Is the Pope a....?

The Pope is visiting the UK this week. Although I tend to avoid current affairs where possible, it’s not something that I’ve been able to miss. All of the people I love to follow on Twitter are part of a secular movement standing against the state visit and taking the pope to task on his record of sheltering paedophile priests and other matters.  I’ve been drawn in to having an opinion.


From what I can tell, the Pope isn’t head of an actual State, although he gets invited to the same do's as proper monarchs, presidents and prime ministers. It is sort of like the times when the mother of the head teacher at Nina’s former school used to turn up to all of the events and have her say. The children and parents used to revere her, and even though she was out of touch and inexpert, she had influence. It was seen to be wrong to challenge her because she wasn’t a teacher and didn’t have an official position. It was the people who did, who followed some of her advice who we could, and did blame. If heads of state actually follow the advice of the Pope, then the electorate need to take it up with them. After that, what individuals decide to do about their own contraception is a personal matter, as Catholics seem to agree given that apparently only 5% of them oppose it in all instances.

I get the feeling that the secular lot are a minority in spite of the statistics that the majority of residents of the UK are not practising Christians. I suspect it is part of the human condition to like the theatre and tolerate the strange approach to issues you might think shouldn't trouble a virgin because the Pope is a celebrity. People will turn out and cheer, see if they can get a glimpse and talk about his face, his hair, his dress, his jewellery, and his car, then go back to their everyday lives. I can’t blame them, any more than I objected when Billy Bragg took his chance to like up and shake hands with the Queen. I daresay if I were the head of a political party, Or Elizabeth herself, I’d turn up to say hello, and be polite enough not to ask why he knowingly employs convicted child rapists. I’m just old fashioned in that way.

It’s a worry that the more column inches the Pope gets, the more influence he secures as people rush to defend what he stands for; warmth and joy in faith for many. Most jarring is that the issues around abuse of children by priests has been placed at the top of the agenda. I’m not minimising the impact of this on the victims, but it seems somehow to come from prurient imagination, where less succulent issues such as the impact of over-population and the spread of disease get much lower billing, the value and role of women in societies lower still.

I’m not Roman Catholic. I have no faith in any God, just an imagination which rather enjoys old stories and moral tales. I quite like it that the Catholics allowed their religion to develop, believing in all sorts of stuff that doesn’t appear in the bible as later discovered truths. I don’t get that they can’t use this to backtrack on some of their beliefs that don’t hold water in this millennium (where there isn’t enough water to go around). I shan’t Protest the Pope though. I’ll just go on looking for leaders who share my views: criminals brought to justice, equality for all people regardless of gender or sexuality or race, freely available contraception and abortion, education and government free from the undue influence of organised religion.

With all of that moderation expressed, I really like this, by Tim Minchin (offence inevitable)

Thursday 3.9.09

I've been enjoying Youtube clips of Tim Minchin lately. He writes and performs good tragi-comic songs and has a sexy stage presence down pat. It has been fun reading the comments from thousands of besotted teens and twenty somethings. It's amazing what way too much eyeliner and hair gel can do to make a man alluring. Gordon Brown might wish to take note. I don't totally get the image thing, but his work, which attempts to strip away sentiment but is paradoxically sentimental has me hooked. I'm perhaps showing my age by being a bit less keen on the atheist stuff. There seem to be a lot of young comedians God bashing and raving about science. I think it has become as fashionable to the new breed of white liberal intellectuals as homeopathy was to mine, taken up with equal zeal, and with equal ignorance. Do you follow the values of Jesus Christ? No, I follow the values of Dawkins, I like his books better.

It isn't that I'm bothered by this change in fashion. I had abandoned Christian belief before my age reached double figures, spent my teenage years in morning Assemblies refusing to bow my head, justifying this to friends and teachers. I grew out of talking about it though, and feel no desire to bang on about it or debate with anybody. One of Nina's friends turned up a couple of months ago with an Atheist badge. I wore CND badges in the 80's but I don't get that at all. Why would you need to tell people what you don't believe in? There is a whiff of faux superiority to the new atheist movement. As though having a spiritual belief of any kind should be considered childish. In amongst comments on Tim Minchin's work was a debate between two fans, one of whom was strongly denying the existence of the 'soul'. It was a music video, but they weren't talking about David Soul, it was all very earnest and conceptual. Considering the main aim is comedy, I felt the urge to tell them to lighten up. I also felt ever so slightly defensive because in spite of my own rationalities where organised religion is concerned, I do believe in the soul. Without soul, what is sentience, or love, or friendship, or humanity but a few ounces of grey matter and electrical impulses? If that's all it is, then that's too scary for me to get a handle on. I need a bit of mystery.

Closer to home, I had cause to wonder what makes one person like or dislike another. H had a new friend over today. From a brief conversation, I found myself liking her, which is odd, because I'm generally quite reserved and don't really like visitors (that's not the depression talking, that's just me). While I scrubbed up the kitchen I thought about it and concluded that I had taken a liking to her because she had laughed at my jokes. That was enough for me. I think I may indeed be that shallow. Later on in the evening, I told H about this. "Ah", said my kid. "I'll phone all my mates and let them know, then they can all come round tomorrow." Gulp. I shall be sure to make no more jokes to teenage strangers. Just in case. It would be for H's own good. There's nothing worse as a teenager than having your Mum try to ingratiate herself with your mates, now is there?