Pell has every right to talk about the moral codes of his church. We have every right to ridicule people who take their moral direction from their imaginary friend.

Mr. Perrottet, I find the approach of another legal mind (Jocelynne Scutt in this issue of OLO) far more convincing than your special pleading.

You ask a number of questions. I would like to respond to two of them.

"When one considers all the influences over our own consciences through life, are the teachings of the longest-running institution, which has had some of history’s greatest minds at its helm such a bad influence?"

Yes most of them are very bad. For example - When a thousand people in Southern Africa die each day from AIDS the Roman Catholic Church teaches that the use of condoms is sinful. That's a very bad influence.

"If you are not religious, do you consider that your moral compass is better aligned than those of Catholics?"

Of course I do! Having lived in Ireland for 5 years and in a number of Middle Eastern Countries for 3 years, I'm certain of it. A person's "moral compass" is much more likely to be skewed by faith and dogma than by reason

Alex Perrottet is being a bit cute here. Cardinal Pell "is simply talking about his Church and some of its members." He couldn't possibly have any intention "of venturing into politics".

"The Cardinal is protecting his doctrine," pleads Alex, "not projecting it onto society." Is that why he consciously chose to make his strong views known through a media release and on national television instead of at the pulpit?

The Cardinal’s media release said, inter alia, “A matter of such dramatic ethical and social import should not be rushed through Parliament in a week,” Cardinal Pell said. “The general public and our parliamentary representatives have been given little or no information or warning about this legislation. We should not blindly follow the lead of other parliaments in passing such unethical legislation."

Well knock my socks off Alex – that sounds like venturing into politics to me.

Dear Stan1 – I know this argument ain’t about aids in Africa, but I couldn’t resist.

While I don’t care at all whether Pell runs for PM or not, the old argument that Catholic Church teaching on contraception is at fault for deaths in Africa is in the running for the greatest ignorance of the modern world.

The Catholic Church believes its doctrine is correct, and those who follow it don’t get AIDS – pretty good influence I would think.

Uganda is 41.9% Catholic. It has the most effective AIDS program. It is known as ABC—Abstinence, Be Faithful, or Use Condoms—(for high risk populations like prostitutes). The Church teaches A-B-S-T-I-N-E-N-C-E. It’s possible! Then it teaches F-A-I-T-H-F-U-L-N-E-S-S. It’s possible too!

As a result of that program, Uganda has the lowest rate of infection of any African country.

You can’t disregard the Church teaching, get AIDS and then go crying back to complain – what a silly attitude.

Another ignorance shines through your blog – that faith and reason are mutually exclusive. While there are some parts of the Catholic faith that can only be accepted with a blind faith (like the doctrine of the Trinity, for example), most of it is completely understood by human reason and a good deal of people around the world understand it and adhere to it. Nothing wrong with accepting something with blind faith either – you probably do it yourself every day…

The politician of faith should pursue an outcome on the interests of the WIDER community.

Religion is legitimized Superstition.

Remember how much the Catholics persecuted Galileo about "flat earth". Science has always been at the vanguard of reason and enlightenment.

Its not different to the media campaign recently about Muslim cabbies refusing blind peoples guide dogs.

Inner-Sydney etc etc should get his/her facts right.

Read something of the history and philosophical foundations of the Galileo affair to get a more accurate idea.

Science has always been the vanguard of reason and enlightenment has it? Do you mean "science" as knowledge or the empirical sciences which have given us many good things and many deadly things. A worry is that "scientific" fundamentalism, as we are seeing it, does not like to be challenged.