It seems religious leaders in this country feel they must exercise their right to make themselves look like total dickheads. Archbishop of Sydney George Pell has told Catholic MPs in the NSW parliament that if they vote in favor of overturning the ban on stem cell research they may be denied communion.

This is wrong in so many ways:
1. It’s hypocritical. Can you imagine how pissed off George Pell would be if a minister made a similar comment to catholic priests.
2. It’s blackmail.
3. It’s interfering in political affairs. Church and state are separate in Australia.
4. A politician represents their constituents. Just because a politician is catholic does not mean they can ignore their responsibility to represent the people who voted them into office.
5. It makes Pell look like a dickhead – actually that’s a good thing.

All the Catholic MPs – even the ones voting against the bill – have laid into Pell over his statements. Emergency Services Minister Nathan Rees gave him an ultimatum, “I think he’s got three options – he can apologise, he can run for parliament or he can invite further comparisons with that serial boofhead Sheik Alhilali.”

Pell is on a crusade against secularism in Australia, but comments like this only turn people away from the church. I hope he keeps it up.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 11:55 am and is filed under Medicine, Politics, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.