The obscurantist Papa Ratzi (PhotoShoppery: mine)
In this morning’s Times Online, we learn that, not only do the politicians in the Vatican oppose the decriminalization of homosexuality, they also refused to sign a UN document on the rights of the disabled because it failed to condemn abortion.
From Times Online:
Vatican stands up against further UN resolutions
Richard Owen in RomeFollowing the Vatican’s controversial opposition this week to a UN declaration calling for an end to discrimination against homosexuals, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican envoy to the UN, has confirmed that the Holy See also refused to sign a UN document last May on the rights of the disabled because it did not condemn abortion or assert the rights of foetuses with birth defects.
The Vatican made its position clear today Wednesday as it marked the United Nations International Day of Disabled People. Father Federico Lombardi, the Pope’s spokesman, said the Holy See’s position was “already widely known”. Archbishop Migliore said the Vatican supported the rights of the disabled, but could not accept a clause in the UN declaration affirming a right to “sexual health and reproduction” because “in some countries such rights include the right to abortion”.
The Italian left of centre Democratic Party said that coupled with the Vatican’s stand on gays, this showed a “return to obscurantism” under Pope Benedict XVI. The Holy See’s position was also criticised by the Italian Federation for the Handicapped.
Obscurantist is an understatement. To reject the needs and rights of disabled human beings, because a woman somewhere might be allowed to manage her own body, is an obscenity and smacks of the now-beatified Mother Teresa’s sadistic glorification of pain and suffering.
