Posted on 07/19/2008 3:47:35 AM PDT by marthemaria
More than 500 anti-pope activists faced off against happy pilgrims Saturday, shouting their distaste at papal policies as thousands of Catholic youth streamed past on their way to an evening address by Pope Benedict XVI.
The NoToPope coalition — some costumed as nuns, devils and priests — lined the edge of a park on the route of the pilgrims' march, tightly ringed by police on foot, bicycles and horseback. "The pope is wrong, put a condom on!" they shouted through megaphones. Some threw red-packaged condoms at the passing pilgrims. But the young Catholics were at first merely curious, then smiled and waved and began their own singsong chant that carried down the ranks: "Benedicto! We love you!"
The two crowds became testy at one point, and police grabbed and led away one protester who had been throwing condoms toward pilgrims.The activists — fresh from a court win this week that overturned a temporary state regulation against "annoying" the pilgrims — followed a mock popemobile to the park after an hourlong rally. "We want to make it clear that we are not anti-religious, and we welcome the Catholic youth to our country," said Rachel Evans, a leader of the coalition. "Our gripe is with Pope Benedict and the hierarchy of the church." The coalition condemns the pope's policies against homosexuality, contraception and abortion. At the rally, costumed activists gave impassioned speeches on safe sex and held a contest for the T-shirt slogan most likely to annoy Roman Catholics. The winner — judged by crowd applause — was a crude reference to Mary, Christ's mother. The runner-up: "So many right-wing Christians, so few lions." The burlesque, boisterous protest in central Sydney included wigged drag queens and others draped in rainbow flags, and was in sharp contrast to the ..
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Filthy people. Stupid too, telling people to put a condom on when they are on a pilgrimage. What sort of pilgrimages do they go on!
March of the Dam’ned.
It's a good thing they're not anti-religious.
Those protesters are the REAL ones who NEED to do the most repentence.
Where’s Opus Dei when ya need it?
These are the same brave protesters who wouldn’t go near, let alone throw condoms at, a pilgrimage of Muslims on their way to Mecca.
Disgusting, cowardly pukes.
You wrote:
“It’s a good thing they’re not anti-religious.”
Yeah, gee, that would have been a shame. What terrible hypocrites they are!
“But the young Catholics were at first merely curious, then smiled and waved and began their own singsong chant that carried down the ranks: “Benedicto! We love you!””
GOOD prevails and will be victorious!
;-))
“The coalition condemns the pope’s policies against homosexuality, contraception and abortion.”
Odd how homosexuality and “reproductive freedom” are so often part of the same agenda. I’m no doctor, but I’ve yet to hear of a single gay guy facing an unwanted pregnancy.
This July 25th marks the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical: “Humanae Vitae”. When it came out it was a real shocker and everybody protested, and even most of the Church ignored its warnings.
Mary Eberstadt in First Things writes about it:
http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=6262
Here is a snip:
“He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh,” the Psalmist promises in a passage about enjoying vindication over one’s adversaries. If that is so, then the racket on this fortieth anniversary must be prodigious. Four decades later, not only have [Humanae Vitae’s] signature predictions been ratified in empirical force, but they have been ratified as few predictions ever are: in ways its authors could not possibly have foreseen, including by information that did not exist when the document was written, by scholars and others with no interest whatever in its teaching, and indeed even inadvertently, and in more ways than one, by many proud public adversaries of the Church.
Let’s begin by meditating upon what might be called the first of the secular ironies now evident: Humanae Vitae’s specific predictions about what the world would look like if artificial contraception became widespread. The encyclical warned of four resulting trends: a general lowering of moral standards throughout society; a rise in infidelity; a lessening of respect for women by men; and the coercive use of reproductive technologies by governments.
[…]
Consider maverick sociobiologist Lionel Tiger. Hardly a cat’s-paw of the pope—he describes religion as “a toxic issue”—Tiger has repeatedly emphasized the centrality of the sexual revolution to today’s unique problems. The Decline of Males, his 1999 book, was particularly controversial among feminists for its argument that female contraceptives had altered the balance between the sexes in disturbing new ways (especially by taking from men any say in whether they could have children).
Equally eyebrow-raising is his linking of contraception to the breakdown of families, female impoverishment, trouble in the relationship between the sexes, and single motherhood…
Who could deny that the predictions of Humanae Vitae…have been ratified with data and arguments that did not even exist in 1968?
…Has this dramatic reappraisal of the empirically known universe led to any secular reappraisals, however grudging, that Paul VI may have gotten something right after all? The answer is manifestly that it has not...
…empirical evidence has proved that the sexual revolution has had disastrous effects on children and families… the past forty years have destroyed the mantle called “science” that Humanae Vitae’s detractors once wrapped round themselves. In particular, the doomsday population science so popular…during the era in which Humanae Vitae appeared has been repeatedly demolished.
…Humanae Vitae appeared two months before…Paul R. Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb which [began]: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”
Raise your children well or they will end up like those protester thugs and then you might wish you wore a condom.
I Read the Saturday Sunday IHT Print Edition this Morning There was No article on The Pope’s Visit and World Youth Day nor Saudi King Holding an Eccumenical Conference on Madrid... In The Kuwait Newspapers Bahrain and dubai Papers they did Full Pages on Both... The IHT Zilch..
It is curious—curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.
-Mark Twain
Last, but by no means least, courage—moral courage, the courage of one’s convictions, the courage to see things through. The world ; is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It’s the age-old struggle—the roar of the crowd on one side and the voice of your; conscience on the other.
-Douglas MacArthur
Transcend political correctness and strive for human righteousness. ~Anthony J. D’Angelo, The College Blue Book
The Pope’s policies? Hello dufus, it’s Jesus’, not the Pope. Sheesh.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.