New Pope don't rock

[Paul Mather]

On Wed, 2005-04-20 at 17:18 +0100, Iain Ferguson wrote:

> Oh I do agree Paul, it would have been extremely difficult to avoid
> being conscripted.
>
> At the end of the day, he's an irrelavance to me, Its a bloody big shame
> that he is relevant to to many people on this planet with such a
> negative, blinkered view of the world.
>
> I'd love for him to make me eat my words, but somehow I doubt the man
> has the sight to liberalise. Not from what he's said..

It's a crying shame that large numbers of people will die in Africa and
Latin America because Ratzinger will continue (and perhaps intensify)
Pope John Paul II's hard line dogma against condom use, thus
exacerbating the spread of HIV.  It is indeed a bloody big shame. :-(

I just read yesterday on the Grauniad that the US (at the urging of
Bush) has blocked the addition of certain abortion pills from the UN
list of "essential medicines."  It's estimated that this will sentence
approximately 68,000 women in poor countries to die every year from
complications of having surgical abortions in poor operating conditions
or using unsafe practices.  That must be Bush's way of promoting the
"culture of life" he keeps going on about.  Sounds like he and Ratzinger
will get along famously...

Cheers,

Paul.
--
e-mail: paul at gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
 deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
        --- Frank Vincent Zappa