Slashdot Mirror
Pope Rails Against the Internet and Transparency
tcd004 writes "At a conference on digital media at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI attacked the idea of transparency in the Internet age, warning that digital transparency exacerbates tensions between nations and within nations themselves and increases the 'dangers of ... intellectual and moral relativism,' which can lead to 'multiple forms of degradation and humiliation' of the essence of a person, and to the 'pollution of the spirit.' All in all, it seemed a pretty grim view of the wide-open communication environment being demanded by the Internet age."
I think that's what they call this, the Pope making an issue out of Internet transparency out of nowhere.
Calling out bogus battery capacity claims.
Ugh, there goes my karma. But fuck it, eh. It's a downhill battle regardless.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9sJVJMiYM
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Does anyone truly care what this guy thinks? "Pollution of the spirit?" From a Catholic priest? Please...
And holding everything locked down tight as a "state secret" is so much better. Oh wait, right, there's China. Yes, I see how that is so much better.
The pope is either an idiot, or a budding tyrant with ambitions of bringing the world back to the dark ages under dominion of the vatican.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Openly transparent communication undermines power structures that rely on the opposite
Its OK if they ruin the life of many but if some one else does ruin the live of someone else it is not OK
I see their views are so absolute good thing they are to tell us rigth from wrong
Morality is a human invention and is not by any stretch objective. Sorry to burst your bubble.
While we're on that path, god doesn't exist. Sorry.
That 140 character limit drives him up the wall.
The problem isn't the pedo priests, it's the peoples ability to find out about them!
Seems to me he's saying it's a problem for Governments and Institutions, transparency is always good for the people. Oh yea, maybe transparency can be a problem for the Church as we learn more and more about what went on there....
So the leader of the organization with the filthiest possible secrets speaks out against transparency.
Okay, no surprise there...
The priority of the catholic church is the catholic church. Not God. Not innocent children. Not you.
see a Text Widget
I never got what the big deal was with The Pope anyways. He's just as human as you or I, so his interpretations can be just as flawed as yours or mine, yet elected by his own circle of peers, instead of by the masses that follow his orders.
I'll give him due respect as a fellow human being, one whose wisdom probably far exceeds my own in a great many things. However, I have a feeling I know a bit more on the subject of Internet Transparency than him, so I'll politely decline his advice.
What, not enough Kangaroo courts to support his position?
After Ruby on Rails, it's Pope on Rails??
The words of the Bishop of Rome about the internet, freedom, and transparency, ring very familiar.
It was this very flavor of rhetoric that came from British citizens, Muslim Jihadis, who decry that freedom is the basic sin of mankind. They yearn for Sharia law to rule their lives.
Of course, I have no problem should they choose to live their lives under Sharia law. My problem comes about when they decide that I should live my life by Sharia law, whether I want to or not. It is, they explain, good for me.
So when el Papa decided that internet freedom is not for me, my immediate reaction was, "I've heard all this before."
It never fails to astound me when Men of God not only want to live their own lives by their code of conduct, but they want me to live that way, also.
When God shows up in a burning bush, and then explains how I should live, I may decide to give it some credibility. Until then, I'll go on striving for freedom of choice for myself, and for others. They can, if they choose, live by Biblical law.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
The obvious reason he is against such transparency is because it would mean the church would actually have to own up to all the child molestation in his church. I think he needs to be worrying more about the "pollution of the spirit" of these abused kids first and foremost.
Letting publishers put biblical texts directly in the hands of believers without going through the catholic church. And even worse spreading a view of religion that did not put the catholic hierarchy at the center of the spiritual universe.
The change is coming. Transparency can lead to "degradation and humiliation", but so can secretiveness. If you want to remain relevant, then learn to deal with it instead of trying to suppress it.
The news of the Pope not taking action on the sexual abuse of children is discussed everywhere on the Internet.
With Catholic countries like Brazil and Italy creating bizarre Internet laws, the Pope has a good chance of limiting free speech (good old days for the church) in some parts of the world.
Pope powers activate ... ignorance activated ... intolerance activated ...
it was impossible to repress all the wrongdoings of him in regard to pedophile priest cases, and the issue of pedophilia in catholic church.
so the genius comes up attacking internet transparency.
Read radical news here
"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master." - Pravin Lal of Alpha Centauri (1999)
The Pope touched my junk liberally. He was performing many red flag touches.
Killing internet openness because could be abuses, despite all the good that could come from it, could be very similar to killing religion, because, well, existed (child) abusers. Probably the net gain of killing both would be possitive for mankind.
I suspect the Pope is only bashing the internet because he watched Thunderf00t's video "The Internet: Where religion goes to die", realized he had an excellent point, and decided that the only way to avoid having people jump ship on his ancient superstition was to ban the free-flow of information and ideas.
Religion depends on converting young minds to replace old dieing old ones
Kids spend more time online than adults
Online sources have been far harsher critics of the sex abuse scandals than broadcast media, and religious mythology get consistently pwned and rated down on online forums.
Obviously, the only way for the church to continue to exist in our modern era is to stop children from going online.
-I only code in BASIC.-
Exposing the depravity of my "holy" institution. Damn You, all you satan's minions! How did priests of ancient times used their free time? Ahh the good old days where priests simply didn't respect celibacy....
Intense state secrecy and lack of transparency is the sole reason the Cold War carried on for as long as it did, resulting in probably the closest the globe has ever come to nuclear holocaust.
Which is to say: go fuck yourself, Pope Benedict XVI.
Sure, that sounds great and all, with the moral relativism and the degradation and humiliation and such, but with all those upsides there's gotta be some catch to this "Internet" thing.
I actually agree with him on this one. If we understand 'intellectual relativism' to mean the ability to contrast numerous new sources of information against the reflexive dogmatism that existed before, and if we consider that exposure to new information about the clergy might actually lead to 'multiple forms of degradation and humiliation' for them, then we'd have to accept that our spirit, once pure in its certainty and unsullied by doubt, would indeed become polluted by reality.
A life without certainty in exchange for a world that constantly subverts and challenges my assumptions? A world that won't let me be at peace with centuries-old dogma? Sounds good to me.
Most of us call this process Growing Up.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Odds are they're doing this just to get attention away from the recent sex abuse scandal.
Of course I didn't RTFA.
In hell you get a uncensored internet with all the goatse you want. The pope loves stretching little boys anuses to goatse size.
Who cares what Der Papst thinks?
Back in 2001, when Ratzinger was head of the Holy Office, he implemented a policy that classified child abuse cases as pontifical secrets.
And Ratzinger is not an exception. This is business as usual for the Catholic church.
i dont know why. it came out of nowhere ...
Read radical news here
Of course the Pope would rail against transparency because transparency is the antithesis of power. Governments and large organizations do not want to be transparent, they want to operate in secrecy because knowledge is power. If the masses have knowledge of government activities, then they have the power to stop them and it makes propaganda that much more difficult to create.
I've got a better idea....
How about no?
There is a war going on for your mind.
It's Internet transparency that has been uncovering and unraveling the abuse scandal that has brought on a crisis within the Catholic Church. Although I'd be hard-pressed to say I was "shocked" that the Pope has no apparent interest in uncovering a network of evil, horror and corruption within the Church, I can and will say that I am disappointed. This was his golden opportunity to both prove to the world the relevance of the Church (through active demonstration) and to prove that fears (inspired by books like "Holy Blood and the Holy Grail", "The Da Vinci Code", etc, and by right-wing Baptist loonies) that the Church was an active participant in satanic activities was crud. Instead, he's chosen a path of reinforcing the worst paranoias of the deluded, seemingly preferring the genuine dangers and very real threat of inflating religious extremist violence over and above having the Church fulfill its actual* mission. *Ok, purported. It's hard to say that peace, kindness and charity have anything to do with any actual mission the Church has performed these past 2,000 or so years.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
There is nothing in the TFA stating that he's against transparency.
> "This is the time for truth, transparency and credibility. Secrecy and discretion are not values that are in fashion at the moment. We must be in a condition of having nothing to hide."
