Pope Benedict: Fashion Icon!

Pope Benedict: his true legacy is his fashion sense

The former pontiff has had his critics over aspects of his teachings – but style-wise he dragged the papacy out of a 70s time warp

You may want to read that again while it sinks in. 

From The Guardian's Fashion Blog - sadly I can detect no sense of irony or parody in the piece.

What next, Cooking With Nick Griffin? 

PS Fagburn was reminded of Alexander Cockburn's piece where Andy Warhol interviews one Adolf Hitler over lunch for Interview magazine. Except that was a parody. 
HITLER: 'Just a salad for me, thanks.' etc etc.

Pope Benedict: Too Pooped To Pope

Street parties were rapidly organised up and down the country yesterday after Pope Benedict announced he was retiring from his career of professional evil-doing.
He's certainly had a full and interesting life, from all those fun times in the Hitler Youth to heading up the Roman Catholic Church, a sinister death cult that claims over a billion followers.
When he could have been fighting death, disease, poverty and misery, instead his holiness never missed a chance to try and make the world an even worse place.
And in the middle of a global recession, he preferred to wibble on about the "evil" of homosexuality, and lecture politicians about gay marriage.
Well done, your holiness. 
His preaching against using condoms probably contributed to the deaths of millions of people.
But maybe the old dude will be best remembered for trying to cover up the biggest child sex abuse scandal of all time?
Thanks Benny, you're one hell of a guy and you've been one hell of a pope!

Update: Andrew Sullivan asks 'Is the pope gay?' 

The Pope: In Still Catholic Shock!

"On Monday, Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech to the diplomatic corps at the Vatican at which he didn't say a single word about gay marriage. You can read the whole thing here. So why is it news? Because Reuters and, following them, many other people reported that he had denounced gay marriage as a threat to western civilisation. Philip Pullella, who is one of the very best and most experienced Vatican correspondents, led his story: "Pope Benedict said Monday that gay marriage was one of several threats to the traditional family that undermined 'the future of humanity itself'."
"So far as I can see, Pope Benedict just didn't. He did speak in favour of the family "based on the marriage of a man and woman". He did say that "policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself". But there was no suggestion that gay marriage was the most important of these and he didn't mention it at all, whereas he did take up several other sexual issues..."

Unbelievably stupid blogpost from Andrew Brown on The Guardian, who really should know better.
How is saying "based on the marriage of a man and woman" not opposed to marriage of two dudes or two chicks?
Particularly when he's said he is opposed to gay marriage several times?
Here is the senile old Nazi saying gay marriage will end human life.
In no way is he bonkers!
Or what does he mean by statements made on Monday like, "a similarly essential role in the development of the person is played by educational institutions: these are the first instances which cooperate with the family and they can hardly function properly unless they share the same goals as the family"?
When a family is defined only as headed by a man and a woman.
FFS!

Update: On Saturday January 15th, The Guardian's Andrew Brown admitted he got this wrong and the pope was condemning same-sex marriage.

Benetton: As Boring As Their Knitwear

The Guardian's Comment Is Free on some Benetton ad that shows the Pope kissing an Egyptian imam.
Snore!
Big company release "controversial" ad, big company generates lots of free publicity - haven't heard that one before.
Stick to selling jumpers, dear.

PS It seems the posters appeared in a few Benetton shops in Italy, and were swiftly withdrawn. Job done?
In 1992 Benneton's ad, 'David Kirby', showed the aforenamed Aids activist on his deathbed surrounded by grieving friends and family.
Just about the only text on the ads was a phone number for Benetton - there was no number given for any HIV/Aids organisation.
What cocks.

"The Gays" Watch: Who Be They?

"We must stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians everywhere."

Stupid speech by President Obama at the UN, while he pisses all over Palestinians' aspirarations.

"Organisers say at least 20,000 demonstrators, including gays, feminists, atheists, survivors of abuse and other papal opponents, will gather in Berlin..."

Stupid piece in the stupid Times about some stupid speech by arch apologist for child rape and known ex-Nazi The Stupid Pope near Hitler's stupid fucking bunker.

Who are these "gays" of which they do speak?
I for one am flummoxed!

The Independent: French Letters To The Editor

Fagburn thought there was much sense being talked (written?) on the Pope and condoms hoo-hah in The Independent's letters page today - especially the last one.

