Evidently, not everyone in Australia was fully supportive of the WYD08 extravaganza. “WYD: Sad, sad, sad” makes a comment on religious education which may take some readers by surprise, while Ozatheist in “Like Ducks in a Setting Barrel” is more critical. But it provides insight into two important issues not covered by the secular press, one on the government’s financial support of the event and the other on the Jesuit effort to provide a more inclusive experience for gays & lesbians within the event.

WYD : Sad, sad, sad

Published by admin at 12:39 pm under churches & cults, personal musings

I didn’t intend to write anymore about the WYD (well, it should really be named WCYD – add the word ‘christian’ in there), but all the media coverage just got up my nose.

I mean, look, as was reported by the Seven network – 25% of Australians classify themselves as ‘christian’ and presumably this would include hundreds of thousands who just put that down on the census because they can’t be bothered putting ‘other’ or ‘none’ down, from some deep sense instilled into us all that we must be christian (or some other faith) to be ‘good citizens’. Oddly though, catholic church sites reckon that 25% of AUSTRALIANS are catholic… ok, so something is odd there. By my maths, I make it around 6% of the population may have been indoctrinated into the catholic religion – but I bet that far less are actually ‘practicing’.

So – why the hell does less than 6% of the population (well, in Aussie anyways – I know there are countries that are more like 90% so inclined, lack of education causes insanity …) have the right to screw with our major city?

And now, Australia has contributed to the spread of this particularly noxious faith around the world by sucking-in possibly thousands more impressionable kids.

I come back to the same word time and again – education. Religious HISTORY must be made a compulsory subject at our High Schools (including the free loading ‘church schools’. The curriculum would be to provide all the facts about all the world’s religions – past and current – in a completely impartial way.

As Dan Dennet says in his book, Breaking The Spell:
“Let’s get more education about religion into our schools, not less. We should teach our children creeds and customs, prohibitions and rituals, texts and music, and when we cover the history of religion, we should include both the positive—the role of the churches in the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, the flourishing of science and the arts in early Islam, and the role of the Black Muslims in bringing hope, honor, and self-respect to the otherwise shattered lives of many inmates in our prisons, for instance—and the negative—the Inquisition, anti-Semitism over the ages, the role of the Catholic Church in spreading AIDS in Africa through its opposition to condoms. No religion should be favored, and none ignored.”

That’s the only answer, so as we farewell the silly guy in the frock and red shoes let’s all remember that education, real education is what is needed to bring about a kind of world that is finally free of religious dogma, hate and bigotry.

OzAtheist has a great post about WYD too

Like shooting ducks in a barrel

In answer to a question on another forum I stated that one of the reasons Catholics are being ‘picked on’ lately is because they are making themselves such easy targets. What with Catholic World Youth Day (C-WYD) and all the apologetics saying how wonderful it’s going to be. Not to mention they are an out-dated, misogynistic, homophobic, power hungry, imaginary sky god worshipping, religious organisation, led by an old authoritarian man in a dress, red shoes and a pointy hat.

A lot of the criticism aimed at C-WYD is the cost to the NSW taxpayers, with the state government spending over $100 million on it. The government has tried to deflect some of the criticism by saying that the event would bring economic benefits to NSW and particularly Sydney. Well it seems that’s not entirely true. It was revealed yesterday that a $3 million contract to provide 800,000 meals for pilgrims has gone to Melbourne. As NSW Greens MP Lee Rhiannon said:

“The Government has boasted this is an event not just about hosting Catholics coming to New South Wales, but bringing economic benefit to New South Wales. We’ve just seen that go over the border.”

Then there is the report from the Vatican daily Osservatore Romano decrying the media picking on the Pope and his extravagant clothing. Esquire magazine had named the Pope as the “accessoriser of the year” mainly for his bright red shoes supposedly made by Prada. As the ABC reports

The [Vatican daily] article explained that the pope’s shoes, like his range of flamboyant hats, are nothing to do with vanity but all to do with tradition.

“The Pope, in summary, does not wear Prada, but Christ,” it said.

Except Christ doesn’t protect the pope’s delicate little footsies so he wears a nice pair of red loathers.

Did I mention the Pope and his catholic entourage are homophobic?

The group Acceptance was hoping to hold an event to discuss the issues around young Catholics who are gay or lesbian.

C-WYD organisers had already refused an initial request to allow the event to be part of official activities, now they have intervened to stop the forum being sponsored by the Jesuit group MAGis.

… MAGiS was contacted by World Youth Day officials and instructed to withdraw its support.

And some of the C-WYD apologetics say this event is going to be so inclusive. Inclusive if you are a catholic youth who isn’t gay or lesbian.

If you would like to support the gay and lesbian community, and protest the anti-condom stance of the catholic church, then you can get involved in the NoToPope Coalition. Also reported here where they say the protesters plan to hand out free condoms to pilgrims en route to the papal Mass at Randwick Racecourse.

(Though what the heck the Raelians are doing in this coalition, I have no idea. But it is probably in protest to their leader being denied a visa to visit this country.)

Catholic Church, I have a tip for you. Stop trying to make out the World Youth Day is such a great thing, we all know it’s just a recruiting drive. If you want people to stop ‘picking on you’ or ‘having a go at you’ then shut up. Most of us really aren’t interested in your bizarre rituals, including bringing dead bodies to youth festivals. This is not a catholic country so don’t try and impose your homophobic, misogynist ideals on the rest of us.

Richard Ackland reports that today an application is going before the High Court to see if there is a case that the Commonwealth governments expenditure on Catholic World Youth Day is in breach of the constitution. We await the outcome.

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