Well, not when you look at their records side by side. The Nazis vs. the Catholic church?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlWi5NvGLpE
It's totally worth it ... Doug Stanhope is the real GOD.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
All that transparency sure makes it hard to hide child rape scandals.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
"The Internet is making me increasingly irrelevant and, to boot, is serving as a means of propagating news about the criminal misconduct rampant in the archaic and faintly ridiculous institution I command. So it must be evil, since I, and what I stand for, is all that is good. Anyone publishing information that serves to discredit me or my organization is, by definition wicked, even if what they say is true. Pay attention to me!" I think that's what he means.
The pope is either an idiot, or a budding tyrant with ambitions of bringing the world back to the dark ages under dominion of the vatican.
You're wrong. It's not an either or.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
The Pope actually said, "This is the time for truth, transparency and credibility. Secrecy and discretion are not values that are in fashion at the moment. We must be in a condition of having nothing to hide." he did not "[attack] the idea of transparency in the Internet age". But, I mean it's the Pope, who cares what he actually *said*, right? /sarcasm
The Vatican has been trying frantic spin control lately. They've tried blaming the press, gays, politicians, the previous Pope, and now the Internet. It's not working. The coverup has been coming unglued for over a decade, and the latest revelations (Ireland, Belgium, Holland) make it look even worse. There are calls from US Catholics for the Pope to resign, and pressure to prosecute him in the UK.
Bruy The Vatican has no experience dealing with this. They're not used to the democratic tradition that leaders who screw up badly lose their jobs. The Vatican is still an absolute monarchy. No Pope has ever been fired.
The letter makes it clear that the local priests would shut their mouths if the pedo was "given another chance" in Rome because that got him out of the local community:
Translation: "good thing they're just dumb pollacks, right? And we had to threaten another priest to keep his dumb mouth shut or else ..."
But they still wanted to give the guy ANOTHER promotion ...
All in writing, all documented, so it's not "petty gossip" and the Nazi Pope can go sod off!
For someone who believes us to be made in God's image, and to have free will, he clearly has little faith in the ability of humans to handle themselves.
It doesn't take a genius to see that the catholic church hides behind a thin facade of Christianity but is in fact a self-serving money-grabbing regime and tool of the establishment.
The Vatican's actions speak for themselves, especially like now when even the Pope uses weasel words to advocate against truth, openness and honesty, which the bible clearly details as the most fundamental principles of being a Christian.
Here you can read the complete speech without filter: http://www.zenit.org/article-29033?l=english.
The Vatican has had centuries of practice with holding certain truths and actively deceiving people all in the name of keeping their soul pure. To bad they are filled with pedophiles. Oh wait, that's how we know there are pedophiles in their midst's from and I give them to much credit on this; transparency. No the Vatican is like any large organization.. more interested in maintaining their position than anything else. I seem to recall a certain religious icon. I don't know, the guy that got nailed to a tree for encouraging everyone to be nice to each other saying something along the lines of; in secret lies are born (or some such).
My karma is not a Chameleon.
It seems to me that His Popeliness is simply pointing out that the explosive growth of information technology over the past few decades is not automatically an unmitigated good, but that it has conferred both beneficial and deleterious effects on the lives of human beings. I personally doubt that he and I agree on precisely which effects fall into which column, but c'mon folks, this is hardly an example of the dude "Rail[ing] against the Internet and Transparency."
Posterity, my posterior.
I've read other sources and he said two things: a) The Internet has great potential, but it also could lead to relativism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativism] which can be used to undermine ethics and to justify extreme egoism. And b) he talked about unifying news and public optinion. So the net might look diverse, but in real the communicated opinions are all controlled by a few companies.
The reporter of that article obviously had an agenda. In lieu of finding a more unbiased source, I thought it might be worthwhile to at least include a report of the same talk from the opposite side of the camp: here
It would seem from this article that the Pope is looking for us to act with a conscience while on the internet, so that the internet as a whole can be an edifying experience. That is, how we use the internet is important. Raw power must be used to good ends.
Note that I do recognize and appreciate the difficulties with defining "good", "edifying", and even the institution which provides these definitions.
Disclaimer: I'm not Catholic (I'm Orthodox -- we're not in the habit of defending the Pope). I'm just trying to provide a little balance.
It's gonna blow my cover!
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
The head of the biggest institution protecting child abusers with strange bending of the own laws tells something about moral realtivism? Yes, moral relativism is bad. especially if you use it to argue with strange arguments, why its not so bad that your Bishops protected the Child molesters. Get busy with to analyze the bigotry inside the church instead of mourning that now everybody can communicate - and even faster than the church.
Although I support the wonderful Catholic church and praise the good work that they do it is not unusual for a pope to be off track. Keeping things real does not in any way diminish the Gospel or the joy of Jesus Christ. If anything having the strength to keep faith when we know the truth about others and institutions around us is simply a test for believers. Transparency simply allows light to shine into dark corners. That is something that Christ would be proud of us doing.
AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
That's just funny. ;) No doubt, he's right, the mostly open and mostly free communication made possible by the internet DOES cause conflicts, because people are waking up to the fact that the world is not as simple as we thought before the internet. Corporate and government behavior becomes increasingly transparent and since those tend to be corrupt (like any human organization that is about money and/or power), people tend to get frustrated... because now they know about them.
The conflicts are just a necessary part of a society that is becoming more aware and growing up, so to speak. That comes with growing pains, and I would have thought that every decent person would think that's a great path for humanity... but leave it to the people with undisputed, divine power, to consider this a problem.
Perhaps it's time for His Majesty, His Undisputably Wise and Holy Super Emperor, learn to spare himself and his followers the ridicule, by not speaking in public on any matter. That might leave whatever respect people still have for the Catholic Church intact, although the flow of information no doubt will be the death of this outdated, backwards and ignorant institution.
"But then, the silence was broken. Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, took his turn at the microphone. "The situation in which we are living is extremely exacting, and we are asked to be absolutely truthful and credible," he said. The last couple of months have been very difficult, he went on, with so many questions being raised about things that happened long ago. But he said, "This is the time for truth, transparency and credibility. Secrecy and discretion are not values that are in fashion at the moment. We must be in a condition of having nothing to hide." The crowd applauded."
The Pope is head of the same organization insisted that the Bible only be published all masses only be said in Latin, a language only the priests understood, because it was dangerous for lay people to actually understand the religion they were worshiping. The biggest change that the Protestant Revolution brought about was the notion that the Bible should be translated into all languages, so that people could read and understand it on their own, and not be reliant on a priestly class to interpret it for them. He was also a member of the Nazi Youth Movement. So of course he would consider it a bad thing for people to be able to find information on their own, instead of relying on the pronouncements of the ruling class. What he should be doing is warning that most of what is said on the internet is untrue, not railing against people's search for the truth.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I read the article. The Pope said these risks are from the "new media," not transparency. The original text:
I agree with him that it poses greater risks, with its greater benefits. A super-high-speed, worldwide network is a double-edged sword. It can bring good and bad, just like older forms of communication, just more of it.
the death of the power of organized religions: the free flow of information
yes: what the internet represents is the end of power structures predicated on hocus pocus
at least he knows his enemy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I suppose I should not be surprised that the Slashdot summary of the article is in complete contradiction to the contents of the article. (:sigh:) Oh, well.
To the Pope-Mobile!
I've been posting regularly for quite a while now, and haven't gotten mod points in over a friggin month, WTF. Mod this man up.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
One of the first cases is stating that the Virgin Mary's body went to heaven after she died. Which is plainly a crock of shit, if you aren't one of the faithful cultists.
But continue to enjoy your little rituals, I guess. Meanwhile, the church says that condoms are a sin, and worse than AIDS, and as a result the birth rate and STDs have not gotten any better in countries faithful to the cult. With all due to respect, the catholic church can go fuck itself.
The Catholics felt exactly the same way about reading the Bible, heck reading in general back in the day. It's the exact same argument, just different consumption methods of different media.
Hey, preacher. Leave them kids alone. All in all it's just another dick in a funny hat.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
The church, as usual, seems to think that the greatest virtue is ignorance.
This is not surprising given that faith requires ignorance, faith and knowledge are incompatible.
