Pope-bashing really pisses me off?

Indeed, like we atheists! Our taxes paid for him to come here, and then he starts attacking as soon as he arrives.

Don't you think the economic boost of the visit will more than have paid his security costs?

and isn't britain all about tolerance?

Also, that being the case - may I mention this:

"Even in our own lifetimes we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live.

"As we reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus a reductive vision of a person and his destiny."

That's what the pope has to say about you and what you do/don't believe in. I think he's probably done worse bashing of gays, atheists, Britain, humanists giving out condoms in Africa, people who want to mention paedophilia in the catholic institution and in fact, every single person who doesn't believe in and follow his doctrine.

Because he thinks you're going to hell. Really going to hell. Forever. And he thinks you deserve it.

I'm a Catholic, and while I'm not what you'd call devout, I do have faith; and it's so refreshing to hear your post. Most Pope-bashers are jumping on a bandwagon to make themselves look like they are up to date on all the current affairs, or just have an axe to grind. The problem is that the Pope actually raises issues that most people don't like to think about, or admit are true. I'm only 18, and I remember when he first became Pope and warned about the reality of Hell - no-one likes to think about it, and so when it is raised they lambast whomever raised it. What is also striking is the sheer rudeness and inhospitality all this media is. Very rude indeed.

Very eye-opening how much people buy into PR. He is not a natural public speaker like his predecessor, and so people mistake this for being impersonality, for some unfathomable reason.

Well said.

Seconded.

First off I should point out that I'm not catholic - I'm not religious at all. But is it just me who thinks that all of the furore and anti-papal sentiment over the pope's visit is too exaggerated? I don't want to sound like one of those chokingly P.C. liberals who stop anyone from speaking negatively about anyone else for fear of being accused of bigotry - but shouldn't the british media be a bit more tolerant of this guy? I know that the catholic church is reponsible for some pretty bad things, but so are most religions - and it's not like the pope himself has molested any children, and isn't britain all about tolerance? I don't like the pope myself and I'm generally anti-religion but the anger with which he has been treated is a little disrespectful to all the catholics in the UK imo...

I'm athiest, and I honestly didn't care that he was coming here.

I did care, however, when he bashed atheism, calling it a threat to religion. We're not a threat to anything, mate. You're a pretty big one to anything that isn't a white adult male, though.

What pissed me off is the relative proportion of coverage the anti-pope crowd were given. In London 5,000 people were there to protest the pope. 300,000 were there to see him.

Speaking at African Catholic conferences to publicly denounce condoms as a way of preventing the spread of AIDs causing thousands of Catholic Africans, if not more, to have sex without protection thus greatly exacerbating the proliferation of HIV? That is not worth getting ****** off about?

You must be seeing something I'm not, because I haven't seen a lot of 'pope bashing'. Prior to his visit there was a lot of negative talk but it never really happened to the scale that was been talked about.

Bit hypocritical considering you had a "Pope is the devil" video don't you think, even if it was your "friend's"?