What sections of the left can learn from World Youth Day
World Youth Day was one of the largest gatherings of youth in Australia in recent years. It was a multi cultural, multi racial festival which brought together people from all over the world. Yet, sections of the left lost the plot and their criticisms bordered on intolerance. It reflected very badly on these groups who seem to have ignored some crucial issues and confused a belief in God with a range of other things. A few points.
1. Many of the Catholics who attended WYD are very committed to issues of peace, justice and poverty eradication. Many of the pilgrims from third world countries know it first hand. Yet this was ignored by the self appointed guardians of concern for social justice - the secular left.
2. Some of the abuse of WYD was centred around people's belief in God. Surely we have reached a stage where sections of the left can accept that people can believe in God without being abused for it. And yes, there were protestors who simply wanted to protest belief in God. Tolerance guys!!
3. Catholics know their church is not perfect. We live in the church and know it well. But holding all Catholics responsible for crimes of the church hundreds of years ago or the abuse carried out by a minority of clergy is like saying Resistance is responsible for the human rights abuses of socialist states. Every human institution is imperfect, even those from which critics come I would guess.
4. Attempts to portray Catholics as all of one mould is wrong. There are radicals and conservatives and like society a lot in the middle. People confusing lack of knowledge of the church's social justice teachings and what the church actually believes etc really lowered the level of debate. I think it is important that critics at least get their basic understanding of the church right and then by all means debate.
5. The secular left needs to understand that most of the world is religious. Many of the causes they claim to support in the third world are causes of religious people. The secular extremism and intolerance towards those who believe in God, simply for that belief puts up barriers to religious and secular people working together on issues.
6. There was an unhealthy focus on a small number of issues and an ignoring of others. Catholics oppose abortion. We have come to a conclusion that life begins at conception. It is a consistent view of the value of life. You need realise that huge sections of society have this view. You also need to accept that some Catholics oppose contraception but not all. Many Catholics also oppose capital punishment, the war on Iraq, the arms race etc and are out there agitating for peace and justice. It seems that sections of the secular left are blind to the huge amount of social justice the church brings just because they may disagree with us on issues like abortion.
7. Freedom of religions does not mean that people can't express religious views publicly. Some critics were bordering of stomping on free speech in their attacks. And the church did not request the laws on annoyance which many in the church including some priests spoke against.
WYD was a huge event and a lot of good will come from it The secular left needs to consider some of the ideas above. I submit these ideas in the spirit of genuine discussion.
- 423 reads
Re: What sections of the left can learn from World Youth Day
Point 1, please see point 4. Additionally, Social Justice Catholocism is being actively crushed by elements of the Church hierarchy, and is opposed in many of its tenets by large organised factions of worshippers who are conservative.
Point 2, tolerance does not extend to maintained erronious belief. However, given that I have not seen a conclusive disproof (rather, I have only seen sumnative evidences) against the existence of any god, or in particular god, I will give you the benefit of the doubt as regards personal belief.
Point 3, there is no continuity of identity between Resistance and any "Socialist" state. There is a continuity of identity in the Vatican which goes back quite a long way. Resistance has criticised a number of "socialist" states, retracted that criticism, redeveloped it, much as they have their support for "socialist" states. Other groups in the left have been even more vociferous. The Catholic hierarchy's level of public self-reflection is much less, and the hierarchy should be criticised for that.
Point 4, I agree, completely.
Point 5, you lose me here. Much of the "religious" populations are misreported by census statistics and don't include the level of worship or belief. Religion may be mere cultural custom, rather than any sort of faith. I'm also pressed to consider Chinese Traditional Cultural Beliefs as religious in the same sense as Western Religions. Nor, see my response to point 2, does that mean that I need to respect *anyone's* religious beliefs, except to the limit required by NSW law, and the conditions of my involvement with certain organisations. However, the blandness of the left's engagement with religion is sad, where are the militant atheists of yesteryear? Why is this appallingly under read Dawkin's now a figurehead, when his theological understanding is bunk. Why is there no limited alliance with militant social justice movements which are religiously organised?
