Pope attacks separation of church and state

@ Yara - thanks for the compliment. Actually, I think I am not brighter than the next person but I can tell you that the "edit" button is the left button on top of your message. If you place your mouse pointer on the buttons, it shows you the function of each button (edit, reply, reply with quote)

@ Thomas Quinn: I am not touchy and I am the first to call a Nazi a Nazi. Ratzinger was not a Nazi, he was registered into the Hitlerjugend at the age of 14 and you could not un-register. At the time he visited a Catholic school which was not received well by the Nazis. Maybe he should have shot the local Top Nazi and then he would have been a hero but maybe that is asked a little too much from a 14 year old who had enough on his plate being in a religious school. It's very easy to blame people from your comfortable position at a keyboard. I wonder how much you would risk in such a situation. If Ratzinger was a Nazi I am a Protestant because I was baptized when I was 3 weeks old. Too bad I did not bite the priest's hand to make him stop but I had no teeth at the time.

@ princetom:
Pope John Paul II forbade the German Catholics to do the legally required consultations of women who want an abortion. The Catholic consultations were always designed to encourage women to keep the child and not to abort. The head of the German Bishops, Cardinal Lehmann tried to convince the pope that Catholic women are better off when they are advised by the church than by an organisation which does not encourage them to change their minds but in the end he had to obey the pope. I don't think there are big areas with no places to go and I think the Catholics only put pressure on women and it's good they stopped. Actually, I think the mandatory consultations are humiliating and totally unnecessary.

About the exorcism - only a tiny minority in the Bavarian mountains believes in exorcism. The 3000 new jobs are for all of Europe, mainly Eastern Europe and Italy. I don't think there is a big demand for exorcists in Germany :-)However, I think that is really something to criticise - not Ratzinger's Hitlerjugend membership.

about the aborting-discussion: (right ahead: i'm not pro-abortion anyway!) there where a certain number of jobs to be vanished in closing down facilities and therefore the vatican proved it's political influence...

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]YourValentine wrote: [/QUOTENAME]@

About the exorcism - only a tiny minority in the Bavarian mountains believes in exorcism. The 3000 new jobs are for all of Europe, mainly Eastern Europe and Italy. I don't think there is a big demand for exorcists in Germany :-)However, I think that is really something to criticise - not Ratzinger's Hitlerjugend membership.[/QUOTE]

checked it and you're right... had an old 'tagesschau'-report in mind where they told every county ('bistum') gets its own and projected this on germany, not europe... sorry...
nevertheless...technically that's one exorcist per 1.000.000 people... interesting...can't wait to get to know mine... :-D

but not only hardcore-bavarians believe in exorcism...
you'll find some reports on practiced exorcistms in paderborn and requests from hamburg and schleswig-holstein/mecklenburg (check 'die welt'-online...). seems to me that the problem's growing...and NOT ONLY to be projected on the hillbillies...

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]YourValentine wrote: [/QUOTENAME]@ Yara - thanks for the compliment. Actually, I think I am not brighter than the next person but I can tell you that the "edit" button is the left button on top of your message. If you place your mouse pointer on the buttons, it shows you the function of each button (edit, reply, reply with quote)
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Thanks. :-)) And, above all, gentle and kind. :-) Well, I think you're very bright, really. Much more so than most people I know, at least. :op

I really love to read your posts. REALLY. :-))

*hug*

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]princetom wrote: [/QUOTENAME]about the aborting-discussion: (right ahead: i'm not pro-abortion anyway!) [/QUOTE]

Just to clarify... few people are pro-abortion but rather pro-choice.

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]YourValentine wrote: [/QUOTENAME]@ Thomas Quinn: I am not touchy and I am the first to call a Nazi a Nazi. Ratzinger was not a Nazi, he was registered into the Hitlerjugend at the age of 14 and you could not un-register. At the time he visited a Catholic school which was not received well by the Nazis. Maybe he should have shot the local Top Nazi and then he would have been a hero but maybe that is asked a little too much from a 14 year old who had enough on his plate being in a religious school. It's very easy to blame people from your comfortable position at a keyboard. I wonder how much you would risk in such a situation. If Ratzinger was a Nazi I am a Protestant because I was baptized when I was 3 weeks old. Too bad I did not bite the priest's hand to make him stop but I had no teeth at the time.
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You read my rationale, I hope? As I said, I am holding it against him merely because he is so eager to tell everyone else to risk their lives in defense of 'morality' and 'religion', but didn't himself.

I tend to think there are that many religious people in the world that there should always be a dialogue between religion and state, but the state should be independent from any religion.

I think every single religion - catholic, church of england, puritan, jewish, muslim etc have extreme elements which are guilty of a large number of bad things. Religion is a hideous weapon in the hands of the wrong people, and that is whats wrong with the world. Probably has been for a long time.

Picking on a particular religion or person within it is usually unwise - certainly when you take a blanket view like TM (you really are an arsehole) - all this demonstrates to me is that you are worse than anyone or anything you are criticising.

A little tolerance goes a long way, and if everyone would give a bit, the world would be a far more peaceful place.