Papal visit

I was annoyed about the papal visit when it came out how much of the bill was going to be met by our already over-burdened tax payers. I didn't see why I should pay to be told how to behave, how my country's legal code should be framed, and so on, by someone whose views are centuries out of date. Nor did I see why a visitor who has managed the cover-up of criminal acts by his employees should not face British justice. I planned to join the protest, but in the end I had to pull out.

Why? Because I have some values that took precedence over waving a banner at an ignorant old bigot who would probably never see it. In this case, the values were those of compassion and gratitude. My old dog is nearing the end of his days. When I had to decide whether to travel or not it looked worse than it does now. But I did not think it was fair to him, or to his relief minder, to leave him at such a time. He trusts me, and seeks my company, especially when his arthritis hurts, so how could I leave him?

Joe Ratzinger is the head of an institution that teaches that suffering human beings should be kept alive in their distress till the bitter end, no matter what. I won't treat my dog that way. I'll give him all the care I can, and when his time comes, I'll take him to the vet and comfort him to the end. So who is Ratzinger to lecture me or anyone else on the great Enlightenment values that his organisation fought tooth and nail against for the last several hundred years?

It's a bit rich to hear Britain's history with the Holy See lauded by our governors. How short is our historical memory? Who excommunicated an English Queen? Who tried to enforce Catholicism on the English when the people had rejected it? Have we forgotten the succession crisis and the Glorious Revolution of 1688? And who, recently, told us that those who decide our laws had got it wrong because we insist on treating people equally, no matter what their sexuality? Who tried to blackmail the last Parliament by threatening to withdraw services from couples seeking to adopt if we insisted on our equality laws? Which group of terrorists had explosives planted under Parliament, history's first would-be suicide bomber being a certain G Fawkes? And they are still at it! Not literally bombing the government but still trying to over-ride and gain exemptions from our laws, made by the people we elected. And the man he is here to beatify, J H Newman, was an implacable opponent of our national church. Welcome him? No way!

And all that was before he came! This morning David Cameron is reported as being grateful to Joe Ratzinger, former member of the Hitler Youth, for challenging us to think. The truth is that he wants to stop us thinking. The Roman Catholic church has never been in favour of free rational thought. It began the Inquisition to prevent it, and is still fighting a rearguard action. Rome wants us to stop thinking about our liberal human values and so giving equal rights to gays and women. He rightly calls child abuse a terrible crime, but he certainly doesn't want us to think about the terrible crime his organisation committed in sheltering abusers. He thinks he is the sole arbiter of right and wrong, so he doesn't want us to make up our own minds on ethical matters. And he is mightily offended if we question the existence of God, or the status of a certain ancient Jewish preacher. Nor should we think for ourselves about contraception. Instead he prolongs poverty and spreads AIDS by opposing the use of condoms. His organisation has forbidden its members even to discuss the ordination of women, which he compares as a sin with child abuse. So he cannot be, and historically the Roman Catholic church never was, in favour of the free expression of opinion that we value so highly.

Challenging us to think? All Joe Ratzinger wants us to do is to renege on our reasonable and rational assessment of the role of religion and superstition in society.