And of course keeping the herd ignorant makes controlling and manipulating it much easier.
"When in doubt, use brute force." Ken Thompson
They're working quite energetically on ending THAT particular problem ... no more innocent children - they're all guilty of being priest-tempters.
An airplane is going down with a Boy Scout troop, their leader, a lawyer, and the Pope. There are only 3 parachutes.
"What about the children?" says the troop leader.
"Screw the children!" says the lawyer.
"Do we have time?" says the Pope?
Please put your clothes back on :)
I read the article and didn't see where he said that at all.
From the fine article:
Emphasis mine.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Before you start criticising the pope read the article!
The summary is a really bad description of the article, for starters the pope never railed against transparency. Also judging by the style of the article (their Italian 'fixer' provides translations at one point) I am not confident the article itself provides a good summary of what the pope said.
Note: I am definitely not a fan of the pope or the catholic church, but I think there is too much grounds for genuine criticism to get distracted by some petty, inaccurate journalism.
If anybody is interested in what the Holy Father actually said about the Internet instead of just going by some sorry excuse for a journalist's spin on it, it's on the Vatican's web site:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/messages/communications/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_20020122_world-communications-day_en.html
Historically, the church has always frowned upon the unwashed masses being able to communicate and think for themselves. Hell, it was only a few decades ago that they allowed masses to be performed in languages other than Latin...effectively making 99% of their flock reliant entirely upon their interpretation of the very documents they use to "shepherd" their flock.
*yawn*
The more things change, the more they stay the same....
OK, burn me at the stake. I double dog dare ya... :)
The catholic church are desperately trying to become our teachers. Unfortunately they misheard what they are supposed to do:
No child's behind left
There is nothing against transparency in the full text of the speech, and in fact even the original article doesn't say there is. The speech seems balanced. On the one hand it says "Without fear we want to set out upon the digital sea embracing the unrestricted navigation with the same passion that for 2,000 years has steered the barque of the Church" and on the other hand there are "The dangers of homogenization and control, of intellectual and moral relativism" (these are opposed dangers, I suppose) and a "digital divide".
F**** the pope. Does anyone really care what some old crotchety derelict has to say about transparency and the net? And why does he or anyone else think he is even qualified to comment? Just because making up whatever suites you works for religion, doesn't make it work in real life.... whatever.
Talk about a smear campaign... Your take is way out there... But hey, you should get a few hundred comments on it. This is a troll/flamebait submission
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Fuck you and the choirboy you rode in on.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
less porn, more rape children
With proper karma / etc. you don't get modpoints if you visit and post too rarely or too often, something like that.
One that hath name thou can not otter
You criticize a (without any doubt) very intelligent and learned man, head of the oldest and most influential institution in modern Western history. Based on what? A text of no value, without any relevant links, without a link to a full transcription of the speach. We all want to think freely, but that requires thinking at all first. Most of the high karma posts just spit poison, like people of the underclass after 12 beers. I don't blame anyone for not recognizing that today the Church is under a crossfire (yes, that is a point in it, but really, don't you see it's really a campaign?), but please, you can do better, I am sure. Pope - nazi, that's nonsense, guys, for instance. And yet for this pure nonsense on the level of mild idiocy, the person saying that (and only that) gets a plus point. That's sweet. If I didn't know I am on the smart guys' website, I would think there are some silly peasants here, that just for the little while want to make themselves great by standing on a noble man's head. Maybe the Pope is right and the Internet does harm to human spirit. At least sometimes.
According to TFA, the pope never discusses internet transparency! The writer comes to the Vatican, hoping to hear a bit about the state of the scandal. A speaker who precedes the pope meniots that "this is the time for truth, transparency, and credibility."
When the pope speaks, according to the author, he makes no mention of transparency -- on the net or otherwise. Rather, he simply notes the four points that kdawson has mashed together in a way that implies causation -- which the pope's comments never address. The pope simply stated that:
Nowhere does the pope say that transparency leads to these things; rather, he's discussing the effects of the new media and forms of communication.
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
Oh, the intertubes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VABSoHYQr6k&feature=player_embedded
And, the child molestation is just the top of the iceberg. Corrupting people's inherent personal relationship with divinity in the name of control and power is quite evil. Teaching hate, fear and obedience and calling them love is quite evil, too.
Pope, church, impolite and evil!
A paedophile who doesn't like the internet? That is new.
...catholic church. Where you will find no mention or reference to any wrongful act the church had committed or participated in, I.E> Galileo Galilee, Magdalene laundries, or even the current wide spread pedophilia issues of the church. And there are probably more but Wikipedia entry on the church is not going to be honest and fair about it.
Sell the Vatican; donate the proceeds to the poor ( and victimized )
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
The pope's entire argument is like saying "Guns kill people." Technology is not the problem, only use or misuse of it.
While walking at night, a Caliph once heard a commotion behind the wall of a house. So, he climbed the wall and peeked inside. He saw a Muslim man drinking wine fed by his mistress (drinking alcohol is prohibited to Muslims). Of course the Caliph was angry and scolded the man. But the drunk man said that the Caliph committed a greater sin by invading his privacy (i.e., it is required in Islam to request entrance to a house before hand and it is absolutely forbidden to peek into a house). On hearing this, the Caliph, realised his mistake and dropped the issue.
Ok, what exactly is it with all the Catholic-bashing on this forum, seriously? *sigh*. You have to love Slashdot. I'm not even Catholic, I don't even particularly like them (as a faith, I mean, I have nothing against Catholics people per se), and even I'm finding the vitriol and ranting on this thread a bit distasteful.
Firstly, who here has actually read the f-ing speech huh? I bet you none.
I'm having a bit of trouble finding a full transcript, but from what I can see, nothing he said was particularly controversial. A bit empty, and sappy, in my opinion, but hardly anything earth-shattering. I mean, saying the Internet needs a soul, and encouraging Catholics to promote the truth and human diginity online? You consider that some weird take-over-the-world conspiracy? And searching back through what else he's said on the Internet, apparently from last year, around May:
It would be sad if our desire to sustain and develop online friendships were to be at the cost of our availability to engage with our families, our neighbors and those we meet in the daily reality of our places of work, education and recreation,” he said last May.
“Friendship is a great human good, but it would be emptied of its ultimate value if it were to be understood as an end to itself.”It would be sad if our desire to sustain and develop online friendships were to be at the cost of our availability to engage with our families, our neighbors and those we meet in the daily reality of our places of work, education and recreation,” he said last May.
“Friendship is a great human good, but it would be emptied of its ultimate value if it were to be understood as an end to itself.”
http://www.tonic.com/article/pope-benedict-facebook-internet/
And you bring up the whole "molesting children" thing to his arguments. That's an ad-hominem argument if ever I saw one. I mean, if we Slashdot people are really as reasonable and calmly rational as we try to purport to be, really...? Look, if he personally attacked children, yeah, sure, I'd think twice. But he's been in the job for what, a few years? And from all reports, and through trawling through what he's said/done, he is trying to shine line on the despicable things that happened. Maybe not fast enough *shrugs*. I'm not a victim, so I don't have much voice here, nor am I going to claim that I understand their pain - any words I can offer are pretty empty, and I suspect that applies to most of Slashdot. That's something for the victims, courts and church to sort out, and I really do hope it gets sorted out soon.
But at the end of the day, if you're going to attack the Pope, or the Catholics, you attack them on a discussion centred around child-abuse scandals. Why would you use a discussion forum where we're trying to dissect what he's said as your personal soap-box to rant and rave?
And if anybody manages to find a full transcript of what he said, please post it up, because I think it might clear a lot of the venom and raving on this thread
Cheers, Victor
It is fairly difficult to do evil in the bright light of day; Can be done but it is much harder. What is far worse though is when people self censor.
The Catholic church was never much into transparency. After all, knowledge is power. William Tyndale was burned at the stake in the 16th century for heresy. His heresy was to translate the bible into English so the common man could read it and make up his own mind about it. Now that was another piece of transparency the Pope of the time didn't like. I don't think the Vatican has much of a moral high ground, nor do they reflect actual Christian values. They are just a bunch of sad old men who wants to control and get money from the ignorant/fearful populace. Probably the oldest commercial corporation still in existence. "The way to make a million dollars is to start a religion." - Ron Hubbard. Sad really....