Pope Benedict's statement about condoms has been taken out of context ("Catholics weigh significance of Pope's words on condom use", 22 November).
What people need to realise is what he essentially said is that as a male prostitute is already planning on engaging in amoral sexual activity, the sin is not in the use of the condom, but in the act itself. Fornication is still fornication and adultery is still adultery.
He also said that using a condom when you know you are infected with Aids can be an important first step in realising that sex holds the power of life and death and that you have to be responsible for the lives and health and human dignity of others.
This does not indicate that the Catholic Church now supports condoms or any form of contraception. The Pope was not even speaking on behalf of the Church, or making decisions about the official position of the Church; he was being interviewed by a newspaper.
Though raised as a Catholic, I can agree that the Church's attitude to preventing the increase of Aids and HIV is a "muddled and unrealistic approach". But if the Pope says he can understand the justification behind use of condoms in some circumstances then he too is allowed to hold personal opinions and even struggle with his own relationship to Catholic teaching.

Emilie Lamplough
Trowbridge, Wiltshire

The Pope's statement on legitimate use of condoms is no surprise to anybody familiar with the source which sets out the Church's teaching on contraception, Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae, to which nothing has since been added.
Paragraphs 14 and 15 are relevant. What the Church disapproves of (however controversially) is the contraceptive intention. It accepts therapeutic means to cure organic diseases even when they may have a contraceptive effect. The use of condoms within marriage to prevent transmission of HIV is against neither the letter nor the spirit of the encyclical.
The problem has been that local clerics are fearful of any statement on their part that is less than wholesale condemnation of contraception. They fear retribution from the Vatican. They also fear the media's headline. Let us hope that anybody pronouncing on this subject in future will take the trouble to study what the Catholic Church actually teaches.

Rev Bernard O'Connor OSA
St Augustine's, London W6

How would the Pope's teaching on condoms deal with this situation: a married couple have got through a difficult period in their marriage during which the husband has become infected with Aids and the wife can no longer have children for reasons of age or illness?
Is it permitted for them to use condoms to protect the wife's health while resuming marital relations? Underlying this is the problem, is sex without the possibility of conception a good thing? My view is in the affirmative, where neither party is making use of the other.
Is the Vatican moving cautiously in that direction? If so, how many centuries will it take to reach a satisfying Christian response to the needs of modern life?

Rev Ainslie Walton
Glasgow

As a humanist, I find it pathetic that a good section of the world should hang on the words of a man with no special claim to wisdom. To greet with joy a small crack in papal ignorance and superstition seems a small step forward, when scientists and health workers are struggling to reduce a mountain of misery.
When will these old and celibate clerics wake up to the reality that sex is not a sin but a joyful human pleasure? It is not simply a chore to increase the world's population.

Pete Parkins
Lancaster

The Pope & Condoms: A Lot Of Cock

Of all the reams of nonsense written about the Pope and condoms, Fagburn thought this essay on the BBC News website by National Catholic Reporter's John L Allen was the most illuminating; 'Why condom comments are no earthquake in Catholic teaching'
Allen argues that the Pope's words have been "sexed up" by the media, and explains why they mean little and change nothing.
Nobody seems to have found out if Pope Benedict actually said/meant "a male prostitute" - but according to Catholic teaching a male prostitute could wear a condom all along because homosex can't be procreation, which means it's wrong full-stop, and HOMOSEXUALS ARE ALL GOING TO BURN IN HELL anyway.

• Cartoon by Peter Brookes in The Times.

Update: From BBC News "Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said he had personally asked the Pope if there was a serious, important problem in the choice of the masculine over the feminine.
"He told me 'No'," Fr Lombardi said. "The problem is this... It's the first step of taking responsibility, of taking into consideration the risk of the life of another with whom you have a relationship."
"This is if you're a woman, a man, or a transsexual," he added.

The Pope & Condoms: Did "A Male Prostitute" Pass His Lips?

Hold the bit of the front page that hasn't got a picture of Prince William and Kate on!
His Holiness the Pope has said something slightly less stupid and offensive than he usually does.
Using condoms might be okay in certain circumstances after all.
Blimey! He'll be telling us the Earth revolves around the Sun next.
Hang on though - what did Pope Benedict actually say?

Peter Seewald: Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?
Pope Benedict: She [!] of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.

