Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

You can be pro-freedom of speech and be against what people say. Acknowledging that what they are saying is offensive and hurtful to others doesn't make you anti freedom of speech.

You can be for something even if you don't like the result.

I'm pretty sure that wembly is pro-democracy even though he doesn't like that Obama was the result. Pretending that wembly is "anti-democracy" because he doesn't like the result of two democratic elections is asinine just as it is asinine to say that it is anti free speech to acknowledge that speech can have consequences because people won't like what you have to say.

 d-usa wrote:
You can be pro-freedom of speech and be against what people say. Acknowledging that what they are saying is offensive and hurtful to others doesn't make you anti freedom of speech.

You can be for something even if you don't like the result.

I'm pretty sure that wembly is pro-democracy even though he doesn't like that Obama was the result. Pretending that wembly is "anti-democracy" because he doesn't like the result of two democratic elections is asinine just as it is asinine to say that it is anti free speech to acknowledge that speech can have consequences because people won't like what you have to say.

Agreed.

In this instance, I'd say the paper's printing of such articles was stupid and in low taste-13 year old virgin type humor. I would never buy it or read it and would have arguments if I met any of the editors and would be supportive of protestors picketing their office. But that doesn't mean I don't think they have a right to free speech and would seek to criminalize or criminally retaliate against them.

 Frazzled wrote:
BAXX.

this is what he said:

His pretend punch aside, Francis by no means said the violent attack on Charlie Hebdo was justified. Quite the opposite: He said such horrific violence in God's name couldn't be justified and was an "aberration." But he said a reaction of some sort was to be expected.

I don't know about the other nonsense BAXX typed, other than it revealed some issues.

Completely irrelevant to what I said. The fact is you can easily ridicule any religion and any religious founders. This has been done increasingly for centuries if not millenias.

It is too late to demand respect now and immunity to satire and ridicule, with all the damage done throughout history.

 d-usa wrote:
You can be pro-freedom of speech and be against what people say. Acknowledging that what they are saying is offensive and hurtful to others doesn't make you anti freedom of speech.

You can be for something even if you don't like the result.

I'm pretty sure that wembly is pro-democracy even though he doesn't like that Obama was the result. Pretending that wembly is "anti-democracy" because he doesn't like the result of two democratic elections is asinine just as it is asinine to say that it is anti free speech to acknowledge that speech can have consequences because people won't like what you have to say.

Good point... who's this "wembly" dude?

In any case, I didn't like the result... I'm free to express those sentiment without any fear of reprisals.

I just wanted to reiterate that being supportive of free-speech does not equal to free from consequences. Folks far too often conflate the two.

However, the Pope's not to subtle excuse for the indefensible acts of violent extremists, so long as those who engage in murderous bloodletting do so in the defense of their religion... is very disappointing.

Baxx wrote:
What the pope says is simply not true. You can insult any religion. Why he says so is obvious, he's on the same side of the islamists when it comes to demanding respect from others.

There is no dignity left for those religions and for decades if not centuries there's been an ever increasing blast of blasphemous fire against religions and their founders. They got too much blood on their hands to claim dignity now. That's ben gone for over a thousand years now.

Of course you can insult and ridicule any religion.
The question is, why would you want to insult a religion? What does insulting religions accomplish beyond making people really mad and more likely to kill each other?

All people should respect the values of others and leave them in peace, even if they disagree with it. Religious people do not always do this, but that is no reason for doing the same back to them.

I think blasphemy is a necessary tool to flush out all the rotten extremists.

Charlie Hebdo publishes art, really tasteful from the little I have seen. This is what people enjoy, what people pays for.

I've heard a norwegian national commentator and journalist give this week's magazine top score.

Baxx wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
BAXX.

this is what he said:

His pretend punch aside, Francis by no means said the violent attack on Charlie Hebdo was justified. Quite the opposite: He said such horrific violence in God's name couldn't be justified and was an "aberration." But he said a reaction of some sort was to be expected.

I don't know about the other nonsense BAXX typed, other than it revealed some issues.

Completely irrelevant to what I said. The fact is you can easily ridicule any religion and any religious founders. This has been done increasingly for centuries if not millenias.

