Enemy of Humanity

"There was something so heartwarming about the sight of so much humanity, in such numbers, variety and determination for a defence of reason over superstition."

"What an amazing event to be part of, I felt incredibly charged and great to see the effort so many people had gone to with their banners and costumes."

This is just some of the feedback from yesterday's marvellous "Protest The Pope" rally, attended by thousands upon thousands of people (myself, John-John and Tony included) - many more (in my estimation) than the official figure of 12,000! The march stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions, as we progressed (slowly) from Hyde Park Corner, via Piccadilly and Trafalgar Square to Whitehall. I have seen smaller Gay Pride marches!



On arriving at Downing Street, so many more people than the organisers had expected were crammed into the space between the police barriers that there were fears for our safety, and the speakers' podium (on a truck) had to be moved further down past the Cenotaph to get us all in!

After opening speeches from British Humanist Association Chief Executive Andrew Copson and Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society it was the turn of Human Rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC, who said:

We are here today to celebrate our faith in liberty of conscience; our faith in equality; our faith in human rights.

[The Pope] been met with the most utter, exquisite, grovelling politeness and with that somehow we are in an uncivilised third world country. What is civilised about demeaning the women, demonising homosexuals, wishing that IVF children had never been born?… our only crime has been silence.

Robertson is a brilliant and erudite speaker, and his gracious yet scathing examination of the falsehood of the Vatican "state", and thus the unreality of the Pontiff being accepted as a "head of state" with an official visit brought rapturous cheers. Then it was the turn of the crowd-pleaser, the arch-enemy of religion and author of The God Delusion Professor Richard Dawkins. His fury at the Pope was palpable, as in these extracts from his speech:

The unfortunate little fact that Joseph Ratzinger joined the Hitler Youth has been the subject of a widely observed moratorium. I’ve respected it myself, hitherto. But after the Pope’s outrageous speech in Edinburgh, blaming atheism for Hitler, one can’t help feeling that the gloves are off. At first I was annoyed by the Pope’s disgraceful attack on atheists and secularists, but then I saw it as reassuring. It suggests that we have rattled them so much that they have to resort to insulting us, in a desperate attempt to divert attention from the child rape scandal.

Even if Hitler had been an atheist – as Stalin more surely was – how dare Ratzinger suggest that atheism has any connection whatsoever with their horrific deeds? Any more than Hitler and Stalin’s non-belief in leprechauns or unicorns. Any more than their sporting of a moustache – along with Franco and Saddam Hussein. There is no logical pathway from atheism to wickedness. Unless, that is, you are steeped in the vile obscenity at the heart of Catholic theology. I refer to the doctrine of Original Sin. These people believe – and they teach this to tiny children, at the same time as they teach them the terrifying falsehood of hell – that every baby is “born in sin”. That would be Adam’s sin, by the way: Adam who, as they themselves now admit, never existed. Original sin means that, from the moment we are born, we are wicked, corrupt, damned. Unless we believe in their God. Or unless we fall for the carrot of heaven and the stick of hell. That, ladies and gentleman, is the disgusting theory that leads them to presume that it was godlessness that made Hitler and Stalin the monsters that they were. We are all monsters unless redeemed by Jesus. What a vile, depraved, inhuman theory to base your life on.

Joseph Ratzinger is an enemy of humanity.

He is an enemy of children, whose bodies he has allowed to be raped and whose minds he has encouraged to be infected with guilt. It is embarrassingly clear that the church is less concerned with saving child bodies from rapists than with saving priestly souls from hell: and most concerned with saving the long-term reputation of the church itself.

He is an enemy of gay people, bestowing on them the sort of bigotry that his church used to reserve for Jews.

He is an enemy of women – barring them from the priesthood as though a penis were an essential tool for pastoral duties. What other employer is allowed to discriminate on grounds of sex, when filling a job that manifestly doesn’t require physical strength or some other quality that only males might be thought to have?

He is an enemy of truth, promoting barefaced lies about condoms not protecting against AIDS, especially in Africa.

He is an enemy of the poorest people on the planet, condemning them to inflated families that they cannot feed, and so keeping them in the bondage of perpetual poverty. A poverty that sits ill with the obscene riches of the Vatican.

He is an enemy of science, obstructing vital stem-cell research, on grounds not of morality but of pre-scientific superstition.

Richard Dawkins speech at the Protest the Pope rally in London 2010

Peter Tatchell said:

We profoundly disagree with the Pope’s opposition to women’s rights, gay equality and the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV. This is not an attack on Catholic people or the Catholic faith. We are critical of certain policies of the Pope. When he says no woman is fit to be a priest, that’s an insult to the whole of female humanity. When he says a husband must not use a condom to protect his wife from infection – even if he has HIV – that’s irresponsible.

And when he says that all gay people possess a tendency towards evil, that flies in the face of the Christian gospel of love and compassion.

We know that many Catholics share our concerns. Only 5 percent of Catholics in this country agree with the Pope’s ban on contraception. Only 11 percent of Catholics think that homosexuality is morally wrong. So there is a great depth of Catholic opinion which is in disagreement with this Pope and we support those Catholic people.

This was a brilliant day, and one I am really glad to have been part of!

Slideshow of photos of the day from the National Secular Society