Point 6, see point 4. I know a number of Catholics who believe abortion is wrong without being sin, or is sin without requiring government intervention to make it illegal. Yours is a broad church. I am, however, blind to "the huge amount of social justice the church brings" when your Church goes around agreeing to the assassination of its own social justice bishops. oops. See point 3's response.
Point 7. There is no freedom of speech in NSW or Australia, except as found by HCA in connection with political expressions directly connected to elections. Personally, I'd rather have tea and scones and discuss theology and social justice than shut someone up. But then again, when there's thousands of randy teens and twenty year olds in a strange country, I think I wouldn't mind handing out some frangers.
WYD people were on the whole well behaved. Now if we can only get a couple of billion dollars of public support including the direct labour of public servants for a leftist political cause, why then I'll be happy for the sponsorship received by WYD.
Re: What sections of the left can learn from World Youth Day
World Anarchist Day or maybe world anarchist day celebrated on Mayday with anarchists around the world coming together to hear speeches, note the international indymedia movement is essentially a far left anarchist movement that was one of the first movements in the world to utilise cyberspace technology to build their international communication network. Perhaps we can have a world anarchist day in Russia somewhere during mayday celebrating the workers communal triumph over church & state
Re: What sections of the left can learn from World Youth Day
Some Catholics are anarchists. Have you heard of the Catholic Worker movement? I would not call myself an anarchist as thee are some issues that I have but there have been a number of anarchist/ socialist oriented movments in the church. Many interpret some church teachings as quite anti state. The story of Jesus was often a story of him coming up against the power of the state as well though I don't want to porteay it as a purely political thing. Don't know about a day for communal triumph over church and state - is that what happened in the USSR? Sounds a bit dogmatic to me.
What i learned
I would also like to remind the faith full that god, jesus, allah and the tooth fairy have still... despite numerous repeated and polite well mannered requests failed to confirm their existence.
Re: What i learned
With respect mate, I think you need to check a few facts.
1. Some businesses were complaing that pilgrims were not spending. They were not here to particpate in consumerism but a spiritula event.
2. Many of the pilgrims were from poor countries where local communitoes raised funds to send some of their young people over.
3.Christiand offer many solutions to world issues. That is why you find many active in anti poverty groups, anti war groups, helping the poor etc.
Your points above just seem a little silly because they are not based in reality. Go to some poor nations and see who it is running the orphanages and tending to the sick.
The Great Oil Rig in the Sky
**poor countries**
people dumbed down with spiritual mumbo jumbo while those in power worship the real world physical G.O.D. <Gold Oil Drugs>
Re: The Great Oil Rig in the Sky
Don't be so arrogant in assuming that people from poorer countries are dumb! It is this sort of western arrogance, often prominent on the left that creates a lot of the problems and assumption that keeps the third world poor. I would suggest that there is a wealth of knowledge coming out of third world countries, and comments by westerners like the one above is patronising. Many religious people are deeply involved in the struggle for a better world and are incredibly analytical and critical of those in power. I can't believe you actyually said that. Have you ever lived in another country?
Re: What sections of the left can learn from World Youth Day
I forget all the numerical points so here's what I think
Freedom of religions is used to justify religious practice, whilst stomping on the rights of atheists to practice their atheism (through critiquing religion and / or denying God). In other words, its a complete load of bollocks. I'd like a freedom FROM religion, thanks. Which we never got when out entire city, regulations, media, and schools were taken over by Catholic Youth Day. And I'm sick to death of religious people saying that we're intolerant by saying "God is Dead" - which is OUR belief equivalent of all those pilgrims singing "He rise from dead".
Where's the tolerance towards atheists? For millenia we have been branded as lacking morals, to the point of being murdered, censored, banned, exiled. All we chose to do was disagree with this so called 'mainstream' view of the universe, and this is what history has and continues to do to us. Yet the moment we merely decide to speak out against this, just by expressing that we don't believe in God, we're intolerant?