Meus subcriptio est nocens Latin quoniam bardus populus reputo is sanus callidus
First off, I get the joke. Technically he was in the Luftwaffe as part of an AA crew, members of the Luftwaffe, Wermacht and Kreigsmarine were absolved of involvement with the Nazi government (with exceptions for those who personally committed war crimes) by the allies as most of them were ordinary Germans unlike the Waffen SS (one had to be a Nazi in order to join the SS). Being a member of the Hitler Youth was something that was kind of mandatory after 1939.
I dislike the Church but I insist on being accurate. If anything, people should bash him for being a deserter but then again that would not have been uncommon at the time. I'm sure there is a Hitler parody for this out there though.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
It is ironic to hear a man who covered up hundreds if not thousands of cases of child rape in the name of his religion's good name talk about moral relativism. The Catholic Church can not die soon enough IMHO.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
Agreed. Summaries this deceptive belong on... whatever the political opposite of Fox News is.
Who does this guy think he is pontificating like that?
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
When I saw the beginning of the subject line of this article, I thought for sure it was going to say "Pope Rails Little Boy".
How the pope makes a statement about the dangers of the internet leading to ethical moral relativism which leads the internet to making a moral judgement on the pope
rather than having sex with children, they eat them?
... what the pope says, we're not taking those priests off the sexual predator web page.
Have gnu, will travel.
This greater transparency could translate well to the church.
~don't feel threatened by my pineal~
It's not the abuses anyone is complaining about, it's the cover ups. Sure, every profession is going to have people who piss on the ethical standards of that profession, and there's no reason a religious profession would somehow dodge that.
The thing is, if a doctor violates the Hippocratic oath, he loses his medical license. A corrupt lawyer gets disbarred. A fraudulent scientist gets publicly shamed and unable to get money for future research. Jobs with less on the line usually just result in the offender being fired. Whatever the job is though, when someone is corrupt, they're generally removed, and when that fails to happen, the company they work for is punished instead.
With the catholic church, they covered up the pedophilia for decades, and now that they can't hide it any more, do they at least finally apologize, vow to fix it, and start making good on that promise by immediately kicking the most obvious offenders out of the clergy and turning them over the cops? Nope, they instead whine that that transparency of the internet is bad, because it makes their wrongdoing public. That isn't bad PR, that's a systemic failure of the morals they claim to uphold.
THIS is why so few still have any respect for them. Failing to discover abuse is one thing, but being fully aware of it and actively hiding it is when they very much cross the line between "good profession with the occasional douchebag" to "group that actively promotes evil behavior."
Similarly, you can look at the police in the US. Does anyone complain that there's a few evil, unethical cops? Of course not - sometimes you really can't weed them out until they majorly screw up... except they don't. They're "doing administrative work until an investigation can be thoroughly completed." Translation: We're keeping him off the street until the media focuses on something else, then pretending this never happened. Unsurprisingly, public opinion of the police is quite low - doesn't matter that the majority of cops are indeed good people, the system they work for actively promotes evil by refusing to punish the corrupt members of their organization.
Corporate Drone? Moar liek Pedochurch Apologist, amirite?
I never really got why religion was so hard set against moral relativism. That makes it clear, and it only took you a single sentence. Groovy.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
"Moral Relativism" is apparently clergy-speak for "exposure to new ideas which may lead to less-than-complete adherence to the dogma that we maintain is right because we say so."
Yeah, what a fucking tragedy it would be if something like that caught on, huh?
take at look at what was actually said (the IP address is to the Vatican press site). There is no English translation from the Vatican yet.
The speech was given in the context of a short introduction, only about six or seven paragraphs wrong. Google Translate gives the entire relevant paragraph as follows:
The time that we live knows an enormous expansion of the frontiers of communication, creates an unprecedented convergence between various media and allows interactivity. The network appears, therefore, a vocation is open, pluralistic and egalitarian trend, but at the same time marks a new divide: speak, in fact, the digital divide. It separates the included from the excluded and is in addition to other gaps that already away from their nations and also within them. Also increase the dangers of approval and control of intellectual and moral relativism, already recognizable in the decline of critical spirit, in truth reduced to a game of opinions, in many forms of degradation and humiliation of the intimacy of the person. Then there is a "pollution of the spirit that makes our faces not smiling, darker, which leads us to not greet one another, not looking at each ..." (Speech on the Piazza di Spagna, 8 December 2009). The Congress, however, aims to recognize their faces, then exceed their collective dynamics that can make us lose the depth perception of people and flattened on their surface, when this happens, they are soulless bodies, objects of exchange and consumption.
I.e. in simpler language:
Internet can do good things. Everyone can do what they want, but creates new problems in that some people have this freedom and some do not. Since people can talk just to only others that think like themselves, there is a danger that critical thought may be eroded and "truth reduced to a game of opinions", which is a bad thing. These things and more can turn us into duller/antisocial/etc people. We (the Catholic Church) will try to address these issues.
It is surprising that PBS, of all stations, decided to equate "transparency" with the patently bad things which people Catholic and non-Catholic can agree on. They have tried to sensationalise the issue. If taken in context, there is nothing at all offensive about what was said.
That said, I am talking on Slashdot, where middle class Anglophone citizens of the USA often talk to other middle class Anglophone citizens of the USA. Maybe it is the wrong place to put this...
"I'll give you anything you want: Money! Women! ... Men?" --Stewie Griffin
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
http://www.zenit.org/article-29033?l=english
The summary given in this post is incorrect and misleading in asserting that the Pope was attacking transparency. According to the cited article, the Pope did not address the issue of transparency. The dangers he mentioned were in regards to the "widening of the frontiers of communication" in general, i.e., the web. He also hailed modern comm tech as pointing "to a more 'egalitarian and pluralistic' forum". In fact, the Vatican spokesman specifically said "This is the time for truth, transparency and credibility...We must be in a condition of having nothing to hide" just prior to the Pope's address.
tcd004, and perhaps kdawson, might want to think about reading the featured article before summarizing/posting it.
Slashdot is not a game, Slashdot is not a game. Crap, I just lost points.
How many of you did not read the article?
A lot I can tell by reading. I personally agree with his two points, although one less so than the other. One the priest hails internet transparency as a positive force, expelling secrecy or whatnot. This I totally agree with, and the second point, is talking about those who have things, such as internet access and those who do not, those without. He's saying that it's easy to count them out because we do not communicate with them, to not see them because they are not part of the be web. China although is on the web they are not of the web, I would think they are part of this group. I could see how internet users might fail to see their plight because they do not see them often.
I disagree with the second point partially, but that's okay. The /. summary and the article are, as expected rather different.
I think that most of you here do not believe in moral relativism, only under the purview of what you find comfortable, and that which does not apparently harm others. I highly doubt the grand majority of you believe that murder can be okay if the person feels it's okay. Quit being extremists, you're being more obnoxious than the traditionalists.
Religion originally came into existence as a good thing.
Then it was perverted into a means of amassing power. Much
evil has come after that transformation, regardless of which
religion we're talking about.
Those who want the power want you to forget about any information which
they do not approve. This alone should make any thinking man or woman
run away from any such institution, whether it is Islamic, Catholic, run by
Sun Myung Moon, or the Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh. It's ALL bullshit, and
it's designed to imprison your mind. Intelligent people already know this,
of course.
Most of the discussion on this thread is way off base. Here [zenit.org] is the text of the speech that the Pope actually gave. It wasn't exactly a major address. He gave the closing speech at a conference entitled "Digital Witnesses: Faces and Languages in the Cross-Media Age," sponsored by the Italian bishops. So, he is giving a polite little address to a conference with a particular theme.
<summary>
It's actually pretty boiler-plate non-controversial stuff (at least coming from a Catholic prelate). Media outlets are rapidly expanding. The Internet has an "open vocation, with an egalitarian and pluralistic tendency." But, due to the "digital divide," which creates new categories of inclusion and exclusion and new sources of division, not all can participate. Moreover, disembodied and impersonal communication presents a new outlet for dehumanization in the culture. Often, one can observe on the Internet a dynamic "that can make us lose the perception of the depth of persons and remain at the surface: When that happens, they are bodies without souls, objects of trade and consumption."
