The National (Abu Dhabi)
July 17, 2008
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080717/FOREIGN/912118597/1015/NEWS&Profile=1015
SYDNEY // Protesters angry at Pope Benedict XVI's attitudes to birth control and homosexuality will try to hand condoms to young Catholic pilgrims at the height of World Youth Day celebrations in Sydney.
Demonstrators have accused Pope Benedict of being a bigot and have promised to make their complaints heard during the Catholic Church's international festival of faith.
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| Pope Benedict XVI waves from his pope mobile as he arrives at Bangaroo for his official World Youth Day welcome in Sydney. |
"The pope has a reactionary view on many of the big social questions of the day," said Pip Hinman, a member of the NoToPope Coalition, a grouping of atheists, gays and left-wing political activists.
"It raises the whole question of how do you deal with HIV/Aids. In many ways he's condemning millions of people to death by saying that this is a policy that the church is standing firm on. The Pope is very anti-woman. He doesn't think that women should have the same rights as men in society. The pope says homosexuality is evil and wrong, which is farcical."
The anti-pope lobby scored a significant win this week when they persuaded Australia's federal court to overturn controversial legislation that made it an offence to upset or harass World Youth Day participants.
Under the measures, a protester handing a condom or leaflet to festivalgoers could have been fined more than US$5,300 (Dh19,500).
The three judges decided that the so-called 'annoyance' laws rushed through by the New South Wales state government without parliamentary debate limited freedom of speech and were invalid under Australia's constitution.
Rachel Evans, another NoToPope Coalition spokesman, said they simply want to make their point peacefully. "The coalition is not anti-religious. We're not anti-Catholic youth. We want to talk to them about these issues so that they can go home and talk to the people in their churches about what Australian young people are saying to them."
On paper at least it would appear that these dissenting voices will be swamped by tens of thousands of Catholics who have poured into Sydney from all over the world.
Bishop Anthony Fisher, the World Youth Day co-ordinator, said the demonstrations will melt away in the face of such religious fervour. "Even people who have been a bit cranky with World Youth Day or have their own other issues, whatever they are, will be swept along by the beauty and joy of these young people and they'll just want to be part of that."
World Youth Day began in 1984 and has become a pivotal part of the Catholic calendar. The event in Sydney has taken five years to plan and is attracting more people than the 2000 Olympics that were staged in Australia's iconic harbourside city.
Pope Benedict has promised to apologise during his 10-day visit for sexual abuse by the clergy in Australia, and is expected to address the past mistreatment of indigenous people by Catholic missionaries. Concerns about climate change will also be addressed by the leader of the world's billion Catholics.
Although two-thirds of Australians identify themselves as Christians, religion is a declining force, according to a survey by a German political think-tank.
The Bertelsmann Foundation found that Australia is one of the least religious nations in the western world.
That matters little to the legions of fresh-faced Catholics in Sydney for World Youth Day festivities.
"I want to meet new friends and share my story about God. I'm so excited because I've never seen the pope," said Wendy from Indonesia.
Peter Hellenbrand, a 22-year-old real estate student from The Netherlands, was equally enthusiastic. "It's kinda cool to be in the same city as the pope," he said as he stood on the steps of St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney.
Marcela Franco, 18, from Bogota, Colombia, could barely contain her excitement. "Oh my God, it's just a great spiritual experience. This is the greatest thing I've ever done in my life. I think I'm going to cry all day when I see the pope. I'm going to be so, so happy."
Most of these young people said they were not worried about anti-pope protests. Neither is John Pridmore, a reformed London gangster who hopes to meet the pontiff during World Youth Day and who promised tolerance toward protesters.
"In the old days, I might have been a bit violent but now I'm a pussycat, so I'd just talk to them reasonably, please God, and hopefully we could have a logical conversation," he said.
Mr Pridmore has devoted his life to God since renouncing his violent criminal past in the early 1990s, and has travelled to Australia to address a vigil ahead of a Papal Mass in Sydney.
"I had a few atheists who came up to me and we had a real beautiful, civil conversation because we respected each other," he said.
"I was one of these people who thought that God was a nice little story that was just made up to keep us from being bad so I can hardly blame them for their views but what I can do is explain to them what happened in my life."
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