Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Angry

For my last couple of trips to Birmingham I've been listening to the BBC radio adaptation of Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy. An excellent adaptation, although some of the complexities of the third book are lost in the translation to a two and a half hour drama. Nevertheless, it is an impassioned attack on the brutal cynicism of religion and the christian church in particular. There was a news story before christmas that said that any references to god and the church were to be dropped from a proposed film adaptation of the books, to avoid offending any cinema going christians.

How the hell can christians be offended by the ideas in a work of fiction and not be offended by the catholic church paying out $100,000,000 to people sexually abused by their priests. Never mind the nature of the abuse, the church conspired for years to cover it up and move abusers to new parishes to escape prosecution. Some religious commentators have said that the tsunami is a test of their faith - if they had any faith at all, shouldn't they be donating the billion dollars that the sex abuse compensation claims will cost them rather than covering their own backs whilst they continue to abuse people?

A pox on the lot of 'em.

1 comment:

Mr Peacock said...

How can they take the chuch out of those book. It seems a driving force for the bridge to be created! I hope they go back on that. :^)