In my view this amount of money could and should go to feed the poor and shelter the homeless, something that the catholic church preaches to its followers... am I correct?
As I said, you can't just live on giving the money to one certain sector. Heck, why don't all road tax, travellers expenses and such things go to the homeless? Because you can't just live on giving to one sector of society.
The man is a flaming homosexual and a paedophile. In short, he's a disturbed creation. That he happens to be the head of the Vatican state is as unfortunate as him being the head of the Catholic Church is vile. The former means your tax-money will be used to pay for his visit and the latter means millions of people are being represented by a criminal. I can see why this would have people cringe.
What does giving 12 million to getting the pope out there give? Make the Catholics happy? Just about any other sector of society could use the money more.
Remember though, that £12m figure doesn't include security (i.e. Police) Add security (which will be paid by the UK government and the figure jumps. I've seen estimates between £15m and £20m total cost to the UK tax payer. That's an obscene amount of money for a trumped up priest to come and say mass a couple times. I have to agree with the others on this. We live in a country where free speech is protected. As long as someone doesn't post a blatant flamebait then it should be allowed. Personally I don't agree with organised religion and organisations like the Catholic church, my opinion is that your beliefs should be personal to you. I don't want the Pope telling me I can't do things because it's a sin according to his beliefs. The definition of sin varies from person to person, country to country, religion to religion. Such is life.
I have to agree that we dont need the expense of paying for him to come here let the catholic church pay for the cost of policing his visit they have the resources being one of the richest organisations on the planet.
Logical and moral reason for the pope being homophobic? Would you care to elaborate on this please? What are "God's Laws"? EDIT: @GouDG I noticed you removed the statement above, but the question still stands. Would you also consider contraception to be against "God's Laws" too? How about mixed race relationships?
I take that too mean your not a believer in the teachings of christ then if you read scripture you will see he denounces those who choose that path in life as being abomonations,personally I have no problem with them its their problem if they want to be excluded from the rewards for living a good moral life after the day of judgement,anyway thats going off the main subject of the post and i apologise if anyone was offended by my comments thats why i removed them from the last post
There are a lot of so called laws within the catholic church they consider to be gods laws that have been simply brought in to suite the doctrine of the day, as we have within all churches and religions they alter things in a way that suites them those things you just mentioned are not part of gods law just what man has placed there for his own ends. Hypocracy and bigotry on the part of the church in my opinion thats why I am now an ex catholic and church goer as im sick of the making up of laws to suite your beliefs and doctrine and those who say one thing in church and behave in a different manner when they leave it
I am a great believer in practice what you preach and have many friends who happen to be members of the homasexual community so have no problem with them my only problem is I feel sorry that they will miss out on the rewards christ will bring on his return also well said DXR the money should go to the needy
Playing Devils Advocate I have no real opinion on the matter, however do take an interest in public affairs. 12 million in the grand scheme is very minor, when the total deficit amounts somewhere in the 600-700 billion region. To put it more mathematical , its only 0.0017% of the total deficit, need to cut a lot of "pope visits" to make a difference to the total deficit. To be honest would prefer the government start looking a little closer to home i.e. the MPs wages and expenses? As what they are cutting now will not affect them sitting in Westminster. Rant over.
Right, some of the posts on this thread are an absolute joke. I do think m7ck has taken some personal abuse for his beliefs which is bang out of order. It is one thing to criticise a religion but I think a few people have flamebaited m7ck. First off, everyone is going on about the policing not being included in the costs. That is because the Catholic church is paying for that themselves. The Scottish Catholic Church has raised quite a lot of money for that already. Personally I am not a Catholic and don't agree with a lot of the teachings but I live in a predominantly Catholic area in Scotland (Coatbridge for you M7ck) so I do know that the Pope's visit will bring a lot of joy to them. Everyone has their beliefs in whatever religion or lack of religion they want. People believe what they want for different reasons so lets just leave it at that. I think that the money brought in to the local economies of the areas he will visit will outweigh the cost of his visit. He will bring in a load of tourism from other nearby catholic coutries such as Ireland as well as people spending money from within the country to see him. The contentious issue for me is the whole paedophile cover-ups that have came up recently. I think if that wasn't present, we wouldn't be having a lot of this conversation. Also, small point but its the UK economy it affects, not just the English.
Agreed. If the Pope really followed Jesus' teachings, he would travel by the most modest means possible, not in lavish luxury. No, there was an implication that he was one of the 'brainwashed' religious, which was spurious reasoning, but he did not have to bite. Sometimes the price of being the wiser one...
If anyone can point to where I've directly insulted M7ck or anyone else in this thread, I'd gladly apologise. But I'm pretty sure I haven't.
It wasn't a direct insult but it was a veiled dig at him being brainwashed. It seemed obvious to me when I read it but hey ho what do I know.
I believe he uses his own luxurious transport though. The Vatican has its own low cost airline so he should really travel on that.
