Does anyone have an answer to Pope Benedict XVI's question?

Question

"I ask myself, could anyone standing face to face with people who actually do suffer violence and sexual exploitation explain that these tragedies, portrayed in virtual form, are considered merely entertainment?"

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080717/twl-australia-vatican-pope-culture-dc3662d.html

Answer 1

The man's not wrong, is he?

Answer 2

No because he was asking himself, so how can anyone else answer?

"I ask myself..."

Answer 3

I think he is wrong in some respects. if you look at soaps, especially Hollyoaks, these subjects are covered with realism and compassion. If seeing it on TV brings to light what is happening and makes even 1 person aware of something happening around them then it has helped. When you watch a character on TV that you identify with suffer, you can almost feel their pain (providing the acting is good). It makes you more empathic towards real victims.

The story line that is coming up in Eastenders with Whitney and Bianca's boyfriend will highlight child abuse. I for one hope is it handled with realism, because if it makes one abused child say 'no, this is not right' then its done its job.

Answer 4

That's a poorly worded question - to the extent that I have no idea what he is actually asking.

Answer 5

The Catholic church really does crack me up.

"I ask myself, could anyone standing face to face with people who actually do suffer sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests explain why that abuse was systematically covered up by the Catholic church over a period of decades?"

"I ask myself, could anyone standing face to face with any of the millions of African children made orphans due to the AIDS pandemic, explain why the Catholic church is against contraception?"

"I ask myself, could anyone standing face to face with children who actually do suffer violence and sexual abuse in care homes, explain why the Catholic church would rather those children remain in care rather than be adopted by a loving homosexual man or couple?"

Answer 6

Hes right.

The media & the entertainment industry today thrives on vicarious violence that desensitises even little children to violence. Check out newspapers headlines & popular pc games...theres blood, gore & mini skirts galore.

Children watch this & are entertained.

They don't flinch or bat an eyelid to things that would have made me close my eyes when i was a kid.

Answer 7

That's rich, coming from him I can tell you.

Answer 8

""In our personal lives and in our communities, we encounter a hostility, something dangerous; a poison which threatens to corrode what is good, reshape who we are and distort the purpose for which we have been created," he said.""

And he believes the Catholic church should stand up and speak out.

Seems strange to hear these words from a man who grew up in n**i Germany and whose church at that time was notoriously silent about that particular "poison which threatened to corrode that which was good"

Answer 9

News and jobs-http://ndtvnews.net/

Answer 10

The Pope, were he even responsible, would realize,  that the Catholic cult and the prior worship of a man named Jesus Christ got humanity all tangled in worshipping One False Idol as being perfect,., namely Jesus Christ.   And in that worship, made many graven images unto it and bowed before it and celebrated it, all the while claiming that it was perfect.

When humanity worships anything that has some amount of departure from functional behavior, even at times, this makes for a dysfunctional humanity. This leads humanity in the temptation of worshipping false idols everywhere else too!

Jesus, if he were perfect, if he was able to live up to loving his enemies, would have been able to tame those who disagreed with him and dissuaded them from killing him.  So since he could not do that, since he antagonized them instead, he got crucified.

I am here to verbally crucify the Pope.   This man is one of millions of people, who while well intentioned, I am sure, like most folk, hasn't got a clue about the imaginative human spirit of people who have learned ways to get along better than anything he ever got taught!

Forgive Affirmed Spirit beats the Catholic church anyday, hands down, but this society is full of money hungry, sometimes desperate attempts to grab fortunes anyway they can ..people, who become clergy to get a cushier life and are willing to fake and put out occasional statements like the one you refer to, just to make themselves look better than some situations in front of their constituents.

I pity this man and all the other rich people who make money off these doctrines, worshipping false idolatry in Jesus Christ, even though.....for all their falsehood, these people have enough money to kill my family and friends who disagree with them, who would never harm them...unless we knew they were trying to harm us..positively.  And that is why this false worship will go on and on, because these people are ruthless and sneaky and will kill people with negligence and purpose to keep their cushy positions in life.

I should be glad they do their dirty work behind closed doors, because if it was outright, and I could not dissuade them from it,  and nature were to leave me with enough time and energy, I would probably go on a rampage hunting them down!

They just don't know any better and it is all entertainment for Creation Energy that we all helped to create.  I wish there was a peaceful loving way to change it.  But so far in my life, I meet with them, they smile at me as if I don't know what I am talking about, and continue to take the money from their pews.

At least sometimes their organizations do some good charity work to help feed somebody in need.  I will give them that.  I would not mind being a part of that, ..just not the false idol worship that goes along with it.  I just about want to puke when I think of it...

Life does not always seem FAIR!

Hi!  I am a Forgive Affirmed Spirit and this is what I profess and try to act like.

Forgive Affirmed Spirit is the belief in a way of life that is a method of grief resolution and functional communication processing involving active listenning, sympathy, empathy and affirmation of shock, denial, anger, guilt, depression, loneliness and hope...a kind of ego-equilibrium seeking methodology.

A Greater Works of communication and action, a way to learn to love your enemies "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you AS IF YOU WERE THEM!"  



And nobody is perfect!  NOBODY!  We are all judgeable, hopefully in a graceful discerning way!   We are all doing our best every moment!

Humans judge everything  as we are a part of it.  Without difference, we have nothing to live for, nothing to witness.  Sin is difference, the relative seriousness with regards to law and survival of other beings, is punishable by the courts. The best way to judge is with as much graceful discernment as one can muster in a given moment!

Life is the question(uncertainty) asked by the exhaling infinitely compacted imagination invention, or no thing, which is completely certain of everything, completely omniscient or all knowing.

When I die, I believe I will be in a new state, aware of all that is and yet divided into the nature of dust that I am in, whereupon my dust shall fall.  My being will remain an infinite part of an infinite being and infinite knowledge without my material human being status of now. So there will be a change.



But my soul, my passions and discompassions, will move on to infinite places of comfort and challenge.  Able to return to this state of uncertainty and free choice illusion for another ride when it is called effectively to do so.

So that the children of God, the creations of God, .. are actually part in parcel of that God or Creation Energy!

This  life is a roller coaster ride. Enjoy your passion within it and whatever gathering of two or more in Forgive Affirmed Spirit to make it better can garner.

Healing be unto you and yours and me and mine in

Forgive Affirmed Spirit

Thanks for the question.

Answer 11

I agree. I heard that "Darfur- the musical" is coming out soon.

Answer 12

i couldnt ,, its sick that people would do that

Answer 13

My answer would be "No, if they answer anything other then I do not believe they understand the state the world is getting itself into"

I'm not religous and don't usually agree with religous rantings, but he's got a point with this one.

sorry, but not understanding the question shows your own ignorance, not his.

Answer 14

It is hard to listen to critcism from the head of an organisation which still tries to justify mass genocides and torturing people to death for trying to exercise free speech. The Pope needs to take a long hard look at his own church before he starts to lecture others.

I would never try and justify violence as entertainment but what is wrong with exploiting sexuality?  We are sexual beings.  The church exploits sexuality in its choice of models for its own art. It just refuses to be honest about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Miche...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangel...

Answer 15

The answer is yes

Answer 16

He himself still considered those were merely entertainment. That is the meaning of his question.

In that article, he ask people be Godly. Perhaps, God love those things.

However, anti-christ does not mean godless lives. In fact, Jesus was so sinful that everyone can crucify him. That is our ungodly lives is for righteousness: so right that we would go to h**l instead.