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POPE FRANCIS HAS compared having an abortion to hiring a “contract killer”.
“Interrupting a pregnancy is like eliminating someone,” Francis said in an address to worshippers in the Vatican.
“Getting rid of a human being is like resorting to a contract killer to solve a problem,” he said.
“Is it just to resort to a contract killer to solve a problem?”
His comments departed from the prepared text for his homily delivered during his weekly audience on Saint Peter’s Square.
In his address, the Argentine pontiff complained of a “depreciation of human life”.
He cited wars, exploitation and what he called a culture of wastefulness, as well as abortion.
“How can an act that suppresses innocent life be therapeutic, civil or even human?” he asked.
Referring to abortion of unborn children with disabilities, Francis criticised advice given to parents who were told to terminate their pregnancies.
“Sick children are just like every other needy person on earth, just like an elderly person who needs help, or the poor who struggle to make both ends meet,” he said.
Francis this year opposed a bill that would have legalised abortion in his home country of Argentina.
In August a lay campaign group said thousands of Argentine Catholics had renounced their membership of the church to protest against his opposition to the bill.
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Then what’s a miscarriage equivalent to. God doing the contract killing?
@Gavin Boyce: the body not being able to be a vessel
@Gavin Boyce:
No it’s just Nature taking its course.
@Aine O Connor: women having a choice is also nature taking its course. Let’s trust our women to make that choice.
@Mjhint: How is an abortion in anyway associated with nature?
@John Mitten: how can the Pope’s omnipotent version of God not be associated with miscarriages and the free will of people to make decisions
@Diaspora’d: Getting a disease naturally or being deliberately infected with a disease? Are they the same?
@John Mitten: by women making decisions over the future of any pregnancy. Do you not think women are best placed to make that decision. Is it the case that you wish to impose your view of abortion on all women. If a woman decides she is not ready to raise a child for whatever reason then she should be given that choice. It’s the natural order of things.
@Mjhint: if she is not ready to rear a child then she shouldn’t participate in acts designed to create one. Is that too difficult for you to understand?
@Liam Mernagh: Seriously? Just don’t have unprotected sex, simple. You’re advocating what, complete abstinence?
@Mjhint: it actually doesn’t have anything at all to do with nature.
@Drew P. Baulsach: and what are you offering ? Unfettered copulation with all it brings. I thought we were supposed to be civilized.
@Liam Mernagh: seriously, are you suggesting that the entire planet of people decist from all love making bar when intent on producing prodigeny?
Interesting idea, I’d like to subscribe to your newsletter!
@Liam Mernagh: dude “Unfettered copulation”, listen to your self, you sound like a crazy.
@angryDuck: the animals do it as the natural order of things, so are you telling me our control of desire is less than the animal??
@angryDuck: well isn’t that what is being promoted by yourself?
@Liam Mernagh:
man, you simply do not know what you are talking about, your arguments are based on a lack of knowledge. All sorts of animals have sex for reasons other than making babies e.g. Google ‘bonobo chimps’.
@Liam Mernagh: ‘She’ might have been raped. ‘She’ might be a child. ‘She’ is a living, breathing, vital human being whose life is worth more than som gob**it**’s notions
@Gavin Boyce: The Catholic Church’s current position on abortion is 144 years old. In the 1869 document Apostolicae Sedis, Pope Pius IX declared the penalty of excommunication for abortions at any stage of pregnancy. Up to then Catholic teaching was that no homicide was involved if abortion took place before the foetus was infused with a soul, known as “ensoulment”.
@Liam Mernagh: ah right the woman should abstain from the act? Never heard such sh*t in my life… if men could become pregnant the thought of abstinence wouldn’t even be mentioned.
And what if the woman is abstaining but they are raped and become pregnant? Cop yourself on man and leave out the ridiculous statements.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: Wouldn’t “God” be responsible for both those scenarios?
