I don’t tend to read our local paper, but the other night at the atheism lecture, someone from the audience mentioned a letter that had been printed by the Saskatoon Star Phoenix that was sure to get seen and talked about. It’s about the new cathedral being built in town but doesn’t stop there.
While the faithful bask in the glory of the new Roman Catholic cathedral, they see hope, comfort and a deep and personal connection to God.
What I see is yet another monument to a 1,500-year-old criminal organization.
In 1962 the church issued Crimen sollicitationis.
In case your Latin is as bad as mine, that means the crime of soliciting.
Catholics should ask themselves how they feel knowing that a portion of their donations went to ensure the relocation and sanctuary of child rapists for the past 50 years, or to silence or compensate the victims (the ones who weren’t excommunicated)?
How do they accept the fact that the Pope lies to an entire continent, telling them that use of condoms increase the chances of getting AIDS? How do they feel when their infallible moral leader says that ordaining women is “grave” a sin as sex abuse?
I think it’s called “compartmentalizing” and everybody does it to some extent. At that philosophy lecture it got mentioned that munitions workers who are making stuff that will eventually blow up a lot of innocent people, including children, can still go home and make love to their wives and hug their kids. They manage to separate those parts of themselves so work never interferes with the home zone and vice-versa. I think Catholics are probably adept at doing the same thing. They won’t believe in zombies but they’ll accept the risen Christ, after all. They may protest against unfair treatment of women in other venues, but under god’s roof, god’s word is still law for those who believe strongly. They can ignore the paradox of that, I guess, where the rest of us wind up shaking our heads.
The hierarchy of the Catholic Church acts like a band of misogynist, homophobic, sexually repressed adolescents. The fallacy that they provide any form of moral guidance is laughably absurd. This organization has proved repeatedly that it has no moral authority.
It could easily be argued that nobody should have been looking at institutionalized religions as moral compasses in the first place, but it’s been a habit to do so hundreds of years, allowing them to have so power over states and laws and humanity. It’s a hard habit to kick, too, even though it needs kicking. One good quote I copied off the presentation the other night was one from Voltaire: “Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.” Clearly the Catholic church has that power.
When will there be enough palaces? This thing will cost $28 million? Build a small non-faith school, build a homeless shelter, or expand the size of the food bank.
That’s a good point. Weblocal lists 200 churches for Saskatoon and it might even be missing some. There are all kinds of places of worship already available. Why do we need another when there are so many better ways that money could have been spent to improve social conditions in this city? Are there really so many Catholics in this city and area that they’ll even manage to fill every pew? And then what happens to all the other Catholic churches in town if most of their congregations migrate to this monstrosity?
Many of us are tired of having all this faith on display in our open, multicultural, multi-faith society.You can worship God from home.
Brent Pollard
People can worship their gods at home but I don’t begrudge them their desire for community connection while they do that instead. They may as well be in the churches than let them all sit empty and ripe for vandalism. I don’t care about the fact that there are churches. I don’t care if people want to spend their days and nights and weekends worshiping in churches. I only start to care when those same people try to make everyone do it or try to influence governments into catering to their whims like they are somehow more worthy of money or dominance or rights than any other group. That is why the push for a secular society is so important. It is more fair to everyone and a good compromise in a multicultural, multi-faith city like this one. Nobody should be above anyone else in terms of what ideologies are most worthy.
