Warsi lauds the Catholic Church as an exemplar of European culture - claiming its influence shines through our way of life and "for centuries, Christianity in Europe has been inspiring, motivating, strengthening and improving our societies."
Presumably these centuries of shining include the Catholic Church's inspiration and motivation behind
- the Crusaders' sacking Jerusalem and butchering of almost its entire population in 1099;
- the FIVE MILLION women burnt at the stake as witches by the Church, a Holocaust in itself;
- the hundreds of thousands of people exiled, tortured and killed for heresy by the Inquisition (an institution which has never been abolished by the Church);
- the Pope's ambivalence towards the Nazis in deporting Italy's Jews during the war and refusal to condemn antisemitic laws prior to the war;
- the Vatican's decades of involvement with countless bloodthirsty and corrupt Latin American military regimes through to the 1990s, as well as its cosying up to Spanish dictator Franco as he murdered thousands of socialists and communists, a tendency that continues today with Vatican approval of Belarussian dictator Lukashenko.
- the rank corruption of the Vatican Bank, including its laundering of millions of dollars of Nazi and Croat Ustashe money at the end of the war and its links to the murdered "God's banker", Roberto Calvi in 1982.
- its continuing cover up of the abuse of children in its care;
- its continuing persecution of gay and lesbian people;
Benedict himself created a storm a few years back when he deliberately misquoted a medieval Byzantine Emperor to declare the Islamic faith the Baroness professes as evil and inhuman. Presumably she won't forget to thank him for that little contribution to interfaith harmony and understanding too?
There are plenty of decent, peaceful Catholics and other Christians, but I don't want the Government of my country praising any institution with a pedigree like that headed by the Pope, especially when its leaders continue to be in total denial of much of their history and eschew their responsibilities towards their victims. Nor do I want Christianity - or any other religion - sponsored by the public buildings, officials or services that I pay taxes towards and which are meant to serve citizens of all faiths and none.
The latest census apparently shows a huge decline in the proportion of British people calling themselves Christian - and most of those who do are in fact not practising Christians as they don't attend church, read the bible or pray regularly. But, sounding like a would-be British Tea Party-goer, Warsi spits out her usual ragbag of ignorance with her customary shrill pomposity and uninformed would-be populist rhetoric.
Let's get this right - she wants to impose a religion on British citizens which she does not actually believe in or follow herself? How hypocritical, or just plain stupid, is that?
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| The Baroness and some episodes from the centuries of inspiration offered by the Catholic Church |
