So secularism is more dangerous than child abuse eh, Archbishop Nichols?
At the installation of the Most Rev Vincent Nichols at Westminster Cathedral, his predecessor, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, described a lack of faith as “the greatest of evils” and blamed atheism for war and destruction, implying that it was a greater evil even than sin itself.
furious reaction to comments that Archbishop Nichols had made about child abuse in Ireland threatened to cast a shadow over the installation. Referring to the report published on Wednesday that exposed decades of child abuse by Catholic priests and nuns in Ireland, the Archbishop had said that it took courage for religious orders and clergy to “face the facts from their past”. He also warned that the report threatened to overshadow the good done by the religious orders, chiefly the Christian Brothers and Sisters of Mercy.
So the faith which has acted as a cover for child abuse, faith which is continuing to fuel regional wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel and Iraq, which is fueling discrimination and brutality in Iran, the faith which is…hang on, see the paradoxes here? Is atheism really the cause of war and destruction? I guess the Catholic Church doesn’t have a good recent track record at statements which are founded on reason, with the former Hitler Youth Pope decrying gay people for being the cause of the destruction of the environment, and saying that condoms were part of the problem in tackling HIV/AIDS, but this really is quite appalling. For Nichols there’s nothing more damaging to social cohesion than secularism, yet it’s social cohesion on his terms – he’s not exactly ‘tolerant’ of gay people. Reason’s not really that bad a thing after all, is it?
Cosmodaddy 