BBC News quotes the relevant section at length - and here's the actual rambling quote from the Pope that everyone's misquoting;
"There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection.
"That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality."
Fagburn has only seen The Independent On Sunday (and heard BBC Radio 4) point out the semantic stew in the above quote;
"Last night there was some confusion about the precise meaning of the Pope's words, not least concerning the example he used. In the English, German and French versions the phrase "a male prostitute" is used, but in the Italian translation, the words "una prostituta", meaning a female prostitute, is given."
It does seem odd that he'd specify a male prostitute.
Perhaps he's realised that two men using a condom during bumsex doesn't lessen the chances of them making a baby?
Let us pray for clarification from Pope Benedict on this whole "male or female prostitute" business later today.
I for one am positively gripped.

Papal Visit: What The Papers Say

Today's news: The pope, the pope, the pope, the pope, the pope, the pope, the pope, the pope, the pope, the pope, the pope, the pope, the fucking pope, the pope, the pope, the pope, the pope, the pope, the pope, the pope...
Part of the point of Pope Benedict's visit is to beatify Cardinal Newman - the irony of his holiness making a gay man a saint has not been lost on several commentators.
Although confirmed spinster Ann Widdecombe presented a programme on BBC2 yesterday evening, Newman - Saint Or Sinner?, which but of course roundly dismissed the scurrilous rumours about the late confirmed bachelor.
Anyway, it was news to me that the act that has sped Mr Newman on towards sainthood is that a man called Jack Sullivan claims to have prayed to him and "miraculously" found his backache had been cured.
Great news about your back, Jack, but if you really believe that's true it's your mental health I'd be worried about.

Papal Visit: Welcome To The Third World

The Guardian's ever wonderful cartoonist Steve Bell welcomes the Pope to Britain, just as one of his close aides manages to insult and offend anyone else in Britain who the Catholic hierarchy haven't managed to insult and offend yet.
This Papal Visit is turning into an almighty fuck-up of almost biblical proportions, isn't it?
Perhaps there is a God after all.

EDIT: At his first rally held this evening in Glasgow, Pope Benedict said; "Finally, I would like to say a word to you, my dear young Catholics of Scotland. I urge you to lead lives worthy of our Lord and of yourselves. There are many temptations placed before you every day — drugs, money, sex, pornography, alcohol — which the world tells you will bring you happiness, yet these things are destructive and divisive."
So now you know.
Stephen Fry is on excellent form over on his blog in 'Hated By The The Daily Mail', on the Mail's hate campaign against anyone who has dared to criticise the Pope's state visit.

Poll: UK Catholics Hate Pope, Like Homos

A shock new poll for ITV's Tonight Programme shows British Roman Catholics believe that official Catholic dogma is a load of medieval old nonsense on a stick.
And more Catholics are now calling for Pope Benedict's resignation, than think homosexuality is wrong.
A massive 41% said that both gay and straight relationships should be celebrated.
While only a piss poor 11% of Catholics said they support church doctrine that homosexual acts were morally wrong.
11% is clearly the current the baseline level of fundamentalist Catholic nutters - exactly the same percentage said they agreed with the doctrine that abortion should only be allowed as an indirect consequence of lifesaving treatment.
A miniscule 4% believe contraception is wrong.
But 71% said it should be used more often to avoid disease and unwanted pregnancies.
A whopping 87% believe that the child abuse scandals have permanently damaged the reputation of the Catholic Church.
72% said the Pope should remain in his position - with 14% saying he should stand down.
Which means - officially, scientifically and absolutely unequivocally - that more British Roman Catholics hate the Pope (14%) than hate homosexuality (11%).
You do the math/s.

