Bunny writing for the Dominon Post

Wednesday's Dominion Post Editorial demanded a response. As it is Friday, and my homeschooling schedule is more relaxed today, I finally have time to do one.

First, I have to wonder at the calibre of the editors the Dominion Post employs. Sometimes they are very perceptive, but occasionally some backroom bunny is given hold of the editorial space, with little or no oversight it seems.

The editorial is full of the opinions of a typical ignorant blog commenter (of the type we get here) that hates all things religious and cannot be reasoned with. A simple google search would have helped this person realise that there was far more to the typical church bashing talking points that meet the eye. But no, the purpose of the editor was not to opine on the truth, it was to prove the Church is stuck in the Middle Ages. A charge that was not proved in the slightest and has instead shown the writer in question is a moron.

If proof were needed that the Catholic Church is stuck in the Middle Ages, it has been provided.

First Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of an ultra-conservative British bishop who claims the Nazis did not use gas chambers. The Pope later said he was unaware that Bishop Richard Williamson was a holocaust denier.

And? The Church is not allowed to lift excommunications of people that deny the Holocaust? Though ultimately it doesn't matter because once the Pope understood Williamson's position, he asked him to publicly repudiate his position.

"Bishop Williamson, in order to claim admission to episcopal functions in the church, must distance himself in absolutely unequivocal and public fashion from his positions regarding the Shoah, which were not known by the Holy Father when the excommunication was lifted," the Vatican said, using the Hebrew word for the Holocaust.

A prominent North American rabbi believes the media attacks on the Pope over the lifting of the excommunication is more about the rabid liberal fear of a mass influx of very conservative Catholics back into the Church, than about Williamson's views. Williamson was just a stick to beat the Pope with.

"At this point there has been a wonderfully strong renunciation of Bishop Williamson by the Vatican and therefore the Jewish community from their statements seems to be satisfied that things are going in the right way," he said. "This is just going to increase the frenzy of left wing Catholics, whether outside the Church or inside, because they now have to carry the ball in terms of keeping the attack on the Pope going."

Then a Brazilian bishop excommunicated the mother of a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion after being raped by her stepfather and was bearing twins. For good measure, he also excommunicated the doctors who performed the abortion.

Wrong. By their own actions, the mother and the doctors involved in the abortion were automatically excommunicated. The Brazilian bishop was merely publicly informing them of the consequences of their actions. While the girl's pregnancy was tragic, it was not an automatic death sentence, while as the abortion for the twins was murder, pure and simple.

Then the Pope said condoms were not the answer to Africa's fight against HIV and Aids and might make the problem worse.

Backed up by a major researcher on AIDS, and numerous studies. I'll get to that.

Individually, the church's pronouncements show a lack of judgment and decency.

Right back at you!

The writer shows a lack of judgement and decency by attacking Catholicism with an armful of typical untruths and inaccuracies, thus using the power of the editorial space in order to pursue a personal hatred against the Church.

Collectively they demonstrate the antediluvian mindset of an organisation that still harbours the hope that Galileo will be proved wrong and the Earth will be shown to be the centre of the universe.

Opinion, not backed up by the evidence. Galileo was not prevented from teaching his theory, as at the time it could not be proved. However, he wanted to teach theory as fact, that's what got him into trouble. A distinction that we in the 21st century may not realise is important, given that so many teach theories as fact (ie man-made global warming).

The Pope might not have been aware of Bishop Williamson's views, but surely someone at the Vatican could have advised him that, in addition to denying the existence of Nazi gas chambers, the bishop also claimed the 9/11 attacks on the United States were carried out by the US military and that Jews were fighting for world domination.

"It is easier to condemn than to seek to understand," wrote Father James Lyon, parish priest at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Wellington after Dominion Post columnist Rosemary McLeod condemned the excommunication of the Brazilian rape victim's mother and doctors. Isn't that exactly what Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho did when he decreed that a nine-year-old girl should bear her rapist's children? There is no evidence he made any attempt to understand the physical or psychological damage that giving birth would do to an already damaged child.

