Thank you, Cardinal & Donohue, for reducing my faith in humanity.

This is just sickening, in the light of the Irish child abuse scandals, that anyone, least of all a ranking person of faith, can preach this.

The evil we ask to be delivered from is not essentially the evil of sin,
though that is clear, but in the mind of Jesus it is more importantly a loss of
faith. For Jesus, the inability to believe in God and to live by faith is the
greatest of evils.

You see the things that result from this are an affront to human dignity,
destruction of trust between peoples, the rule of egoism and the loss of peace.
One can never have true justice, true peace, if God becomes meaningless to
people.

Oh, thanks Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor for that insight. That wonderful, lucid, PIERCING insight into the human condition.

Archbishop Nichols then took his intellectual blunderbuss and fired wildly:

Some today propose that faith and reason are crudely opposed, with the fervour
of faith replacing good reason. This reduction of both faith and reason inhibits
not only our search for truth but also the possibility of real dialogue.

Yes, ‘real dialogue’, that’s going to solve lots of issues. I think, by ‘real dialogue’, you are however referring to accomodationism.

I take issue, though, with the phrase the Times used in the piece (though whether they’re just reporting what the good Archbishop said or not, I don’t know), was him ‘[defending] faith against the secular agenda’.

I want to repeat the cries of secularists around the place – the secular ‘agenda’ is multi-cultural, and multi-faith. It allows people of differing faiths to co-exist (it’s how the ‘Freedom of Religion’ clause exists in the American constitution, and can sometimes have ironic consequences), but places no explicit bias on any one viewpoint. It is NOT a ‘militant atheist’ agenda, but then why should people expect these terms to be understood by apologetics of rampant child abuse?

What is coming to light in the Irish Catholic scandal is abhorrent, and I hope serves to allow change in the way we treat people who are responsible for caring for dependent, helpless children.

I can’t actually bring myself to comment on Bill Donohue’s horrific and inhumane ‘justifications’, so I’ll let PZ Myer’s do it for me. He’s so much more experienced at using his bile for good.

Your beliefs don’t come into it. THAT is the secular agenda, and actions > airy-fairy-intellectual-posturing.
If you rape, massacre or similarly abuse people because of THEIR beliefs, you are acting contrary to basic human decency.
If you rape, massacre or similarly abuse people because of YOUR beliefs, you are acting contrary to basic human decency.

Both these actions counter rational thought, humanistic altruism and decent secular society.
Secularism does NOT automatically imply Atheism, and the sooner these rhetoric spouting mooncalves realise that, the sooner we can introduce them into an inclusive, caring world.

To project their image of evil onto people who criticise their followers deplorable actions is nothing short of wicked and despicable.

Thanks to Richard Dawkins for the link.

23rd May POST SCRIPT: Just seen two very good follow-ups to this:

Jesus & Mo, and at Butterflies and Wheels. I’d also like to add the word ‘repugnant’ to my condemnation of the apologists.

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