Smokescreens #2

Richard Dawkins also spoke against Pope Benedict during his visit, a visit when the subject of clerical child abuse was raised again and again.

Let me remind you of the teaching of the Catholic Church on child abuse:

2389 Connected to incest is any sexual abuse perpetrated by adults on children or adolescents entrusted to their care. The offense is compounded by the scandalous harm done to the physical and moral integrity of the young, who will remain scarred by it all their lives; and the violation of responsibility for their upbringing.

That's pretty unequivocal, yes? What does Dick think:

In an interview in The Times magazine on Saturday (Sept. 7), Dawkins, 72, he said he was unable to condemn what he called "the mild pedophilia" he experienced at an English school when he was a child in the 1950s.
Referring to his early days at a boarding school in Salisbury, he recalled how one of the (unnamed) masters "pulled me on his knee and put his hand inside my shorts."
He said other children in his school peer group had been molested by the same teacher but concluded: "I don't think he did any of us lasting harm."

So, RD uses child abuse, which the Church unequivocally condemns, as a stick to beat the Holy Father, yet thinks it does not lasting harm. Protest the Pope was a smokescreen for people with some pretty loathsome views. The two I've mentioned thus far are the least obnoxious. Watch this space.