Firstly, I'm not a Catholic.

Secondly, how can Jocelyn so wildly miss the point here?

The politicians are simply being told that they cannot both be a part of an organisation and at the same time work against that organisation.

If the politicians want to vote in favour of allowing cloning and the destruction of embryos that is up to them, but they cannot then expect to be part of a group that believes such actions are seriously wrong.

If a person in a soccer club decides they want to be allowed to pick up the ball and run with it in their arms, they obviously have to leave the soccer club and start playing rugby instead.

If politicians work against the catholic church they obviously have to realise they have to leave the catholic chuirch.

Why shouldn't leaders of the catholic church say that?

I agree with GP - Pell can say what he likes - what has disturbed me is that his adherents believe that there is a strong case for him to be obeyed - that is a short step from every one should obet him - and then a short step to law by encyclical - pontifical that is - may be fewer hands lopped off under that regime than we might have under Sharia law but the idea sucks almost as much - then again the inqusitors were a fairly nasty pack of tooth pullers - lets stick to what we 've got

Gp

I believe you summed up the situation well. Every Politician values or lack of values determines their decsions on all moral issues. Where Cardinal Pell goes wrong in that he assumes that most catholics in politics are practicing catholics. Many catholics I know are more interested in football and beer than they are God or their church. He also works from the unbiblical assumption that somehow having a bit of water sprayed on your head as a baby make you a Christian.

The author of the article ignores the fact that many polticians vote along party lines rather than according to what is right. Should the party be prosecuted for this as some would like to happen to the Catholic church?

Jocelynne

Please inform us - if parliamentarians who were members of Emily's List (this group requires members to be pro-abortion) were to declare publicly that they were now pro-life and that they were going to vote that way, would you consider it reasonable for the president of Emily's List to tell those politicians that they either not vote pro-life or that they leave that group?

What is the difference?

Bet you won't reply.

Pell is simply acting as the Vatican enforcer. He was chosen by the last Pope on the basis of his fundamentalist stance and willingness to threaten and cajole Catholics in Australia -most recently on NSW cloning legislation and the edict for a pledge of allegance to be applied to Catholic school principals. The Vatican is stacked with bishops of a similar stance in much the same way as Bush has attempted to stack the US Suprmeme Court with conservative judges. The end game of this process will most likely be a split in Western countries within the Catholic church between the socially progressive and inclusive and the hardcore of fundamentalists who see support in the Catholisism practised in developing countries such as Sth America and Africa. The same process is more advanced within the Anglican and Protestant churches with the issues of womens ordination and gays in the clergy.

GP - you're so close to finding the real problem here. The problem being that those who suspend their critical thinking and wilfully abandon reason by indulging in supernatural beliefs, could actually have power in the first place.

If you have faith in the unprovable, there is no way that faith will not have an affect on the work you do as a politician. The only way to ever solve the problem is to not allow any religious people in parliment at all. Ever ever ever.

Faith is, by definition, irrational. But we consider it to be a virtue, when clearly the opposite is true.

Its time to identify the real problem: religion. It is dogmatic. It is irrational. It pervades and disrupts politics, scientific progress, education, even health. It abuses (and survives by abusing) children, indocrinating them through propanganda at an age where they are unable to distinguish the real from the unreal.

Why do we keep making concessions? Why do keep having to work around it? What is it about believing nonsense that demands any sort of respect?