What is needed in such a situation? The Pope suggests (in a nod to the theme of the conference) "a return to faces." New media, when used rightly, can actually become a humanizing force in the culture. In order to do this, people involved in media work need to proceed from a more profound vision. Media workers should see their profession as something more than communicating information. They should see it as communicating humane values based on thoughtful reflection on the nature of the human person and the common good. This means that they should "focus on promoting the dignity of persons and peoples, they need to be clearly inspired by charity and placed at the service of truth, of the good, and of natural and supernatural fraternity."
If media workers do this, then far from being a dehumanizing venture, the "epochal journey" that we have begun will be "rich and fertile with new opportunities." "Without fear we want to set out upon the digital sea embracing the unrestricted navigation with the same passion that for 2,000 years has steered the barque of the Church. More than with technical resources, although necessary, we want to qualify ourselves dwelling in this universe too with a believing heart, that contributes to giving a soul to the uninterrupted communicational flow of the Internet."
This should especially be the task of Christians. "The task of every believer who works in the media is that of 'opening the door to new forms of encounter, maintaining the quality of human interaction, and showing concern for individuals and their genuine spiritual needs. They can thus help the men and women of our digital age to sense the Lord's presence.'"
</summary>
There have been a lot of particularly clueless reporters covering the Church over the last month, and this one is no exception. She breathlessly reports that the Pope did not talk about clerical sex abuse at a conference on the role of Christians on the Internet. Why is that surprising? Note also that the Pope's speech did not mention anything about transparency one way or the other. For the very simple reason that it wasn't a speech on that topic! What is so difficult about this to understand? The mention of "transparency" came up when the Vatican press secretary made some off-the-cuff remarks about how we need more of it, not less! Which brings me to the summary by tcd004. He misread the headline. (Did he read the article?) The Pope didn't talk about transparency. The press secretary did, and he didn't attack it--he called for more of it.
Hey, the RC's can't talk about God on the Net anyway can they?
Don't the Scientilogists have copyright over all things relating to religion?
Won't they issue a take-down notice if any other church posts anything that goes against the teachings of Tom Cruise or something?
Moral relativism = more likely to encounter resistance to the idea that an invisible man in the sky sent his kid to be horribly murdered and then replaced by a long line of celibate geezers who cover up kid diddling.
Man, I'm as anti-Catholic (or any religion) as they come, but the article says almost exactly the opposite of the Slashdot headline. FTA:
Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, took his turn at the microphone. "The situation in which we are living is extremely exacting, and we are asked to be absolutely truthful and credible," he said. The last couple of months have been very difficult, he went on, with so many questions being raised about things that happened long ago. But he said, "This is the time for truth, transparency and credibility. Secrecy and discretion are not values that are in fashion at the moment. We must be in a condition of having nothing to hide." The crowd applauded.
Afterwards, the Pope comes out and says some cryptic nonsense about how the Internet has both good and bad sides to it. The complaint by the author of the article is that the Pope failed to clarify the "transparency" theme in either direction:
So where does this Vatican stand on being more transparent about how it has handled priest abuse cases in decades past? Will it respond to the call for greater openness that we have heard from so many Catholics here, in our two brief days so far? It was hard to glimpse the truth from our Vatican encounter Saturday. We can only hope to be able to shed greater light on the question by week's end.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
I'm reading about what he said on... dun dun dun... the internet.
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
At the heart of things, isn't this just a logical extension of the same debates that are seen surrounding sites like Wikipedia?
i.e.: while it's great that anyone can produce content, having larger amounts of people producing content makes it harder to separate out what's actually relevant, important, or even true?
Excellent summary by brpetertotleben. There is no excuse for the dissemination of cluelessness that tcd004's summary perpetuates.
Transparency threatens closed institutions, and the Vatican (run in much the same way as the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages) is a closed institution.
This is not a comment on the Roman Catholic faith one way or the other, but on the Curia.
The internet KILLED religion!
#1 - Churches no longer have total control over a small local population. A church or religion can't muffle the entire internet. They can't track the entire internet. They can't threaten the entire internet.
#2 - All types of information can flow anywhere in the world in a split second. You can question your own religion or read about issues that your church is hiding from you. You can learn about other religions and other views of your religion.
#3 - If you use a handle or alias, then you can say anything you want on the internet and not worry about the church or its members causing you personal problems or harm. You can easily find other people that share your views and not be worried that your church / family / work find out about it.
#4 - Mountains of information is available to debunk your church and religion, thus atheism is growing fast!
The internet KILLED religion.
Pope plays a red herring, the nerds forget about the priest scandals for a moment; details @10.
Take the Red Pill.
Mod wisely (see the FAQ for how and why) and metamoderate to get more mod points.
main() {1;}
I guess Sid Meier wins all the X-Prizes.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Why else would she insult the head bishop of the Italian church?
main() {1;}
This is not the first time they've fought transparency:
As late as 1890 the bible was in Latin, and the laity were forbidden to read or interpret the bible.
Only the priests were allowed to interpret the bible, and they were usually the only ones who knew Latin.
More information about this speech here:
http://zenit.org/article-29034?l=english
... and share their ideas freely. No really: he does.
The Pope should follow Domtar's advice, print out the whole internet and then burn it, as per their medieval tradition.
It won't make any difference, but it will make him feel a lot better.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
"The Pope owns 51% of General Motors
and the stock exchange is the only thing he's qualified to quote us."
You can't make this up... I mean WOW just wow.
After most people think the pope and his cohorts are total shit for coverups involving little alter boys its nice to know they still have the audacity to... wait maybe TFA is the popes point. I mean how many times do we see a new TFA on slashdot only to find out the summary does not match the article as it morphs thru several layers of re-quoting to the source document which tells a different story? The Internet and media is full of hyperbole and misinformation requiring a degree of criticality that some people are not willing to invest in to really understand what is going on. The popes mistake is that this is not new - it happens in all forms of media since the start of recorded history. The Internet is simply more in your face and unfiltered.
As for whether moral relativism is a good idea or not, it's irrelevant. Moral relativism is a reality.
I think there's some confusion here about what exactly everybody means by "moral relativism". This reply is directed at the general confusion here in this thread at least as much as it is to you in particular.
When the Pope or someone says that moral relativism is false, he is not denying that there are disagreements between different cultures about what is right or wrong. That there are such disagreements is patently obvious and pretty much the whole reason the church has to evangelize it's particular moral theory: not everybody agrees with them already. What the Pope, or any moral universalist (religious or not) is saying, is that what is right and wrong does not change depending on the opinion of the people around you about what is right or wrong.
When you say "moral relativism is a reality", it is clear (from the rest of your post) that you are not saying that all opinions on what is right or wrong are equally correct. You evidently believe (and I agree) that some things are right or wrong regardless of what anybody thinks about them, like rape. You are merely stating the uncontroversial fact that people in different places have different thoughts on what kinds of things people should or should not do.
You are using the term "moral relativism" in a descriptive sense. Descriptive moral relativism is largely uncontroversial (though there are some arguments contesting it). The Pope, other religious figures, and pretty much anybody involved in the study of ethics (whether religious or not) use the term "moral relativism" in a normative sense. Normative moral relativism is the claim that there is no universally correct standard (whether known or not) of what is right or wrong, there are merely incommensurable local standards—so according to normative moral relativism, in a culture where rape is considered OK, rape really is ok—and as a consequence people of one culture cannot possible have justification for condemning the differences of another culture. (Compare, for analogy, a non-moral form of relativism where what is true or false depends on the local beliefs; so inside the headquarters of the Flat Earth Society, the whole Earth really is flat, whereas from anywhere else the whole Earth is round). In the Anglophone (or "Analytic") philosophical world this is widely considered an absurd position that nobody would attribute to themselves ("relativist" is broadly considered an insult); but in the continental European tradition and the humanities courses it has influenced, it has a strange sort of popularity that I personally can't quite understand.
