Laurie Penny: Don’t judge Catholics by the Pope

Despite evidence to the contrary, there are still people doing beautiful things in the name of religion.

Britons, beware. As the nation prepares for the Pope’s visit, Catholic dissidents are making trouble in the countryside again.

On 6 August, one priest and two lay worshippers crept up to the perimeter of the Aldermaston nuclear weapons base and cut a hole in the fence, attaching a sign on the new doorway bearing the legend “Open for Disarmament: All Welcome”. The three then knelt down inside the base and prayed.

In statement following the protest, the demonstrators, two of whom had previously served prison sentences for anti-nuclear action, said: “We come inspired by the message of Jesus to love our enemies, to be peacemakers and to act non-violently at all times.” Parents, lock up your children: the fundamentalists are coming.

In a world where organised religion is very often a cipher for co-ordinated homophobia, misogyny and dogmatic social control, it’s good to know that people can still do brave and beautiful things in the name of faith. These are the sorts of Catholics we should be inviting to speak around the country — not former card-carrying fascists with personal responsibility for covering up institutional child abuse, opposing sexual health initiatives and promoting discrimination against women and homosexuals across the world.

This story gave me pause for thought, as I’m working on a longer article about anti-Catholicism and why the snowballing Protest The Pope movement has little to do with the Catholic faith itself, but everything to do with the barbaric, anti-humanist dogma peddled by members of the Catholic hierarchy.

Of course, like any arbitrary belief system, the faith can also be bloody silly. As a heathen unbeliever from a lapsed Maltese Catholic family, I am still mystified why some of my relatives regularly attend mass hallucination parties where everyone pretends that bits of wafer blessed by a celibate in a robe are magically transformed on the tongue into gruesome chunks of dead prophet.

On the other hand, I’ve got secular friends who believe that the Horrors are a good band, or that the Liberal Democrats are a party of the left. Judge not, lest ye be judged.