate is about

Stop the presses – a Catholic archbishop is a Catholic archbishop. He disagrees with Tony Blair about homosexuality. Stone the crows.

Mr Blair is a very fine politician and he has got very well-tuned political senses. But I am afraid the way the Catholic Church thinks is rather different to that and I think I will take my guide from Pope Benedict actually.

Well yes, we know. The way the Catholic church thinks is rather different: it ignores new ideas and knowledge about what is best for human beings, what does and does not harm people, what is and is not fair in human terms, and the like, and instead it consults its prejudices, attributes them to an unavailable supernatural being called ‘God,’ and declares them authoritative and beyond question. Yes that is different; it’s also ass backwards and wrong. Taking one’s ‘guide’ from pope Benedict is a terrible idea, because pope Ben’s thinking has all the flaws that go with the prejudice-attribution-unavailable deity-beyond question complex.

He also defended the Pope’s recent remarks about condoms made last month en route to his first Papal visit to Africa…Archbishop Nichols said: “What he actually talked about was the need to humanise sexuality and I think to some extent he was speaking up in protection of African women.” Asked if he would advise a “married, faithful, Catholic couple” not to use condoms where one had HIV/Aids, the Archbishop said: “That is a very sensitive point and there are different views on that.” Pressed to give his view, he said: “That is not what this public debate is about…that is the point I would rather pursue, that we really do have to raise people’s expectations of themselves.”

In other words, first he defended the pope’s ‘remarks’ about condoms that amount to telling people to commit slow agonizing suicide, then refused to answer a perfectly serious sensible question about the real-life outcome of such ‘remarks.’ In other words, he acted with the grotesque, shocking, abhorrent irresponsibility with which the Catholic church as an institution does act on this subject. It’s contemptible. It’s disgusting. It’s immoral. He should be ashamed of himself, and he should act to repair the damage immediately. Of course he won’t, but he should. They have no shame, these monsters.

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