UK stand up for the Pope!

I’m not a very religious man and The Pope to me is just a regular man and it turns out I’m not the only one who feels that way.

Pope Benedict XVI said Thursday the Roman Catholic Church has not been vigilant enough or fast enough in responding to the problem of sexual abuse by priests.

"These revelations were for me a shock and a great sadness. It is difficult to understand how this perversion of the priestly ministry was possible," he told reporters aboard his plane to Scotland, which was with him on the plane.

Asked about the sexual abuse, the pope said it was inexplicable to him how a priest who has promised at his ordination to act in the person of Christ, as a good shepherd, could "fall into this perversion,"

"It is a great sadness. It is a sadness, also, that the authority of the church was not vigilant enough, was not sufficiently fast and decisive in taking the necessary measures," he said.

The pope made the comments as he arrived for a historic four-day state visit to Britain, where the issue of abuse, and the Vatican's perceived lack of response to it, has created anger.

The look of happiness

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II shook hands with the pope as he arrived Thursday at her Scottish residence near Edinburgh, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, before they sat down for a private meeting. A military marching band played the national anthem God Save the Queen, for which the pope removed his white cap.

The pope used relatively strong language in a speech delivered after the meeting with the queen, reflecting on the "sobering lessons of the atheist extremism" of the 20th century.

He reminded the media of its "greater responsibility than most" to promote peace and the spread of human rights, and he reminded the country of its "deep Christian roots" that he said are still present in "every layer" of British life.

"Today, the United Kingdom strives to be a modern and multicultural society," the pope said. "In this challenging enterprise, may it always maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate. Let it not obscure the Christian foundation that underpins its freedoms."

A picture is worth a 1000 words

The pope seems to be struggling in terms of popularity but then again the Catholic church hasn’t been the nicest of churches in the past a in the 21st century people don’t only read the bible but can make up their own mind about how fucked up the Catholic church is.

Before I go on a Gnostic rant…Nuff said!



Source: cnn

BCM