Get fucking real, this is hypocrisy at its stinkiest.
As for so callec Catholic anarchists or christian anarchists, let me fill you in. They want God to rule, not the state. ie Bible is LAW. This is the Jesus-toting equivalent of Sharia law, and if you read the Bible, you'll find its full of phrases that advocate everything the so-called peace loving catholicism is supposed to be against. It's violent, opressive, sexist, homophobic and full of genocide and incest. So peace loving, my arse.
Don't buy the rhetoric. If you want freedom from a state, you gotta get rid of the church, cos baby, if that takes over, its merely theocracy, not anarchism.
Re: What sections of the left can learn from World Youth Day
Oh yeah the other thing, lets not forget that the rest of their year our shops, media and streets are lined with various Christian paraphernalia celebrating easter, christmas and other exclusively christian events.
Whilst 30% of australians are christian/ catholic, may I kindly remind you that this means 70% are not, including approximately 20% of australians are atheists.
We didn't see publicity promoting the joyousness of World Atheist Day (19th July). And we don't have advertising for Hanukah or Ramadan, etiher.
Instead, the pro-Catholic media chooses to selectively report TWO (/1000+) protestors who expressed (in their legal or not, free right) atheism, without saying a damn word ad hominem to the pilgrims passing by, behind a line of cops so thick it might as well have been oil sludge,
and before you say "thats just secular left propaganda" BULLSHIT. I was there, I was walking around all the protestors, taking photoes and vid.
And I saw the footage on Channel 7 (whoops Hillsong TV) which more or less spewed the same garbage contained in this article. If you cared to turn to SBS two seconds later, you would have known that the protest wasn't really anti-religious anyway, and all these comments I am making are more or less reactionary.
Re: What sections of the left can learn from World Youth Day
I don't get your comment about Hillsong. Hillsong and the Catholic Church are worlds apart. Totally different perspectives and styles.
Re: What sections of the left can learn from World Youth Day
During the time of Red Russia or the USSR, "communism" religion was outlawed because it was considered to be the opium of the masses as the phrase was quoted by famous communist leaders, in other words religion is a drug which can quite often do more harm than good, this so called outlawing of religion including Christianity existed for at least 80 years. When Gobochev got in power he changed the laws & the state became tolerant of religions & the Christian churchs that were in Russia were aloud to practice their ceremonies again but I am pretty sure still today in Russia it is pretty strict on what type of churchs or religious teachers, schools or writers are aloud to operate, however they do tolerate the traditional Christian Russian Orthodox churchs freedom to practice there ceremonies. The whole communist revolution in russia was about giving the worker freedom & powers over state & religion where as traditionally religion was higher than state authority & the worker stood at the bottom of the scale, so communist russia was very liberating for the worker who traditionaly stood at the bottom end of society. Note in Australia the Catholic priest who raped that girl could not be persecuted by the police because he was a church figurehead & the church is exempt from government or police prosecution.
Re: What sections of the left can learn from World Youth Day
Wow. So is this an argument for baaning religion? Are you arguing that the state knows what is best for people and should step in and dictate people's beliefs? Sounds a little totalitarian. This sort of extremist intolerance was why the USSR was a failure, a horrible experiment in which repression and human rights abuses dominated people's lives.
Re: What sections of the left can learn from World Youth Day
>>During the time of Red Russia or the USSR ... religion was outlawed
Or... not. While religious authority figures were persecuted for engaging in political and illegal acts, some of which were covered by very broad laws like the 36 constitution, at other times religion was promoted by state subsidy. Particularly after 1941, Religion was legitimised, and used as a wing of the state, in a kind of Concordat between the Russian Orthodox Church and the CPSU(b).
Re: What sections of the left can learn from World Youth Day
Oh dear congratualations Jolly good show watching you tikes and reds south of the harbour bash yourselfs black and blue time to call around the Howards for some Wolf blass this is course for celebration.
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