Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(May 2005)
An ex-Brit gives his views - (without
fear or favor) - of the American Scene
Another look
at religion:
 Pope John Paul II, the 264th head of the Roman Catholic Church died
on April 2nd 2005 at the age of 84 years.
After a secret vote by the members of the College of Cardinals, the 78-year-old
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was chosen on the second ballot from amongst
two dozen leading candidates to succeed Pope John Paul II and has now become
Pope Benedict the XVI. The new Pope has been characterised in some quarters as
being a somewhat remote individual and an intolerant authoritarian defender of
the faith
As there appears to be a division in the membership
of the Catholic Church on a number of major issues, the
question arises as to whether a Cardinal who served John
Paul II for nearly twenty five years as head of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of Faith, (which has been described
as the office of the Inquisition), who has been said
to discipline church dissidents and uphold church policy
against attempts at liberal reform, can now bring the
Catholic Church into the 21st Century?
 Will the new Pope
still continue to downplay the sex scandals of the alleged
paedophile type molestation of children by a number of Roman Catholic Priests?
Will he still maintain that family planning by members of the Catholic
Church, (who are known in today’s world to use contraceptives), is still
a mortal sin?
Perhaps the biggest question of all amongst the Catholic parishioners
is whether he will still adhere to the Churches attitude in preventing female
members of the church to be ordained into the Priesthood?
The new Pope is a
white haired old man who it would appear is set in his ways, and as he is
surrounded by a group of white haired old men also set
in their ways, can anyone envisage that any radical changes
in the philosophy of the current leadership of the Roman
Catholic Church to allow religiously qualified women,
(not necessarily devout Nuns), to enter the inner sanctum
of their mythical secret society?
It is imperative that
the use of contraceptive condoms in countries which have
a high degree of mortality from HIV and AIDS infections be encouraged and
not outlawed even if it does reduce the number of potential
new members of the Catholic Church. See a paragraph entitled
"The sins of their fathers",
published in the April
2002 edition of “View
from America”, which
can be found on the www.huddersfield1.co.uk website.
 Also,
whilst on the subject of the impoverished people of this
world, isn’t it about time that the Catholic
Church, and other very rich religious entities, spend
more of their vast monetary reserves on the general health
and welfare of the poor people of this world and spend
less money upon trying to so say cleanse the souls of
these impoverished people?
True story: Many years ago
my wife Sheena and I took a trip to central America,
and on a visit to a Catholic church on the shore of a
lake, (who’s name I have long since forgotten),
we were escorted around a dilapidated church by a Catholic
Priest who took great pleasure in informing us that a
grant from the United States of $8M had been spent on
putting a new roof on the church. Outside the church
a number of impoverished Mayan Indians were gathered
with the swollen belly symptoms of malnutrition, so I
asked the priest why on earth didn’t the church
spend more of the grant feeding the hungry and less on
the so called beautification of the church. His amazing
reply was. "Mr. Sykes - when you are poor you need
faith not food in order to satisfy your spiritual soul".
(Or words to that effect). I must say that I was more
than a little flabbergasted and angered by this unbelievable
statement.
Even before the time of that encounter, I was of the
opinion that the Catholic Church exploited the masses
and encouraged them to give money to the church which
many could really not afford to donate, and at the same
time produce children on an annual basis in order to
strengthen the Roman Catholic congregation - this particular
episode did nothing to change my mind.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents of these
newsletters. Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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