It is too late to demand respect now and immunity to satire and ridicule, with all the damage done throughout history.

The voices in your head may say you typed that. What you actually typed was this:

There is no dignity left for those religions and for decades if not centuries there's been an ever increasing blast of blasphemous fire against religions and their founders.

Again, bigot much?

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Baxx wrote:
What the pope says is simply not true. You can insult any religion. Why he says so is obvious, he's on the same side of the islamists when it comes to demanding respect from others.

There is no dignity left for those religions and for decades if not centuries there's been an ever increasing blast of blasphemous fire against religions and their founders. They got too much blood on their hands to claim dignity now. That's ben gone for over a thousand years now.

Of course you can insult any religion.
The question is, why would you want to insult a religion? What does insulting religions accomplish beyond making people really mad and more likely to kill each other?

It helps Baxx and folks like him express their unreasoned hatred and lack of tolerance?

Baxx wrote:
I think blasphemy is a necessary tool to flush out all the rotten extremists.

Charlie Hebdo publishes art, really tasteful from the little I have seen. This is what people enjoy, what people pays for.

I've heard a norwegian national commentator and journalist give this week's magazine top score.

Its childish and puerile, something a 13 year old future neckbeard would draw.

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
You can be pro-freedom of speech and be against what people say. Acknowledging that what they are saying is offensive and hurtful to others doesn't make you anti freedom of speech.

You can be for something even if you don't like the result.

I'm pretty sure that wembly is pro-democracy even though he doesn't like that Obama was the result. Pretending that wembly is "anti-democracy" because he doesn't like the result of two democratic elections is asinine just as it is asinine to say that it is anti free speech to acknowledge that speech can have consequences because people won't like what you have to say.

Good point... who's this "wembly" dude?

He is my satirical version of whembly

In any case, I didn't like the result... I'm free to express those sentiment without any fear of reprisals.

I just wanted to reiterate that being supportive of free-speech does not equal to free from consequences. Folks far too often conflate the two.

However, the Pope's not to subtle excuse for the indefensible acts of violent extremists, so long as those who engage in murderous bloodletting do so in the defense of their religion... is very disappointing.

Are you also offended by the excuse for the indefensible acts of violent extremists made by the victims themselves?

Some of them are on record as saying exactly the same thing that the pope and many others have said. That they know that what they are doing is offensive and that there will be consequences for them. They knew that attacking their religion will drive some of them to try and murder them, and they did it anyway.

Because they knew that acknowledging a potential consequence of your speech is a separate issue from having freedom of speech.

Heard the individual who sold them the weapons (and gear?) turned himself in for fear of being a target

Baxx wrote:
I think blasphemy is a necessary tool to flush out all the rotten extremists.

Charlie Hebdo publishes art, really tasteful from the little I have seen. This is what people enjoy, what people pays for.

I've heard a norwegian national commentator and journalist give this week's magazine top score.

Extremists won't be flushed out by blasphemy, quite the contrary. It will only reinforce them.
Extremism can only be destroyed by fighting ignorance. Blasphemy, insults and ridicule do more harm than good for that.

Also, I thought Charlie Hebdo explicitly aimed not to be tasteful? Looks like they failed after all.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Baxx wrote:
What the pope says is simply not true. You can insult any religion. Why he says so is obvious, he's on the same side of the islamists when it comes to demanding respect from others.

There is no dignity left for those religions and for decades if not centuries there's been an ever increasing blast of blasphemous fire against religions and their founders. They got too much blood on their hands to claim dignity now. That's ben gone for over a thousand years now.

Of course you can insult and ridicule any religion.
The question is, why would you want to insult a religion? What does insulting religions accomplish beyond making people really mad and more likely to kill each other?

All people should respect the values of others and leave them in peace, even if they disagree with it. Religious people do not always do this, but that is no reason for doing the same back to them.

What blasphemy achieves? A bunch of things, hard to know where to start.

First off, and maybe most importantly, it teaches extremists one repeatingly important message: Your religion is not outside what can be ridiculed! Your religion is not immune to satire and critics. This is very important, even the pope haven't learned. More blasphemy will perhaps also make the pope learn that religion indeed can be joked with and ridiculed.