Doesn’t the Pope claim that God is the creator and controller. Why would this God create and oversee a world that has natural disasters and grants his creations such free-will that they cause such misery and injustice?
@angryDuck: you do your own Googling to satisfy your own point of view, but if we haven’t got the necessary restraint to control our urges then I doubt we can call ourselves civilized.
@EvieXVI: So what’s your point, that everything and everyone is disposable, and as a society we are not capable of supporting someone through a problem apart from taking the irredeemable option.
@Breda Jennings: who said that only the woman should abstain?
@Gavin Boyce: what a statement child abused is not a crime so muder is to cause pain and suffering is a crime to any person of any age
@Gavin Boyce: No.
@Diaspora’d: Because we live in a fallen world and many choose to rebell against God
@Gavin Boyce: NO
@Gavin Boyce: GOD is in charge
He ALONE is the instigator, giver and sustainer of ALL LIFE.
@Gavin Boyce: One is based on God’s authority over life and death; the other is a human usurpation of divine authority.
@Liam Mernagh:”if she is not ready to rear a child then she shouldn’t participate in acts designed to create one. Is that too difficult for you to understand?” <- Majority of women that procure abortions have already brought pregnancies to full term.Are you saying that they should abstain from sex? Go find a new hobby for yourself (And take Patrick with you )
@Patrick Oshea: which God? There are thousands of them?
@GerryCummins: Yeah but only Patricks is real ;)
@GerryCummins: The one true God
@Patrick Oshea: ..why would this all loving God grant free will to his creations that they can inflict misery and injustice on each other and then he in turn himself would inflict his retribution on these rebelling sinners? Just seems twisted.
@GerryCummins: There cannot be two Supreme Beings for the obvious reason that neither of them would be supreme.
@Diaspora’d: Good question. Without freewill we could not choose to love and without choice we could not love.
@Patrick Oshea: if God loves us then why does he threaten with his divine retribution and eternal damnation in hell if we sin and offend him?. If a husband told his wife that he loves her but she risks his violent retribution and being burned by him if she steps out of line. Sorry I can’t bring myself to believe in this supernatural omnipotent stuff.
@Diaspora’d: Another good question. God’s will is that all would be saved because God is love. If one goes to hell it will be because they choosed to rejected God despite all his warnings. Those who reject God do not want to go to heaven.
@Liam Mernagh: “she shouldn’t participate” in the act to create a fetus, pretty much sounds like abstinence to me, so you said it
What does he compare the rape of a child to I wonder.?
@Liam Neeson: he doesn’t. It never happened because they covered it up.
Nothing to see here. They’ll just wait till all the abuse victims are dead so they don’t have to pay compensation.
@Barry Somers: At what stage do you think they stopped abusing kids?
@Barry Somers: but the abuse hasn’t stopped,
@Liam Neeson: Probably compares it to the Vatican Christmas Do
@Liam Neeson: FFG policies
@Liam Neeson: last Tuesday, and the one before that, and so on… just another day at the altar.
Yes but he also believes in a fairytale
@keith thompson: I guess this is an organisation that’s speaking from experience, remember they’re the one’s who convinced the world that witches and warlocks existed – and one way to tell a person wasn’t one was to, well, kill them. The logic being the innocent died and met their maker and the guilty wouldn’t have died.
Then they finally admit, there was no witches, oops. But overlook all those that were put to death in horrible ways in the name of the Church. Then there was the Crusades, mass murder and slaughter in the name of Holy Mother Church. But we won’t talk about that either… The persecution of Muslims and Jews and the entire Spanish Inquisition and Torquemada in the late 15th century. Or perhaps Galileo condemned in 1633 by the Church and forced to recant his discoveries but finally pardoned in 1992 by Pope John Paul II.
@Arch Angel: the “Ann & Barry” version of the history of the Catholic Church. Your unoriginal church bashing is depressing.
@keith thompson: Except he doesn’t, If he thought hell was real there is no way he’s cover up for Pedos or say disgusting stuff like this.. The fairytales are just for the idiots following the religion.
