Time for reflection
Patrick Garner
Issue date: 4/4/05 Section: Opinion
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As the corporate media spends this week trying to convince the American people that President George W. Bush should be the next pope, my hope is that Catholics everywhere will turn off the television and contemplate John Paul's statement that sums up his entire life: "The church cannot be an association of freethinkers."
The goal of this column is not to rip on the dead pope or to slam Catholics. Rather, I want to convince at least two or three Catholics reading this that the pope's death is the perfect opportunity to start over. By starting over I mean casting aside religion and embracing rationalism.
Catholics can either sit on their cans waiting for the next pope to take power, or they can begin using their brains to think for themselves, using the knowledge they have garnered through education to make decisions about what is right and wrong, and act on those decisions to shape the future of not only their own lives but the future of their country.
Most Catholics I have known personally have been intelligent people who disagreed with the pope on most ethical issues. For instance, most Catholics I know do not view women as breeding machines for men, and they support abortion. They also believe in and actively use birth control. Unlike the Pope, most Catholics I know recognize the human benefits of stem cell research, and do not think technology should be abused to keep human beings artificially alive, especially if that person was being kept alive against his/her wishes. Most Catholics I know were horrified that the Vatican provided sanctuary for those who partook in or helped facilitate the raping of young boys.
Yet these same Catholics who are so intelligent continue to go to church, believe to some extent that the Bible is true, and that there is a God. By doing so they are legitimizing superstitions that harm humanity.
As recently as Friday, Gov. Rod Blagojevich had to approve an emergency rule that states pharmacies must fill birth control prescriptions, after a pharmacist in Chicago refused do so because of his beliefs.
The goal of this column is not to rip on the dead pope or to slam Catholics. Rather, I want to convince at least two or three Catholics reading this that the pope's death is the perfect opportunity to start over. By starting over I mean casting aside religion and embracing rationalism.
Catholics can either sit on their cans waiting for the next pope to take power, or they can begin using their brains to think for themselves, using the knowledge they have garnered through education to make decisions about what is right and wrong, and act on those decisions to shape the future of not only their own lives but the future of their country.
Most Catholics I have known personally have been intelligent people who disagreed with the pope on most ethical issues. For instance, most Catholics I know do not view women as breeding machines for men, and they support abortion. They also believe in and actively use birth control. Unlike the Pope, most Catholics I know recognize the human benefits of stem cell research, and do not think technology should be abused to keep human beings artificially alive, especially if that person was being kept alive against his/her wishes. Most Catholics I know were horrified that the Vatican provided sanctuary for those who partook in or helped facilitate the raping of young boys.
Yet these same Catholics who are so intelligent continue to go to church, believe to some extent that the Bible is true, and that there is a God. By doing so they are legitimizing superstitions that harm humanity.
As recently as Friday, Gov. Rod Blagojevich had to approve an emergency rule that states pharmacies must fill birth control prescriptions, after a pharmacist in Chicago refused do so because of his beliefs.
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