A further point of clarification, aimed more at the rest of the thread than you in particular: the opposite of relativism is not absolutism, but universalism. Absolutism is the claim that the exact same moral rules apply in all situations regardless of circumstances or consequences; its opposite is consequentialism, which is still a form of universalism, and thus not a form of relativism. These two pairs of -isms answer two very distinct questions: "Does what is right or wrong to do change when circumstances change?", and "Does what is right or wrong to do change when people's moral opinions change?" A 'no' to the former is absolutism, and a 'yes' to the former is consequentialism. A 'no' to the latter is universalism, and a 'yes' to the latter is relativism.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
If you actually read the Pope's comments in the article, he didn't attack the idea of transparency. He simply noted that the Information Age has its downsides as well as its benefits- and he did describe benefits as well. The first two drawbacks he mentions are totally noncontroversial- of course the Catholic Church is concerned with inequities and with peace, and anyone should recognize the digital divide and the ways in which radical elements on all sides of disputes-not only those spewing hype but also those working to directly bring about violence- can be empowered by the Internet as legitimate concerns. Of course people who don't believe in the existence of moral absolutes will complain about his standing up for moral absolutes, but I think anyone who holds some kind of moral absolute, regardless of its content, will recognize that learning and living any moral law can be made more complicated by having instant access to the websites of millions of people who hold those values in contempt. That's not to suggest that restricting access is a possible or a good solution, it's just to say that we need to recognize the problem.
Basically this article boils down to "the sex abuse scandal makes for good press copy, so we want everything the Vatican says to be about that; I was kind of angry that I didn't get the headline I wanted so I found a way to tie it in somehow and to try to make the press conference fit my idea of dramatic."
i really don't think we need to take advice on living from the ex-nazi who thinks it's more important to shield child rapists than to protect the children. he won't be ashamed of himself because he and many of his followers believe the pope is infallible; but hell, even jesus was a man, and prone to making mistakes and bad choices.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Catholic priests are fucking immature assholes.
A priest, a rapist, and a pedophile walk into a bar, the bartender says "What'll you have, buddy?"
Six people were on a plane. A doctor, a lawyer a priest and 3 children. The pilot comes on the radio and says the plane is going to crash,and there are only three parachutes. The doctor yells out, " Save the children" The lawyer yells out "FUCK THE CHILDREN!" The priest yells out " IS THERE TIME?"
What's the difference between a rabbi and a priest?A rabbi cuts it off, and a priest sucks it off.
And a little song ot end it. http://open.spotify.com/track/4i8mXoDsPX99hfkCo0USg1
If you have more jokes like these I'd love to hear them...
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
Under the current circumstances, with the unwelcome attention the Church in general, and Pope Benedict in particular have been receiving regarding the handling of sexual abuse cases, it's hard not to read a whiff of Scooby Doo villain into this: "We'd've gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids!"
This pope just needs to confess and resign.
As usual, kdawson didn't RTFA, and as a result, every catholic-basher on slashdot is now having a feeding frenzy. I'd say more but this isn't news--this a total fabrication--by kdawson. Once again, kdawson RAILS about something that never happened--how normal this is becoming for slashdot now!
Gee, the church opposes the free exchange of ideas and knowledge. What a surprise...
The problem of the current society is displayed also here - in this /. article. People do not try to understand a message, they rather tend to troll the others, what probably brings more fun and endorfines.
I am quite sure, that most of the reads would agree, if somebody, who is not pope, tells that the internet modifies the society not only the way that all the information is extremely easily reachable and the communication can proceed without geographical and cultural limits. There is also a BIG trend to shorten all the messages to a minimal size, which causes that any message more complicated then 'cheers, howareyou' is transfered with a heavy cultural dependent subliminal part. Sorry to say, but the more we chat the less we understand people outside our cultural subdomain.
Too heavy? Nobody has got up to this point? Voila. That's my point. And this is what I share with the pope, whoever he is and whatever the rumors want to convince about.
What the Pope is saying (or is said to have said, the link to the TFA was unavailable) is that you cannot just throw information at people and let them sort it out. There are many sources of false, useless and trash information on the web and most sites (including /.) have some sort of censuring filter. Google, that omnipresent devil, censures data (they say) according to the users search profile. Would you give your kid a connection to the internet without any guidance or supervision ?
ngoncalves (Lisbon, Portugal)
Joseph Ratzinger has resigned as Pope and revealed his role as a deep-cover atheist operative, who worked many decades to discredit the Catholic Church and cause people to leave.
"I'm profoundly sorry I couldn't just pull the plug on the whole rotten edifice," said Mr Ratzinger, 83, of Rome. "I'd have gone the way of John Paul I. But I've worked hard to cause the terrible truth to expose itself to the world."
Soon after joining the Hitler Youth, the young Joseph Ratzinger was recruited directly by the atheist pagan Hitler to advance the ideals of Darwinian evolution, the worship of atheism, the Thule Society, the World Ice Theory and the collective Aryan unconscious. "We knew the key was getting evolution in there. My previous deep-cover report, Gene 'Pius' Pacelli, was as enormously helpful as ever, slipping it into Humani Generis in 1950. And getting away with it!
"From there it was simple — letting reason and thought in the door meant that people would actually apply joined-up thinking to Catholicism, something it had no hope of withstanding. I mean, say something really blatantly stupid like 'atheism is the cause of the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice,' put our sexiest underage agents into the choirs and see how long before the world's howling for your blood.
"And what happened to the bloke who wrote that British Foreign Office memo? They shuffled him sideways to another job! Honestly, real life outdoes jokes every time."
Mr Ratzinger plans to retire to his home town of Marktl in southern Germany. "It's a great relief to come clean after all this time," he said. "I'm very much looking forward to using this 'penis' thing at long, long last. Woo hoo, bevy of bouncing buxom Bavarian babes, here I come! So to speak."
Richard Dawkins, who had recently revealed his Doctorate in Divinity, was more than a little put out. "I'm most annoyed no-one made this much fuss when I said I liked Christmas services at my local Church of England. I'm trying to give as many clues as possible here, you know." He retreated to his office with a bottle of Irish whiskey and a Vicar of Dibley box set.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Ignorance is bliss
...transparency in altar boy garments instead.
Well someone needs to play devil's advocate on this assumption that all transparency is a-priori good.
For all we now, this onslaught of open meetings, financial disclosure statements, freedom of information legislation, budgetary review, audits might well lead to "multiple forms of degradation and humiliation", god forbid of fraudsters and the like.
So thanks to the Pope, for playing devil's advocate.
There is a reason the Church tells us to get on our knees ...
For further information about degradation and humiliation, just ask someone educated at a Catholic school about their experiences there, you'll get as much as you want.
Astonished... to see most of the reactions, based on only one press article (they are plenty of them, on the same subject, with different points of view...), and furthermore, with such a gross and misinforming abstract... And, ah, what he did say... He was expressing worries about lack of critical spirit in digital age.... Just continue, you are just pointing that he is right on this particular subject...
"Religion was born when the first con man met the first fool." --Mark Twain
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Literacy has been a terrible thing for most churches. After all, the more people who can read, the more who might be tempted to think for themselves about what something means. Classically, when only the educated minority could read, the church has been able to feed any message they wanted to the people and they would have to take it on faith that they weren't being misled.
In a modern age when the Internet is widening our horizons, people are learning to communicate with people who would otherwise be their enemies. Games like World of Warcraft have given people common enemies that were purely fictional and I believe are causing them to fight less among themselves and instead work together towards accomplishing a common goal.
The problem with the Internet isn't that it's transparent, it's that linguistic diversity makes it too opaque. It's time to reform languages and genuinely make an effort to unify instead of diversifying. The Pope would have believe there are tons of problems being caused by all this "transparent communication", but in fact, the problem is, we're still not proficient enough in communicating with one another and there are major misunderstandings that occur.
The answer isn't to stop the transparency, but to use the transparency to open up new lines of education and understanding that will allow us to better communicate with one another. Over time, this should allow us to stop seeing other people with different beliefs as a different sort of animal.