Ah yes, far better to leave her with memory that her two innocent unborn babies were murdered. Lovely.

If people were rational, the Pope's advocacy of abstinence as a prophylactic for Aids would make sense. But people are not rational.

I suppose the bunny should know ...

In sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 22 million people are infected with the Aids virus. The church's teachings failed to protect them when they contracted the virus and, if the Pope's words are heeded, millions more will unnecessarily be put in danger.

Condoms inhibit the spread of Aids. Normalising their use is in everyone's interests. It is irresponsible of the Pope to argue otherwise.

It's amusing really, after lambasting the Vatican for not looking up Williamson's views before undoing the excommunication, the writer, supposedly a journalist, fails the most simple of information gathering techniques themselves. Here are a few of the articles that could have been referenced:

Commentary: The Pope's Comments on Condoms are Empirically Sound

Condoms, HIV, and Pope Benedict
Leading HIV researcher Edward C. Green says criticism of the pope 'unfair.'

Dr Green says : "There's no evidence at all that condoms have worked as a public health intervention intended to reduce HIV infections at the "level of population." This is a bit difficult to understand. It may well make sense for an individual to use condoms every time, or as often as possible, and he may well decrease his chances of catching HIV. But we are talking about programs, large efforts that either work or fail at the level of countries, or, as we say in public health, the level of population. Major articles published in Science, The Lancet, British Medical Journal, and even Studies in Family Planning have reported this finding since 2004. I first wrote about putting emphasis on fidelity instead of condoms in Africa in 1988."

And in a more recent article, which I suppose the bunny cannot be blamed for not reading, is one dated yesterday in the Ugandan Weekly Observer: The Pope is right, condoms are aiding AIDS.

After years of racking their brains about the high prevalence rate of AIDS in Africa, the most affected region in the world, which accounted for 72% of deaths from the disease in 2007, researchers are concluding that the reason is the widespread practice of “multiple concurrent partnerships.” Something that we have already learned in Uganda, where most new cases crop up among married people who have a mistress or boy-friend on the side.

In a highly-acclaimed 2007 book, The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight against AIDS, the medical journalist Helen Epstein admits that she had always attributed the epidemic to prostitution, poverty, discrimination against women and low condom use. But after observing that HIV rates were increasing despite high condom use, she realised that “multiple long-term partnerships”, which she referred to as the “superhighway of infections”, was the problem. Her conclusion: “a collective shift in sexual norms, especially partner reduction, is crucial.”

Dr. Green also pointed out that condoms “may even exacerbate HIV infection levels due to a phenomenon called risk compensation, or behavioural disinhibition. People take more sexual risks because they feel safer than is actually justified when using condoms.”

The experts are coming round to the conviction that the real, lasting solution is “partner reduction”, fidelity in marriage, something the Pope has been saying all along.

But the bunnies cannot get their heads around the concept of fidelity and monogamy, around saving yourself until marriage. Anathema, they cry! What do we want? SEX! When do we want it... NOW!

But the church's opposition to most forms of birth control does even more harm than that. The planet is overpopulated. There is not enough food to feed those who already live on it and, in our attempts to feed and clothe ourselves, not to mention fill our homes with flat-screen televisions and other luxuries, we are devouring scarce resources. Human activity is also contributing to global warming.

Oh, here we go. The Green credentials come out. Man-made global warming is considered a fact, not a theory. And what are the chances that the writer is of the type that believes the population ought to be halved? Or believes that more than two children per couple is irresponsible?

The planet needs fewer, not more, people. Given that so many Catholic priests have been unable to adhere to their own vows of celibacy, it is nonsensical for the church to argue that abstinence will protect the rest of the population.

Also, Catholic Priests take a lifelong vow of celibacy. True, a fair number have not lived up to these vows, but, most people are not being asked to be life-long celibates. They are just asked to keep it in their pants until marriage and then to be faithful to their spouse.

The church's leaders should enter the 21st century.

LOL!

Related Link: Editorial: The flat earth church ~ Dominion Post