Pope blames Marxism and capitalism for problems

• Pope criticized liberation theology, based on Marxist analysis of society
• Says capitalism gives "rise to a worrying degradation of personal dignity ..."
• Pope said church leaders must stop trend of Catholics becoming Protestants
• Brazil is home to more than 120 million of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics

CNN: Pope blames Marxism, capitalism for problems

I believe in secularism and the recent protests in surpport of secularism in Turkey I find encouraging.
The Pope like all religious leaders should only make official comments about spiritual affairs and not politics and economics.
There should be a law against any religion actively trying to convert people like those Jehova Witnesses knocking on peoples doors.
People should be allowed to choose and think for themselves.

and people should be free to try and convince them...can't have one without the other...not in this kind of society anyway...

Okay Pirulero you are rght - I just don't like Jehova Witnesses knocking on my door telling me that dinosaurs didn't exist (among other things).
What do you think I should do about it?

With JWs you can either say kindly and politely "No thank You" and close the door. or
"Fuck off, we are all homosexual communists" depending on whether they have rung you out of bed on a Sunday morning!

I think they have to give 25% of their income to their church.

Yes, personal belief systems and the freedom to put your trust in them should definitely be pushed into economics and politics, not to mention universities. Well, this one personal belief system anyway. The rest are all wrong, of course.


Poor Protestants, they don't realise the Catholics definitely have it right, and besides, it's all about the numbers...


A worthy cause. Praise and Gods warm applause to those Catholics.

Something like this?

John Safran, being an atheist missionary

anyone seen that episode of 'Black books' when he lets th ejehovahs witnesses in because he wants distracting from doing his taxes? Bernard: What now? JehWitness: To be honest noone ever says yes...nice this isnt it, indoors...we'd never thought this far ahead...

Genius...

I agree with this. As pesky as they are, I'd much rather put up with a little irritation than sacrifice even more of my personal freedoms.

Nice to see someone posting a John Safran link Marshbot. However, if one watches the entire series of "John Safran vs God" they will see he's equally challenging of atheists and other religions. (I can loan them to you if interested)

In the last episode of the series, Safran is exorcised and you are left wondering " is he taking the piss or is he actually possesed". Fantastic series for anyone thinking they are intellectually superior because they believe one thing and not the other.

Yeah, I've watched the whole thing. Thanks for the offer though, it's a really brilliant series. I love the guy - he's so sweet and sincere when he's trying out each religion, you can see he's genuine about really trying to 'get it' and doesn't take the piss out of anyone until afterwards. He must have balls of steel though, what a scary trip.

From an interview I read regarding the last episode, he was pretty confused himself about what really went on there. I personally think the 'exorcist' fellow in that one is one of the most vile, manipulative, hypnotic and scary characters in the whole series.

John Safran for pope.

Can't agree with you enough on how ballsy he is and what made his show so good was that he was genuine and wasn't setting out just to "take the piss" and offend all religions

He also has a sunday night religion show on JJJ where he talks religion with the catholic priest Father Bob you meet in the series. Worlth listening to every now and then as well.

Father Bob is not too bad for an old fella that doesn't really take his own religion's politics too seriously.

The pope looks to me like a cross between the devil and a rat...

The church shouldn't really be saying too much about what is right and wrong considering their horrible record over the centuries.

Hey, thanks for the link Bucket06! I didn't realise Safran had a regular show, that's awesome. I was hoping he'd do more follow-up religious stuff. Have subscribed to the podcast and bookmarked Father Bobs blog too (he he, cute old dude).