This Furedi guy is particularly surprising. He's an alumnus of the Revolutionary Communist Party, and the husband of Ann Furedi, the Chief Executive of British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the UK's largest independent "abortion provider."
Yet Furedi comes out in favor of the right of Catholics to be Catholic, in defense of papal free speech and against the atheist bigots.
"A sign of contradiction." "The hearts of many are being revealed." ---to use some New Testament phrases.
I'm watching this one.
Ping-a-ling.
I do not agree with his basic premise: The campaigners against the pope’s visit have more in common with the fanatical Inquisitors of old than with Enlightened liberal humanists.
I would submit that intolerance is a necessary end to enlightenment liberal humanism.
The very rejection of absolutes is a form of "orthodoxy," in of itself: its rejection of dogma is dogmatic in nature and its requirement for "tolerance" is necessarily penalized with medicinal and expiatory penalties for public heretics to that dogma -- without the structure of a canon law to prevent their own variety of witch-burnings.
And, as it stands, they are too blind to see what they have constructed.
This is an amazing find. The writer drills down deep and skillfully shows the pope haters what their words actually mean in the context of true rationality.
Good stuff.
Once again claiming anti-catholic comes to the surface...
When the Catholic church stops hyphenating every issue and disagreement as anti-catholic and instead addresses the issues without the use of the term Anti-Catholic...then their comments could better be taken with more serious debate. The word Anti-Catholic is overused beyond measure.
**Consider the infantile exchange between anti-papal zealots **
I got this far and was LOL! So true.
(Could we use that line on FR?) <sarc off
**Intolerance has always been fuelled by an irrational and visceral sense of existential disgust, leading to moral disorientation.**
Another good line!
Amazing, even miraculous if true. Hearts and minds are capable of change. It just might be a transitional moment for Mr. Furedi, a communist who recognizes others have a right to ‘’speak(i.e right of plurality of thought/ownership) still it’s hard to square with the central tenet of communism being the collective, the central and over-riding oneness. Time will tell.
bump-o-rama