No way can I respect the values of others! I can never respect the values of Kim Yong Un. And the severe ridicule of Kim Yong Il by for instance South Park was important. Important to mock mad crazy demagogues. Most religious characters are of the same type.

After all the blood that has been shed, their values, their religions are no longer have any right to be left with respect. Not after all the victims who have died because of these ideologies.

Other than that, blasphemy is an important part of long traditioned art. Some genres are even founded on blasphemy, having it as its fundament. So it can be used as a source for creativity. And by enjoying such art, you get a community, a cultural phenomenon.

And personally, it helps to vent a lot of anger that builds up after watching what kind of idiocy happening all over the world because of deranged religious scripture.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Extremists won't be flushed out by blasphemy, quite the contrary. It will only reinforce them.
Extremism can only be destroyed by fighting ignorance. Blasphemy, insults and ridicule do more harm than good for that.

Also, I thought Charlie Hebdo explicitly aimed not to be tasteful? Looks like they failed after all.

I don't know if tasteful was the right word, but certainly enjoyable, humorous. Valuable. Necessary.

In my opinion extremists are flushed out. I've heard several local extremists say that sharia requires death penalty for drawing Muhammad. Well, they are flushed out. And those who want to kill and murder are flushed out just like in Paris. And also today in Belgium. So blasphemy flushes them out and then the police can shoot them.

Strange how you say blasphemy do more harm than good. Because during the last 3 decades, there has been a tremendous blasphemic assault on christianity, specially in Norway but also in England, USA, Brazil, Germany and many many other countries. And christian extremism is almost non-existant. And they certainly have given up caring about blasphemy any more.

Woah dude. Saying most religious leaders are the same as Kim Jong Un is not only completely untrue, but its also needlessly offensive. Sure, you can do it all you want, but it accomplishes nothing besides make you look like a colossal douche.

Far less people have died for religious reasons than for political reasons. Communism, Fascism, the Roman Empire, the Mongol invasions, British Empire, etc...

 Grey Templar wrote:
Woah dude. Saying most religious leaders are the same as Kim Jong Un is not only completely untrue, but its also needlessly offensive. Sure, you can do it all you want, but it accomplishes nothing besides make you look like a colossal douche.

Yep.

Really? I know the type, the self-justifiable, holier than thou kind of type.

Instead of saying "listen to my rules" which they know has little effect, they say "listen to my god's rule".

And dogmatic faith, believing blindly in scripture, now that got infinitely potential for damage.

Oy... This guy has issues...

 Frazzled wrote:

The voices in your head may say you typed that. What you actually typed was this:

There is no dignity left for those religions and for decades if not centuries there's been an ever increasing blast of blasphemous fire against religions and their founders.

Again, bigot much?

Not on behalf of all the people chained, tortured and killed throughout history by these institutions. There is no demanding to be immune to ridicule anymore. Not after all that killing.

Baxx wrote:
Really? I know the type, the self-justifiable, holier than thou kind of type.

Instead of saying "listen to my rules" which they know has little effect, they say "listen to my god's rule".

And dogmatic faith, believing blindly in scripture, now that got infinitely potential for damage.

Speaking of dogmatic.

When you look at people who claimed "religious" motivation for their power grabs, it actually turns out it wasn't really a sincerely held belief, it was just a convenient front for them to grab power with.

Religion in general isn't inherently violent, people are. And we will use any reason to grab power and exercise it, religion is often a convenient avenue but its not the root cause. Islam specifically does have some inherent violence within its base dogma, very few other religions do. So don't judge all religions by the actions of one particular religion, and certainly don't make sweeping claims and equivocations with horrible bloodthirsty tyrants that are clearly not true.

Baxx wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

The voices in your head may say you typed that. What you actually typed was this:

There is no dignity left for those religions and for decades if not centuries there's been an ever increasing blast of blasphemous fire against religions and their founders.

Again, bigot much?

Not on behalf of all the people chained, tortured and killed throughout history by these institutions. There is no demanding to be immune to ridicule anymore. Not after all that killing.

And how many of those people are the current pope?

Baxx wrote:
Really? I know the type, the self-justifiable, holier than thou kind of type.

Instead of saying "listen to my rules" which they know has little effect, they say "listen to my god's rule".