Ann Widdecombe: Dancing Fool

Of course the really important news today is that Ann Widdecombe is going to be part of the line-up for the new series of Strictly Come Dancing.
There are some other famous people on it too, but quite frankly I can't even begin to pretend I care.
I'm a broad minded fellow though, so if "Strictly" is your sort of thing enjoy!
My point - and I do have one - is that I encounter and enjoy Ms Widdecombe on a weekly basis.
She is a star columnist on The Daily Express, and wondering what topics she'll be talking nonsense about always raises a smirk during Wednesday's trawl of the newspapers.
Today Ann was valiantly tackling her debut on Strictly ("If anyone is in need of a good laugh tune in..."), and Tony Blair's memoirs ("Every convert to the Catholic Church has to say upon reception that he or she believes all the Church teaches to be “revealed truth". How does he reconcile that with all the measures he promoted on abortion, euthanasia and homosexuality law?")
There's also something mad about climate change and one about policing that I found too confusing for words ("Whatever would Dixon of Dock Green have made of it?")
Today's centre piece in the Express is Ann's take on the William Hague "affair"; "Once it was taken for granted that two friends of the same sex were just that and there had to be good reason to presume otherwise. Now it appears the reverse is true."
Boo!
For some reason Ms Widdecombe has also written a piece for The Guardian today; 'If Only The Catholic Church Did PR'.
For why Ann? "If only it did then much of the controversy around the papal visit would fade into insignificance."
Can you guess where this is going?
"One of the biggest propaganda coups against the Catholic church in recent years has been to portray it as riddled with paedophiles whose vile activities it has sought to cover up. Apart from the occasional defensive flash when a senior churchman is wrongly accused of inaction, the church has merely apologised and asked for forgiveness.
"Well, so it should. One child abused would be one too many; but it is frustrating that the church does so little to put its role in proportion."
What, the cover ups?
"After all the dust had settled in America, 98% of priests were untouched by allegations, let alone convictions."
Only 2% of our priests have been accused of sexually abusing children - could be the Catholic church's new slogan.

• The US Catholic church's own John Jay Report put it at 4%.

Papal Visit: Kick The Pope Off Welfare

An item in The Financial Times today; 'Cost of UK papal visit rises to £10m'.
"The first state visit by Pope Benedict XVI to the UK will cost the taxpayer up to 50 per cent more than previously expected, the government revealed on Monday. Chris Patten, the former Conservative minister who has been asked by the government to take charge of planning the September visit, said it would now cost between £10m and £12m, up from the previous estimate of £8m."
Lord Patten said: “Those [previous] estimates were made in good faith..."
Funny thing faith, innit?
Thank god that the group Protest The Pope are protesting this hate preacher being given a state visit.
In other news, an article in The Guardian Online today launches Coalition of Resistance.

"It is time to organise a broad movement of active resistance to the Con-Dem Government’s budget intentions. They plan the most savage spending cuts since the 1930s, which will wreck the lives of millions by devastating our
jobs, pay, pensions, NHS, education, transport, postal and other services.
The Government claims the cuts are unavoidable because the welfare state has been too generous. This is nonsense. The national debt is only so large because of the £800bn banking bailout. Ordinary people are being forced to
pay for the bankers’ profligacy.
The £11 billion welfare cuts, rise in VAT to 20%, and 25% reductions across government departments target the most vulnerable – disabled people, single parents, those on housing benefit, Black and other ethnic minority communities, students, migrant workers, LGBT people and pensioners.
Women are expected to bear 75% of the burden. The poorest will be hit six times harder than the richest. Internal Treasury documents estimate 1.3 million job losses in public and private sectors..."

To re-cap, government departments are to cut spending by 25%.
While government spending on the papal visit is to increase by 50%.
Can you do the math/s?

Rape, Murder, War Crimes Now All Okay - Official

Pope Benedict will not be issued with an arrest warrant during his state visit to the UK later this year.
Even though he's known to have been directly involved in the biggest child abuse cover-up in history, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke announced he's changing the rule book just for his holiness.
"The Government has concluded, after careful consideration, that it would be appropriate to require the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions before an arrest warrant can be issued to a private prosecutor in respect of an offence of universal jurisdiction."
Simon Harwood, the police officer filmed assaulting Ian Tomlinson during last year's G20 protests in London will not be facing criminal charges over his death.
The Director of Public Prosecutions made the decision claiming there was "no realistic prospect" of the officer being convicted - despite the Crown Prosecution Service admitting there was sufficient evidence to bring a charge of assault against him.
The deputy prime minister Nick Clegg was forced to clarify his position on the Iraq war yesterday after he told the House of Commons the invasion of Iraq was illegal.
International lawyers warned that if he didn't his statement could lead to Tony Blair facing charges in an international court.

Pope Benedict: It's That Man Again

Another day, another email from Peter Tatchell letting the world know; "Channel Four Television have announced that human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell will present an hour-long documentary on the Pope, to be broadcast shortly before the pontiff's State Visit to Britain in September this year."
Fagburn has whined on here before about how the UK media seem to see Tatchell as "The Only Gay Man in Britain" - whenever a comment or a quote on something queer is needed, Peter will always be in there; even if they're asking about something like hairstyles of the rich and famous.
His take on things is always interesting - and he's usually right. And he's done much in his life that is laudable and courageous (though this new "national treasure" schtick is starting to grate).
But is Peter Tatchell really the person best qualified to present a programme on the Pope?