--- Venantius Pinto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The two Cardinals should have been fried. It is > egregious, I mean despicable > that has not been the case. ----------------------- I agree with Venantius' balanced critique of the Church. The Vatican has been guilty of many sins of commission and omission, not the least of which has been the Inquisition, the support of fascism in Europe, the overlooking of Jewish genocide in Nazi Germany, and recently ofcourse the pedophilia scandal. That it did this perhaps in good faith (or bad faith), does little to assuage the pain it has caused. It does not help that the Vatican is the domain of crusty old politicised men. That said, I don't think any Catholic today abdicates his moral responsibility to the Church. That horse bolted long time ago. The Church, like the UN and the English Royal family, must find another role for itself if it is to have relevance in the 21st century. It must, for instance, without wasting any more time, declare biblical creationism a myth, admit women into the higher echelons of power, do away with celibacy, and refrain from being the moral adjudicator in areas like homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, birth control, in vitro fertilisation and other assisted reproductive technologies, to name a few areas. Surely, these should be left to medical science, secular law and one's own sense of humanism. This reformation, I am sure, will come. One can hope that it comes sooner rather than later. The agendas of the Bhandares of this world are quite different though. They are only to marginalise and victimise minorities in India and to that end, there is plenty of evidence from various posts made. No amount of reformation in any religion will alleviate the so-called angst they feel for all the ills that perpetuate wrought on by religions other than their own. selma ____________________________________________________________________________________ Choose the right car based on your needs. Check out Yahoo! Autos new Car Finder tool. http://autos.yahoo.com/carfinder/