The Church however has nothing to fear, there are still billions of people who will simply choose to hold a book in their hands and thump it with their thumbs while telling everyone they're right and everyone else is wrong. Sadly, a closer look at the spine of the book will show no wear.
In case people are confused about what "moral relativism" is, according to Catholicism, there are really three kinds of people in the world:
This categorization serves a simple purpose: to put anybody in a bad light who dares speak out against Catholicism, because if you do, you're either intolerant or a libertine. This is while at the same time the Pope and his organization can preach hate and intolerance against any minority they choose.
"This is the time for truth, transparency and credibility. Secrecy and discretion are not values that are in fashion at the moment. We must be in a condition of having nothing to hide."
i.e. the opposite of what some highly-modded commentators think was said !!
POPE!!!??? RAILS!!!??? Place Ruby joke here... (eg. How many Nazis does it take to write a web app???)
Misters or Madams tcd004 and kdawson, you are wrong. RTFA. The Pope was NOT "railing against the internet and transparency". This, by the way, is not the first time that kdawson, on this website, seems to publish, on the front page, links to articles he seems not to have read.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Like the danger of finding out that he was a Nazi.
Like the danger of finding out that countless priests and higher ups are child rapists.
Like the danger of finding out a nazi pope re-instated a holocaust denier.
Like the danger of finding out the pope has ignored and promoted known child rapists.
Like the danger of finding out bishops blaim the scandal on Jews.
Like the danger of finding that that bishops blame the rape of FEMALE children on homosexuality.
Like the danger of finding out that the Mafia is NOT fabrication of Communist enemies but really does exist.
Like the danger of finding out that the Catholic church is evil to the core.
No doubt some Catholic will mod this down, because no Catholic wants to hear that he/she is part of all this. Were do you think these people get paid from? How much of you donation goes to pay for child raping?
And you can see how deep the corruption goes because not a single arrest has been made. Wonder why.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You know how the Catholic church has been on a kick recently on how atheists were supposedly responsible for all the evils of the 20th century, foremost Nazi Germany.
Well, in the past, they could get away with this. In fact, I used to believe this myself. These days, however, within minutes, you can find out that it's a lie. Here are some quotes from prominent Nazis and prominent Catholics at the time:
http://atheism.about.com/od/adolfhitlernazigermany/tp/NaziChristiansGermany.htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/adolfhitlernazigermany/tp/NaziChristiansGermany.01.htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/isatheismdangerous/a/HitlerAtheist.htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/adolfhitlernazigermany/tp/AdolfHitlerChristian.htm
(The sources of these quotes are given, so you can track them down yourself.)
Here is a quote from Michael von Faulhaber about Hitler, the Cardinal who ordained Ratzinger:
Here's another one of Faulhaber's quotes:
Pretty embarrassing for the Pope (Faulhaber ordained Ratzinger) and the Vatican. If you read the quotes from Catholic officials in the 1930's, they are almost identical to the bullshit about "Christian values", "family values", and "national pride" that you hear today. If it was good enough for the Nazis... it isn't good enough for us.
Is there any wonder the Vatican hates the Internet? They've lost their ability to manipulate how people perceive them and what people know about them.
It seems that wouldn't explain all the dynamics.
One that hath name thou can not otter
>>> I think that's what they call this, the Pope making an issue out of Internet transparency out of nowhere.
This is Slashdot, so I know that you didn't actually RTFA, but just so you know, the Pope never said anything attacking transparency. Here, I'll copy every direct quote of the Pope from the article for you:
I think it's a little bit of a stretch to say that the Pope "rails against [...] transparency" when the writers of the article "hope to be able to shed greater light on the question by week's end," don't you? I'm no fan of pedophile priests, so complain about those all you want. But I think it's pretty bad when the headline here is contradicted by the article. Did the submitter (or anyone but me) even read this, or did they go for the most sensational headline?
It should be obvious to everyone that the Catholic church only has its own self interest at heart. Why else did they side with the Nazis.? (godwins law proven yet again..)
"which can lead to 'multiple forms of degradation and humiliation' of the essence of a person, and to the 'pollution of the spirit.' "
Yes, much the same way pedophilia does.
This crazed zealot's views are irrelevant. Why bother reporting them, over the views of any other person on earth?
Ratzinger may find that secrecy benefits his organisation, which in the cold light of day, is little more than a self serving power hierarchy, that exists for the sole benefit of cynical and depraved clergy. I wonder how may of them, actually really believe the dogma?
The problem for religion, is that when confronted by fact, or when closely examined, it has nothing but a bare desert of unsubstantiated, far fetched, and nebulous claims.
"...if it wasn't for those meddling kids" - Pope Benedict XVI
Oh, "moral relativism", thats where it's bad for people to commit rape, unless of course they are one of your own priests, and then it's OK.
If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done?
From the article:
"And it increases the "dangers of ... intellectual and moral relativism," which can lead to "multiple forms of degradation and humiliation" of the essence of a person, and to the "pollution of the spirit."
I thought pollution of the spirit was caused by masturbation! I wish they would get it straight. I'm confused.
buuuuu!
""At a conference on digital media at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI attacked the idea of transparency in the Internet age, warning that digital transparency exacerbates tensions between nations and within nations themselves and increases the 'dangers of ... intellectual and moral relativism,'"
Transparency also made it a LOT easier for people to learn about the boy butt-raping priesthood and the cover-up from high up. Certainly, this is more of the reason (to save the Church from embarrassment) than to protect anything (or anyone) else.
Can we please, please get over the archaic notion? A "nation" does not act as though it were one person.
If you want to know what people in Iraq are like, get to know some of them! Oh, what's that? You can't? Well DUH! Maybe that's the problem.
If morals are inherently relative, does this mean that in some situations pedophilia is OK? Like, you know, if it's a good guy doing it?
I suddenly got the itch to be more open and free ...
i dont know why. it came out of nowhere
I think being a little too 'open' and 'free' is how you got that itch in the first place, if you know what I mean.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What's this doing on /.? Is there anyone here who really thinks the pope has something to say?
We don't read 18th century bad literature when we design our computer systems. Why should we listen to religious cavemen when designing our society?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I'm sure it's already been said by others, but there are approx. 600 comments already. I just have to note that the Internet provides a means for people to educate themselves and openly communicate with others. Education and communication are two things an organization like the Catholic Church fears the most. They came into their power through fear and ignorance. They can't tell people what is right and wrong when those people have the means to make their own decisions.
:)
I have to wonder: How many pedophile priests have been outed thanks to the Internet? How many people have left the Church because they have discovered other spiritual paths (including the many other paths of Christianity) thanks to the Internet. The bottom line is the Pope is scared. His Church may have to start selling some of their gold and property in order to survive this century.
This may hurt my Slashdot karma, but my real Karma is more important.
*chuckle* The REAL problem with the internet and global "transparency" isn't what the pope claims it to be, but rather (as made patently obvious by the majority of responses here) the death of individuality and creative thought! M
I used to fear clowns...but I'm discovering that chimps are far, far, worse.
I'd like to see the pope on the end of a rope, I think he's a fool!
I think it could be faster than the current implementation. Oh, never mind.
What I find funny is that the majority of accepted oppinion here is directly opposed to the Pope's viewpoint on a site that defined a mechanism of filtering content by selected individuals and that calls people who exercise transparency Cowards.
1. Disconnect the bastard from the internet completely (the whole Vatican while we're at it) ...
2. Don't be transparent about it
3.
4. ?
5. Profit!
From the article:
"The times in which we living knows a huge widening of the frontiers of communication," he said (according to our Italian fixer/producer) and the new media of this new age points to a more "egalitarian and pluralistic" forum. But, he went on to say, it also opens a new hole, the "digital divide" between haves and have-nots. Even more ominous, he said, it exacerbates tensions between nations and within nations themselves. And it increases the "dangers of ... intellectual and moral relativism," which can lead to "multiple forms of degradation and humiliation" of the essence of a person, and to the "pollution of the spirit." All in all, it seemed a pretty grim view of the wide open communication parameters being demanded by the Internet age."
The Pope wasn't talking about transparency. He talked about the dangers of the information age. The "digital divide" between haves and have-nots is a very good example of it.