And dogmatic faith, believing blindly in scripture, now that got infinitely potential for damage.

Dogmatic belief in secularism in France is leading to a bigoted 'pure-blooded frenchmen' movement which is gaining political power where the population is out to rid their country of jews, islam, minorities in a thinly disguised white supremacist movement. And we all know how Europeans deal with such issues... they have a 'final solution' which fits all needs in that part of the world.

Religion doesn't have a monopoly on extremist views which harm others and result int he death of people and removal of human freedoms. More often than not it is the Human Ego which is the driving force, and religion is a tool. As we can see from this incident, Secular beliefs can be just as extreme and destructive.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Woah dude. Saying most religious leaders are the same as Kim Jong Un is not only completely untrue, but its also needlessly offensive. Sure, you can do it all you want, but it accomplishes nothing besides make you look like a colossal douche.

Far less people have died for religious reasons than for political reasons. Communism, Fascism, the Roman Empire, the Mongol invasions, British Empire, etc...

Kim Jong Un is no less holy for the north koreans as any religious character is to anyone else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nkelsch wrote:

Dogmatic belief in secularism in France is leading to a bigoted 'pure-blooded frenchmen' movement which is gaining political power where the population is out to rid their country of jews, islam, minorities in a thinly disguised white supremacist movement. And we all know how Europeans deal with such issues... they have a 'final solution' which fits all needs in that part of the world.

Religion doesn't have a monopoly on extremist views which harm others and result int he death of people and removal of human freedoms. More often than not it is the Human Ego which is the driving force, and religion is a tool. As we can see from this incident, Secular beliefs can be just as extreme and destructive.

Sounds dangerous. Got sources? Sounds fascistic and ignorant. Few secular beliefs are as dangerous in Europe today as Islam is. Specially because secular belief usually are subject to critics and ridicule because it's not holy.

 Frazzled wrote:
In this instance, I'd say the paper's printing of such articles was stupid and in low taste-13 year old virgin type humor.

Okay, please tell me you are not opposing the 13 years old virgins that have bad sense of humor to the 13-years-old that already had sex and therefore have better sense of humor. That would be extremely creepy. In fact, I would say I find even the expression “13-years-old virgins” creepy by itself.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Not on behalf of all the people chained, tortured and killed throughout history by these institutions. There is no demanding to be immune to ridicule anymore. Not after all that killing.

And how many of those people are the current pope?

Oy oy oy.... Where to start...

Baxx wrote:
First off, and maybe most importantly, it teaches extremists one repeatingly important message: Your religion is not outside what can be ridiculed! Your religion is not immune to satire and critics. This is very important, even the pope haven't learned. More blasphemy will perhaps also make the pope learn that religion indeed can be joked with and ridiculed.

Why would you want to teach extremists such a message? It will only reinforce their extremism and piss off non-extremist believers as well, maybe even driving them towards extremism.

Baxx wrote:
No way can I respect the values of others!

Oh dear...
It looks like we have an extremist over here!
According to himself, he now wants to be ridiculed and blasphemed.

Baxx wrote:
I can never respect the values of Kim Yong Un. And the severe ridicule of Kim Yong Il by for instance South Park was important. Important to mock mad crazy demagogues. Most religious characters are of the same type.

Kim Yong Un is not a religion. Mocking demagogic religious leader and mocking religious extremists is important. But mock the people themselves, not their religion.

Baxx wrote:
After all the blood that has been shed, their values, their religions are no longer have any right to be left with respect. Not after all the victims who have died because of these ideologies.

Their religions never shed any blood, those people did.

Baxx wrote:
Other than that, blasphemy is an important part of long traditioned art. Some genres are even founded on blasphemy, having it as its fundament. So it can be used as a source for creativity. And by enjoying such art, you get a community, a cultural phenomenon.

I know of no artistic genres founded in blasphemy. Blasphemy is something that is illegal in most of the world, even in the West. Why you would want to have a community around insulting others is beyond me. Are you sure you are feeling allright?

Baxx wrote:
And personally, it helps to vent a lot of anger that builds up after watching what kind of idiocy happening all over the world because of deranged religious scripture.

That makes you no better than the extremists.

