Catholic Priests Against Free Speech

Just in case we were on the verge of imagining that only Muslims would like to silence negative takes on their own particular superstitions, here come the Catholic Church's German bishops to remind us that Christians know a thing or two of their own about censorship.

Catholic leaders in Germany have acted to try to prevent music channel MTV from showing the controversial cartoon series Popetown.

The first episode of Popetown - which features a Pope on a pogo stick - is due to be aired in the country.

But bishops from Pope Benedict XVI's home state of Bavaria say the satirical series is insulting to Catholics, and have filed a legal injunction.

[...]

BBC bosses were concerned the 10-part animation, set in a fictional Vatican, would offend Catholics.

It shows an elderly Pope bouncing through St Peter's in Rome on a cross-like pogo stick and satirises religious ceremonies.

"In this way the Catholic faith and the Catholic church are exposed to ridicule, which is justified neither by the freedom of opinion, of art, of the press nor of broadcasting," the archdiocese of Munich and Freising said in a statement.

What a lot of rubbish: ridicule of the Catholic Church and any other creed or organization is justified precisely by the very freedoms this ludicrous advocate of ignorance wishes to exclude as justification. To say that I'm surprised by such inanities coming from a religious "leader" would be a lie: "holy" men are either scoundrels or lunatics by definition*, and the only thing which sets the likes of the Bavarian bishops apart from your garden-variety mosque nutter is that instead of resorting to death threats and fatwas, they've learnt to use politics and the courts to press their absurdities on the rest of society. The end goal is still the same, however - to shut down sceptical inquiry while elevating their religious taboos to the law of the land - and the response to all these spiritual scam artists should be the same, regardless of what names they call their imaginary friends: to tell em to go f*** themselves if they can't take a joke.

One thing I will say though is that I find it hard to believe these priestly putzes would have had the gall to initiate such an action had such a negative precedent not already been set by the pathetic European response to Muslim bullying earlier in the year. Surely every guru, priest and witch-doctor out there has now learnt that Western governments will bend over backwards to accommodate your demands just as long as you're willing to back them up with the threat of the wrath of the mob.

*No, I'm not exaggerating. Anybody who claims to truly believe that some collection of legends and personal claims of unverifiable experiences gives him/her a shortcut to the ultimate truths is either a moron or a crook.

Comments

[Steve Edwards]

"One thing I will say though is that I find it hard to believe these priestly putzes would have had the gall to initiate such an action had such a negative precedent not already been set by the pathetic European response to Muslim bullying earlier in the year."

Indeed. And the left-liberal half-wits who caved in to Muslim bullying had better keep that in mind.

[Matt]

I doubt this will have any effect at all. The Bishops are unable to motivate Catholics to violence, and thus dont have the sway the muslims do.