Vatican singles out faithless Australia

I say shove the Vatican and the Pope and their hypocracies, and I will be my own concience of my faith, thank you very much.

By Desmond O'Grady in Rome and Linda Morris
August 22, 2005


The Pope has issued a dire warning about the state of religious faith in Australia, saying mainstream Christianity is dying more quickly here than in any other country.

In remarks to priests in Italy, Benedict XVI spoke of a crisis for the main Christian churches as people in the Western world felt self-sufficient, with less need for Christ and Christianity.

"Certainly this is a suffering linked to the present historical moment in which generally one sees that the so-called mainstream churches appear moribund," he said. "This is so in Australia, above all, and also in Europe, but not so much in the United States."

He told the priests in the Italian Alpine diocese of Aosta that the Catholic Church was not as badly off as the mainstream Protestant churches, which were in a " profound crisis" because of sects.

Many people felt Christianity was antiquated, he said, whereas it actually represented the future because it responded to socio-ethical problems which could not be handled by an approach based solely on a scientific mentality.

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