Baxx wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Extremists won't be flushed out by blasphemy, quite the contrary. It will only reinforce them.
Extremism can only be destroyed by fighting ignorance. Blasphemy, insults and ridicule do more harm than good for that.

Also, I thought Charlie Hebdo explicitly aimed not to be tasteful? Looks like they failed after all.

I don't know if tasteful was the right word, but certainly enjoyable, humorous. Valuable. Necessary.

In my opinion extremists are flushed out. I've heard several local extremists say that sharia requires death penalty for drawing Muhammad. Well, they are flushed out. And those who want to kill and murder are flushed out just like in Paris. And also today in Belgium. So blasphemy flushes them out and then the police can shoot them.

Strange how you say blasphemy do more harm than good. Because during the last 3 decades, there has been a tremendous blasphemic assault on christianity, specially in Norway but also in England, USA, Brazil, Germany and many many other countries. And christian extremism is almost non-existant. And they certainly have given up caring about blasphemy any more.

There was never any 'blasphemic assault' that diminished Christian extremism. The diminishing of Christian extremism has been a slow process that started with the Renaissance and Enlightenment, people gained more knowledge, became less ignorant and thus less prone to extremism. Blasphemy had nothing to do with that and still remained illegal.

Baxx wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Woah dude. Saying most religious leaders are the same as Kim Jong Un is not only completely untrue, but its also needlessly offensive. Sure, you can do it all you want, but it accomplishes nothing besides make you look like a colossal douche.

Far less people have died for religious reasons than for political reasons. Communism, Fascism, the Roman Empire, the Mongol invasions, British Empire, etc...

Kim Jong Un is no less holy for the north koreans as any religious character is to anyone else.

Kim Jong Un has the power of the state behind him, the Pope and any other religious leader, absent a supreme theocrat who has control of a state, does not. If somebody in North Korea does something that Kim Jong Un doesn't like then Kim Jong Un can send armed men to imprison that person or kill that person because the state always has a monopoly on force. If a Catholic anywhere does something that the Pope doesn't like, the absolute worst thing the Pope can do is excommunicate that person, which does zero physical harm, has no impact on their liberty and merely makes them no longer an official, recognized member of the Catholic faith. That's a huge difference.

In Western democracies religious leaders aren't capable of wielding the kind of power that a dictator like Kim Jong Un or a theocrat like the Supreme Leader of Iran or a monarch like the King of Saudi Arabia, unless the people elect a religious leader to office but even then that leader would be constrained by the laws.

Baxx wrote:
Today's pope is a continuation of previous popes. Luckily with a lot less power.

I suggest you actually look up Pope Francis and his actions and words beyond this single case before making that claim.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Kim Yong Un is not a religion. Mocking demagogic religious leader and mocking religious extremists is important. But mock the people themselves, not their religion.

I am more in favour of mocking religions than mocking religious people.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Their religions never shed any blood, those people did.

By specific instructions from scripture. Beliefs have consequences. Different ideologies give different actions.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

I know of no artistic genres founded in blasphemy. Blasphemy is something that is illegal in most of the world, even in the West. Why you would want to have a community around insulting others is beyond me. Are you sure you are feeling allright?

I'm not sure if we speak about the same thing, you mention insulting others. I'm talking about insulting power regimes, bloody ideologies and dogmatic religions.

Blasphemy is illegal? You know how crazy that is? It opens up just an absurd worm-whole of crazyness. If blasphemy is forbidden, everything is.

Ok so you have never heard about Black Metal? It's been around since the early 80's. Today it is a flourishing genre with bands from all over the world playing all over the world. One of the key ingredients in much of extreme metal is the search for the absolute blasphemy. Even much of the early thrash metal was very much about blasphemy.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Baxx wrote:
And personally, it helps to vent a lot of anger that builds up after watching what kind of idiocy happening all over the world because of deranged religious scripture.

That makes you no better than the extremists.

Really? In my opinion that makes me a hell of alot better than any extremist. Everyday I see the world filled with religious crazyness, killing, torture, injustice. Extreme blasphemy helps me cope with that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Baxx wrote:
Today's pope is a continuation of previous popes. Luckily with a lot less power.

I suggest you actually look up Pope Francis and his actions and words beyond this single case before making that claim.

