Paul,

The Pope and hence the Church interfere in the democratic rights of some of our citizens via the clauses in Canon Law, that prohibit priests, deacons and members of religious orders from seeking election to public office.
This is clearly an intrusion into the domestic politics of this country; not many years ago a priest who had been elected to his local council was forced to resign by the Church.

Do you support this interference by the Catholic Church?
Do you support the democratic rights of priests etc., to seek public office if they wish?

I first met Fred Nile in 1980 and my first prominent Green, Ian Cohen, in 1979, both good blokes and both dedicated to helping people.
I knew Laurie Carmichael also and you describe him well.

Is Mise, you have made things somewhat clearer with you two questions.

Do you support this interference by the Catholic Church? No.

Do you support the democratic rights of priests etc., to seek public office if they wish? Yes. I may not agree with their point of view on many things, but I believe it is the democratic right of every citizen to seek public office, criminals excluded. One gray area I suppose is public servants. Should they also be able to run or not? As for priests I have absolutely no problem with them sitting on the local council or in parliament. Today we have an "almost" priest as PM.

Is Mise thanks but I built the boat so welcome aboard.
I wish we on both sides of the God issue could sit down and review the whole issue.
Impossible but truly needed.
Why must those of us who do not believe be ruled by the other side.
What purely freakish thoughts has for generations seen criminal pedophile,s flock to and be protected by the Catholic Church.
Yes other Churches too, and other faiths, but how can such institutions claim *any belief in a God*
Do they believe or is it just a job?
What benefits come from faith in a God as opposed to what science teaches us?

"What benefits come from faith in a God as opposed to what science teaches us?"

Hope?

Belly, all of us of goodwill long for a peaceful world, full of love and happiness for all. Unfortunately, and I'm sure you will be the first to agree, sadly we have fallen far short of that ideal. The human race has progressed a long, long way, as far as technology is concerned, we can put a man on the Moon and perform miracles of science, but we can't get on with each other. Be it an argument with our neighbor over the back fence or a world war, we simply find it impossible to respect and love the other fella and that is sad. Religion, rather than being a calming force for good, too often it has been exactly the opposite a force for hate and we see that very much today, all over the world. It is by far the biggest failure of the human race, only if we could apply some technology to fix the problem, but we can't.

Paul,

If only all Christians would follow the teachings of Christ!