TR,

"We secularists have had more than a gut full of religious stupidity, hypocrisy and violent tribalism." Oh yeh, speaks another one-eyed secularlist who just does't get it. You don't understand humankind and culture much do you. You just would not be able to comprehend that it was actually religion, eg. Christianity which has greatly inspired the arts, such as the fine arts and music and it would seem was the actual instigater for what we can appreciate today such as that thing called culture! Yeh! and even spirituality for that matter, and in some cases, even "Science" - astronomy and seismology for example. You know some humans need such desires called faith and hope (helps makes them human) in their imaginations, in their lives. This means you are bagging all those black American gospel singers - which I think has inspired some pretty great music that I listen to today. What do you think the impovershed people in the world would hope to live for. But no, they must be idiots too if they have a religious faith.

Oh you smug secularists are so myopic and cold.

I myself am not particularly religious but I at least see the point.

George,

Thanks for your response, but what do think the Pope is going to say. After his run-in in the Uni in Germany where he spoke as an intellectual in a scholarly environment. These days no public figure is able to be sincerely honest at their own peril. He had no choice but to be diplomatic in Jordan. That incident in Germany was so sensationalist - there are media vultures/trouble makers hiding in all the corners. The Pope is no trouble maker. He was just rationally speaking and reiterating relevant history. It was all about being rational afterall!

Constance,
I do not understand how one could read the quotes I provided as showing only that "the pope had no choice but to be diplomatic".

Also, his Regensburg lecture has to be read in toto (not just the unfortunate quote used by islamist extremists to incite the mobs) to appreciate that "it was a considered reflection on the inseparable linkage of faith and reason in the Christian understanding, an incisive critique of Christian thinkers who press for separating faith and reason in the name of “de-Hellenizing” Christianity, and a stirring call for Christians to celebrate the achievements of modernity and secure those achievements by grounding them in a more comprehensive and coherent understanding of human rationality" (First Things 167 -November 2006, pp. 59-76). It was also an indirect appeal to Islam to go the same way, which led to the well known "Common Word" initiative by a cross-section of Muslim scholars.

Just recently, John L. Allen, the well known American expert on Vatican, has had something to say about the pope's intentions that go beyond mere diplomacy (c.f. http://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/remarkable-congruence-between-pope-and-president-islam).

George,

Without wishing to place too much of a damper on the Catholic-Muslim dialogue and the recent ‘congruence’ of the Vatican with Obama’s recent Cairo speech, one must also note John Allen’s more sobering reflection, “Any partnership between pope and president, therefore, may have a limited shelf life”. A primary objective for Benedict and the "alliance of civilizations" is for Muslims and Christians to join forces against Western secularism, much of which Obama, quite ironically, embodies with his liberalism. Rather than an alliance between the Vatican and Obama I’d agree with Allen and say it is merely an “intersection” of interests. We’ll therefore leave the battles on contraception and gay rights etc. for another day….

How ‘outsiders’ (of Aussie flavour), with some intellect, might view the current state of Roman Catholicism is perhaps revealed here: http://ozsoapbox.com/rest-of-australia/the-crucifiction-of-father-peter-kennedy/

Historical reality and congruence with what an hierarchical Church defends as the ‘truth’ certainly needs analysis, preferably on a level that is honest as it is intellectual, viz:

“The church as it exists today is a Constantine church. It was Constantine who brought the bishops of the early Christian centuries together in order to unify his empire, and that was the Nicene Creed, and he imposed that upon the bishops that were there. So the church was domesticated, became part of the empire, and that’s the church that exists today...” and this is congruent with,

“...when you get theologians like Dupuis beginning to question or to say how can we understand the divinity of Christ, how can we understand the trinity, how can we retheologise that for people in the 21st century? – as soon as any foremost theologian begins to do that, immediately they are suspended or they are told that they’re no longer teaching in a Catholic theological seminary... No dissent is allowed.”
(refer: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/encounter/doc/Peter_Kennedy_web_interview.pdf)

[The first tenet of Democracy is -or should be- that Every One is equal before the Law. If Christian -or any religious- schools are funded publicly, then surely every religious school should have the same right]

Unless you reject a religious school for reasons not directly relating to their religious beliefs. In that case, it's perfectly reasonable.

Constance, I have just thing to say;

We secularists have had more than a gut full of religious stupidity, hypocrisy and violent tribalism.

George:
Thanks for the link to John Allen's article "Remarkable congruence between Pope and President on Islam".

This quotes John Esposito referring to “the strong sense among Muslims that they're not respected as equal partners." Hardly surprising, because since Sunni Islam closed the gates of ijtihad about 800 years ago, Islam has contributed virtually nothing to advancement of human civilization. How can one respect a religion whose shopfront is a truculent moron?

I don't think either the secular or the Christian West should support Islam in (re)criminalizing gays. This issue is very different from abortion, where the life of a fetus is involved; it would legislate for "morality" in arguably a victimless crime. It denies that homosexuality is inborn in some people, but if you reject that view, it also denies Christian theology of free will to choose between good and evil (if you see homosexuality in those terms). Islamic theology asserts social control over individual rights and criminalizes a range of behaviours as crimes against society – like adultery. You may deplore these behaviours but oppose theocratic control.

Relda:
Ozsoapbox's blog on Peter Kennedy denies the essence of Catholicism, which is "strict quality control" in matters of theology - hence over 2000 items in the latest Catechism. Some of Kennedy's views fit well with Spong, but not within a church whose policy is to remain monolithic. Kennedy was never going to prevail against that. The New Age elements of his outlook (tolerance of a Buddhist statue, for example) are a last straw to many Protestants too - including me.

The ABC Web Interview with Kennedy is a good read. His Liberation Theology was trenchantly rebutted in 1984 by the now Pope Benedict (see "Let God's Light Shine Forth - the spiritual vision of Pope Benedict XVI", edited by Robert Moynihan - p49-54). Benedict also deplores the attack on religious vestments (see p72-73) as part of a broader attack on the sacred in Christianity: "They [people like Kennedy] see the sacred as THE thing to transcend, and the profane is the sole way to be a true Christian.