And I haven't?

Prestor Jon wrote:

Kim Jong Un has the power of the state behind him, the Pope and any other religious leader, absent a supreme theocrat who has control of a state, does not. If somebody in North Korea does something that Kim Jong Un doesn't like then Kim Jong Un can send armed men to imprison that person or kill that person because the state always has a monopoly on force. If a Catholic anywhere does something that the Pope doesn't like, the absolute worst thing the Pope can do is excommunicate that person, which does zero physical harm, has no impact on their liberty and merely makes them no longer an official, recognized member of the Catholic faith. That's a huge difference.

In Western democracies religious leaders aren't capable of wielding the kind of power that a dictator like Kim Jong Un or a theocrat like the Supreme Leader of Iran or a monarch like the King of Saudi Arabia, unless the people elect a religious leader to office but even then that leader would be constrained by the laws.

Sounds very familiar of the history of catholicism in my country and many others in europe.

As I said, luckily with less power. History is spilled red with blood of those who opposed earlier popes. Back when the popes had power similar to any modern day dictator.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Kim Yong Un is not a religion. Mocking demagogic religious leader and mocking religious extremists is important. But mock the people themselves, not their religion.

I am more in favour of mocking religions than mocking religious people.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Their religions never shed any blood, those people did.

By specific instructions from scripture. Beliefs have consequences. Different ideologies give different actions.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

I know of no artistic genres founded in blasphemy. Blasphemy is something that is illegal in most of the world, even in the West. Why you would want to have a community around insulting others is beyond me. Are you sure you are feeling allright?

I'm not sure if we speak about the same thing, you mention insulting others. I'm talking about insulting power regimes, bloody ideologies and dogmatic religions.

Blasphemy is illegal? You know how crazy that is? It opens up just an absurd worm-whole of crazyness. If blasphemy is forbidden, everything is.

Ok so you have never heard about Black Metal? It's been around since the early 80's. Today it is a flourishing genre with bands from all over the world playing all over the world. One of the key ingredients in much of extreme metal is the search for the absolute blasphemy. Even much of the early thrash metal was very much about blasphemy.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Baxx wrote:
And personally, it helps to vent a lot of anger that builds up after watching what kind of idiocy happening all over the world because of deranged religious scripture.

That makes you no better than the extremists.

Really? In my opinion that makes me a hell of alot better than any extremist. Everyday I see the world filled with religious crazyness, killing, torture, injustice. Extreme blasphemy helps me cope with that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Baxx wrote:
Today's pope is a continuation of previous popes. Luckily with a lot less power.

I suggest you actually look up Pope Francis and his actions and words beyond this single case before making that claim.

And I haven't?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Prestor Jon wrote:

Kim Jong Un has the power of the state behind him, the Pope and any other religious leader, absent a supreme theocrat who has control of a state, does not. If somebody in North Korea does something that Kim Jong Un doesn't like then Kim Jong Un can send armed men to imprison that person or kill that person because the state always has a monopoly on force. If a Catholic anywhere does something that the Pope doesn't like, the absolute worst thing the Pope can do is excommunicate that person, which does zero physical harm, has no impact on their liberty and merely makes them no longer an official, recognized member of the Catholic faith. That's a huge difference.

In Western democracies religious leaders aren't capable of wielding the kind of power that a dictator like Kim Jong Un or a theocrat like the Supreme Leader of Iran or a monarch like the King of Saudi Arabia, unless the people elect a religious leader to office but even then that leader would be constrained by the laws.

Sounds very familiar of the history of catholicism in my country and many others in europe.

As I said, luckily with less power. History is spilled red with blood of those who opposed earlier popes. Back when the popes had power similar to any modern day dictator.

Baxx wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Baxx wrote:
Today's pope is a continuation of previous popes. Luckily with a lot less power.

I suggest you actually look up Pope Francis and his actions and words beyond this single case before making that claim.

And I haven't?

Apparently not if you regard the removal of intimidating gold furniture from the popes chamber in the vatican and the cessation of protecting paedophiles and actively highlighting them as a problem and calling them a cancer in the church, not to mention calling for greater tolerance for homosexuality and transgender peoples.

That is all pretty big steps away from previous policy.