Organisers of the ‘Protest the Pope’ event yesterday in London estimated that 20,000 people came out on to the streets of London to protest. 20,000!? You must be joking!? I was in attendance myself in central London yesterday to give the Pontiff a warm welcome and 20,000 to me seems to be a gross over estimation of the actual number. A few thousand perhaps, but no more than that. It is telling that the police did not confirm the protestors’ estimate. The overestimate seems to me to summarise the underwhelming effect of the pope protest.
As I read some of their placards like ‘---- the Pope…but wear a condom’ and listened to the ‘firmly militant atheist’, Richard Dawkins (his own description) telling the crowd that Hitler was actually a Catholic, I was struck by the venom and furiousness with which they were attacking Catholicism. Why did they feel so strongly to protest? If it is for gay rights or the rights of women to choose abortion then it seems to me a rather redundant protest. Were these rights not won in the 1960’s? The Pope is not stopping people carrying out these rights; the Catholic Church simply believes that allowing gay people to marry and women to have abortions is wrong. They may not like these views, indeed they clearly find them abhorrent, but is that something worth protesting against so viciously - attempting to ruin the visit of a leader of a religion that represents one sixth of the planets population?
And why in particular the Pope? Another religion, which is the fastest-growing in the world, and responsible for the brutal treatment of women and gay people throughout the world, seems not to bother these people in the same way. Fundamental Islam seems the abundantly obvious threat to what I assume these protestors hold dear: a tolerant, free and democratic society. Yet, can you imagine Peter Tatchell and co organising a protest in a similar vein against Islam? No of course not. But then we should expect double standards and hypocrisy from this lot. So often they invoke the importance of tolerance. But I fear, the real reason why they protest is not because they feel they are still in the throes of a struggle for the rights of gay people and women (as I said, surely this struggle has already been won in modern western society), but rather they want to stamp out dissenting voices that dare suggest a view of the world that is different from theirs.
As the Pope reminded us, Christianity is under attack from ‘aggressive secularism’. There is nothing tolerant about preventing employees from wearing a crucifix, nor requesting council workers that they should not discuss biblical teachings. It is the height of irony that the same people who protested against the Pope’s visit cry tolerance when all they seem to practice is fierce intolerance.
To many in the modern day world, the Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality, marriage, sex and women does seem hopelessly old fashioned and out dated. But wrongly or rightly, the Church does not care about fashion, and nor does it care about the date. It deals in absolutes not relativism. In a way, even though you may not agree with all the Pope has to say (and some of it is very difficult to agree with), in a world that is dominated by moral relativism and popularity, the Pope’s message is refreshing and at the very least thought-provoking. Religion still has a part to play in modern society, and the Pope’s visit managed to remind us of that, while thankfully drowning out the spiteful and hypocritical protestors.
No comments:
Post a Comment