Nothing new here, move along.
> Once people accept that morals are relative, the idea that there is a god who dictates morality disintegrates, along with some of the Popes power/influence.
Only if you take moral relativism to its extremes. If you wholly embrace moral relativism, then for the most part you have no morals of your own. (Because morals are fundamentally about what is right or wrong, not necessarily just what is right or wrong for you.)
But if you don't believe in any moral relativism, then you're probably a closed-minded, because you can't accept any system other than your own.
In my experience, good people are always somewhere in the middle. They believe in enough moral relativism to be open minded, but not so much that they're okay with shooting babies. Effectively, they believe in *limits* on moral relativism.
If you and someone else share beliefs in where those limits are, it's a lot easier to be friends with and respect one another. If you disagree, then it gets a lot harder. Sometimes, obviously, this happens without articulation.
God doesn't necessarily disintegrate under any of these systems. He just gets narrowed, to different degrees. In some cases he will disintegrate for you, if you're on the moral relativist spectrum somewhere where you don't believe in him. But if you don't believe in him, then from your POV he's disintegrated anyway. So it's moot until you die, at which point you get proven right or wrong.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
He's pulling the old Pope-a-Dope!
That's when large portions of the Church hierarchy, including himself, are guilty of terrible, horrible things. So he thinks back to the "good old days," the Dark Ages, when anyone reporting things the Church didn't like would be tortured into recanting and burned at the stake!
Poor Pope, he's feeling nostalgic.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
The worst kind of evil is having the power to stop evil, but doing nothing about it
Looking at it from that angle, the Catholic church is merely imitating God. A certain quote from Epicurus comes to mind.
"Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Ok I didn't RTFA but why is a 900 year old clergyman at a conference on digital media? I mean I think my grandparents probably understand the internet better than he does.
What would you expect from someone who, through his actions, has consistently endorsed child rape for decades?
What Would Thomas Becket Do?
We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion.
The Pope did NOT attack the idea of transparency in the Internet age in his address to the participants of the "Digital Witnesses: Faces and Languages in the Cross-Media Age."
Here's a excerpt of what he said:
"Thus the Internet manifests an open vocation, with an egalitarian and pluralistic tendency, but at the same time it has dug a moat about itself: One speaks, in fact, of the "digital divide." It separates the included from the excluded and adds to the other discrepancies that separate nations from each other and divide them internally. There is also an increase of the dangers of homogenization and control, of intellectual and moral relativism, already quite evident in the bent of the critical spirit, in truth reduced to the play of opinions, in the multiple forms of the degradation and humiliation of the human person in his intimate dimension."
A decent full translation is here: http://zenit.org/article-29033?l=english
A better one should be available later here:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2010/index_en.htm
ciao -- Nando
Of course the Pope would have a problem with it. It exposes all the pedophiles in the Catholic Church and makes it harder to cover for them. Fucking bastard.
This might have something to do with the fact that someone in his congregation was found out to be a person who like touching and performing sexual acts on prepubescent boys. He's also sore of the fact that people are finding out about this via. our telecommunications medium. Typical. The church hates technology.
well the works of the church heavily outway the disadvantages
what is new is the amount of pope haters
of course muslim vs catholic heavenly wars dont affect normall people do they
ever scince he critisesd the muslims the n,o of pope haters rises, well i suppose i can weight 4 better times tmes
Says it all ...
char*f="char*f=%c%s%c;main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}";main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}
This is a misrepresentation of what he said in the internal memo, mostly due to translation issues. It obviously went through a few iterations before it became what you see here.
What he really said was: ..."and thos bloggers needs too STFU or gtg to hel". This was roughly transcribed as "and think of the children^H^H^H^H^H national security". I don't see that really made it in either.
That old guy dressed in funny clothes is speaking nonsense again. I think I'll keep ignoring him.
yeah, it's tough talk from someone who downplays and downtrods upon sexual assault victims and homopedophelia within an already corrupt and abhorrent institution that nobody in their right minds needs to be a part of.
The really ironic thing about it? What Benedict warned would happen would really only exacerbate the problems with the church itself, not the free-thinking people it apparently corrupts with such devilish ideas of communication, community, and free speech.
Next thing you know, he'll be posting about the lulz on 4chan & his Facebook page. ;>
All it will do is make a few Atheists happy.
Why would an atheist, in particular, care who the Pope is? Is there some pro-atheist papal candidate who might have a shot at the papacy if the current Pope is ousted? It seems an odd statement.
Even better: these guys might end up in charge.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Additional translation note: Morals are inherently relative to personal values and situational details. Anytime someone warns about moral relativism, it's because they want you to follow their values and sense of right and wrong, instead of your own.
The Pope's version of moral relativism: Thinking child molestation is worse than opposing the inerrant authority of God's singular representative on Earth.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Why did you run from answering this Roman -> http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1622780&cid=31904240 ? Could it be that you shot your big trolling mouth off and bit off more than a dumbass like you could chew? That would appear to be the case there. Hilarious. You know, the way I have it figured, is this: We could hook you up with the Olympics committee in your nation, and have you screwup a slashdot posting as you do in your trollings here, and that seems to make you run at "World Class Speeds" from ever answering! LOL, picture it: "Mr. Roman Mir has now just entered the stadium folks... nobody, and WE MEAN NOBODY, runs faster than he does (especially when he publicly embarasses himself at slashdot by shooting his trolling mouth off and then having to face the choice of eating his own words, or running... and folks? You KNOW Roman: He'll run, everytime!)... LMAO!
It's clear tcd004 didn't really read it, I'm wondering if any of the other commentors did? Additionally is there any slashdot policy on the use of "quotes" that don't really reflect what anyone said in the article or combines two different speakers who were discussing two completely different subjects?
> That's not railing against the internet?
> the pope is clearly railing against the internet,
I asked where the Pope "rails against [...] transparency" and you spend your entire post claiming it's an attack on the Internet.
Then you tell me to learn to read.
> Again, if the passage is faithful to the essence of the Pope's words, which are not placed in TFA verbatim,
Two problems with this. One is that there IS a direct quote of the Pope (which I helpfully quoted for you...). Yes, there were other quotes in the article (from an aide of some kind, who *supported* transparency even though he said it was painful), but if you actually read what I quoted, you will find that those are the Pope's words.
Second, you say "if the passage is faithful to the essence of the Pope's words" like this article is the only source we have. If you spent even a minute or two looking around this thread, you'd have found this link to the entire speech (hint: it's in a highly-moderated comment and it was here on Monday April 26, @02:10PM, about a day before you posted).
Here's that "attack on the Internet" BTW:
So they don't hate it, they want to improve it. Even though I focused on whether they were "railing on [...] transparency" I think this is a fair point as well. Now, this is a criticism of the Internet, but not the kind it's being made out to be. They want to see it improve, not to ban it or something.
> Please read and at least attempt to understand comment before replying, kthxbye.
Words fail me given that you spent your whole post arguing against something I didn't even argue in the original post, namely that it is an "attack on the Internet" (which I pointed out in this post is of questionable accuracy in itself). Worse, you didn't bother to consult any of the other sources (which quote the whole damn speech) that can be found in this thread, but instead pointed out to bits of TFA that can be twisted to support your view.
So, exactly when did you attempt to understand anything with respect to this story? You clearly didn't bother to look anything up. You attacked my post for something I didn't argue. And you ignored easily-found means of supporting your point (possibly because the full speech doesn't really support your point).
Pope: “The Internet is by nature open, tendentiously egalitarian and pluralist, but at the same time it also represents a new gulf.”
“The dangers of conformity and control, of intellectual and moral relativism, which are already evident in the diminution of the spirit of criticism, in the truth reduced to an interplay of opinions, in the many forms of degradation and humiliation of individual intimacy. We are witnessing a 'pollution of the spirit which clouds our faces and makes them less prone to smile,’” he warned.
***PASS MESSAGE THROUGH SLASHDOT AND INTERNET HATE MACHINE***
"Pope Rails Against the Internet and Transparency"
Comments: *Insert rage against Pope*
This is exactly what the Pope means.