Dear Davidf

We have proof that of all the religions, Christianity is indeed the one truth, because for over 2000 years Christians have lived in complete peace with all humankind. Of course if there has been the 'rare' outburst of torture, war, abuse of children, subjugation of women, attacks on homosexuals, enforced adoption of babies from single mothers, banning of contraceptives, tax avoidance, imposed religious teaching in public schools and general discrimination against shellfish (Leviticus!) - that is not the fault of Christians - if only everyone else would become Christian we would live in happy, fuzzy land with butterflies and rainbows every day.

Constance, you are free to believe what you like and I am free to reject your proselytising - we just wish you would keep your beliefs to yourself and not try to justify mythology to anyone who has the temerity to say "I prefer to assess the world through reason".

Cheers

Constance

"There are always two sides to the story. Not that I am against justice and equality at all."

Trouble is can you tell me in the context of this article what you define as Catholicophobia. It was a term that came out of criticism of the Catholic Church's failure to stem incidents of child abuse and other practices many deem as unjust (as you said there are two sides).

It is worrying when the Catholic Church decides to adopt a martyr stance or to attack atheists rather than get down to the business of putting their own house in order.

How are people being 'ophobic' about Catholics?

Questioning and accountability should not be likened with phobias otherwise we do go back to the days of inquisitions of fear and unjust punishments merely for expressing an alternative view that may not marry with the power structures of the day.

Houellebecq,

Thanks for spreading the Chattering Classes message with Pelican, that’s what I had intended. That’s what allies are for. And it can also be a bit lonely here in the wilderness of LATTE SIPPERS – got to find someone who agrees with me for some solace. So killed two birds with the one stone, didn't I? Do your duty and go forth and spread the message and warn the people about the odious CHARDY imbibers.

Don’t ask me about all the school funding business. But I do understand your concern for more funding for a better public school system.

There has been some praise coming out lately of the Catholic school system coming from a couple of academics (can’t recall names) that the Catholic school system operates better than the public school system in terms of its efficiency and cost effectiveness, plus as an aside, its better clarity of vision. The Catholic school system does have a lot of experience after-all and has been educating all over the world for many years, including Muslim countries, for both the elites and the average person. I know some people here as such who say they sincerely benefited from having a CC education in their own homeland.

Just getting my buck’s worth here.

Dear Pelican,

Seems that Constance is constantly on her guard lest she is accosted by a sensible argument on the subject of Catholic transparency and accountability. You made some very good points - as usual your argument is balanced and reasonable.
For some reason, Constance finds it necessary to detour from the subject and label people in order to bulk out her opinion - I myself have be labelled in another post as a "Hamas Nazi".....so all in all I think you got off quite lightly being called a latte-Chardy sipping member of the chattering classes.

Houellie must be thrilled that he's got a fan.

Pelican,

You’re missing the point that Paul Collins is speaking of - the new and aggressive Atheism. You have a pompous git like Geoffrey Robertson who for goodness sake, wants the Pope arrested. You cannot ignore the history of English Anti-Catholicism that comes well into the picture here – it is well entrenched. Look at what they did to Ireland. Here you go again. Before you were saying the Pope needs to espouse love and peace (you don’t seem to try and understand what the CC is about), and now you are saying they need to get their house in order re paedophiles. How do know what they're doing? The CC is always trying to keep its house in order, otherwise it would not have survived so long. Apparently they are a lot stricter now with recruiting priests and make them undertake extensive psychology tests in response to the paedophilia debacle. I’m by no means condoning their inaction of the past. In fact, I am appalled and gobsmacked with it all.

This has now become a handy tool that the aggressive Atheists will pursue in using for their own cause. I have nothing against Atheists (not at all) – it is only the extremists (well, of any kind) that I worry about.

“martyr stance”? That’s a bit rich. Do you think the extreme atheists are delicate little petals and therefore can’t handle some criticism themselves?

I knew what I was thinking when I passed the message to my ally, Houli. You overlooked my ploy. Can I say it? Please?! Okay, I’ll say it anyway:

Chardonnay and Latte sippers AND Beaujolais Bolsheviks
of the political sporting Chatteriiiiiiing Classes are
– the Trashers, as Michael Thompson rightly points out
and has written a book about it. And...... LIBERAL FASCISTS.

Michael Thompson is saying that the Labor elites are anti-tradition, anti-Church, anti-ANZAC and anti-working class and they in fact don’t believe in anything. They are so smugly self-righteous and pretentious and gawd so painfully HYPOCRITICAL. They are very tribal.

This is the political landscape I'm struggling to endure.

Poirot,

I am not condoning the Catholic Priest Paedophlolia issue at all. It's a disgrace. What do you want me to say? All I hope is that the house does get cleaned up and there is evidence that they are attempting to do so.

You seem to have trouble with people joining forces. I may even get disparaged by my new ally, who knows. Buts that okay, I'm a big girl - I can take it and only live with hope.

I recommend you also to read Michael Thompson's article. As I said before he also alludes to stuff happening within the public school system. I know, we are well used to the CC being soft targets. But we are afterall a pretty resilient lot.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/my-party-was-trashed-by-the-middle-class/story-fn59niix-1225910722814