@Rob Cahill: idiots? That’s not nice Rob.
@Rob Cahill: What is more of fairy tale life came from non-life or God created us. It takes more faith to believe in the first premise
What does he compare child abuse to out of interest??
@Fergus O’Connor: A crime
He’d know all about baby killers! Considering his church had a hand in the demise of 796 dead babies and children in Tuam and other catholic church concentration camps such as Castlepollard in Co Westmeath, that’s thought to hold the remains of up to 3,200 babies. Francis keep digging…
@John: and why was it allowed?? Was there no Irish government at the time?? No gardai?? Or did massive money get poured into Ireland from the Vatican to set up paedo institutions on the basis that a blind eye is turned…Ireland is a haven for trading cash for kids…and still is
@John: concentration camps?
@John: @John: Do we know how many of the children/babies in Tuam died of natural causes or were intentionally killed?
@John: After all the horrors of killing innocent lives in the past. Why would we vote to kill even more innoceny babies?
@John: There are around 200 babies and children buried in the Castlepollard Angels Plot. Your figure of 3,200 is nonsense.
He’s just p*ssed cos no one showed up to his jamboree in The Phoenix Park.
@PaulineSmith: your idea of no one is strange.
@PaulineSmith: no-one ? That’s another black mark on your passport to eternal salvation. :)
The church will never change, what a horrible thing to say,
@Mick Hannigan: so we should change don’t listen to the Church
Someone will die as a result of an abortion.
Someone will die as result of contract killing.
I see his logic.
@Mr Proper: Am embryo or fetus is not the same as a human being who has been born and experienced life.
@Seán Ó Briain: That’s not the point, the ending of a life is not considered wrong by most because of what that life has experienced.
Scientism seems to have convinced most that life is an irrelevant and random crashing together of molecules etc. so that people feel confident making arguments such as yours
@Seán Ó Briain: tell the next person who tells you they lost baby that it’s only a embryo or fetus.
@Bernie Roche: what an ignorant comment to make. Religious people & religions seem to consider the human existence to be nothing more than made from magic & in the case of women being a product of stealing a body part from a sleeping man. Science has shown us that’s its a far more beautiful story than that & that stars had to die for us to exist. The reality of the scientific evidence is far more beautiful & majestic & as Hitchens said “far more inspiring than a burning bush “. Pick up a book & learn that science has a better explanation than the “random crashing of molecules”. A book called Sapiens is a good place to evacuate your ignorance.
“Scientism”….Jesus wept.
@Seán Ó Briain: how do you know?
@Mjhint: you really are a very clever fellow
@Mjhint: well said, the story of nature, evolution, star dust etc is far more beautiful (and true) than any of the flavours of skyfairisms.
As for ‘Scientism’, funniest thing I’ve read in ages… Lol… Pick up a book.
@Mjhint: I read.
Science measures effects and tries to come up with plausible reasons for them.
It is scientism when they can’t admit past mistakes because of the peer review system. This compounds any errors which slip through the net to the stage we are supposed to believe in 11 dimensions to be up to speed.
@O Swetenham: Think of it like this, science is more like religion than real science when people take the word of people in uniform or authority without understanding what they are being told.
That is the scourge of scientism
@angryDuck: How many skyfairy texts have you read?
@Bernie Roche: Your comments show that you are ignorant and know nothing about science. There is no such thing as your ism you made it up. Science is the best system thatwe have to explain the natural world. It does not make decisions or pronouncements on morality or legality, religion does. Science is based on knowledge and evidence. Religion is based on ancient texts and superstition. Remember the same religion you cling to is also immoral, illogical and holds beliefs that are nonsense.
@SteoG: Scientism is the new religion, and as long as people blindly accept the pronouncements of the scientific community it will only continue to grow in that regard.
If you are so into science can you explain why the atom doesn’t collapse in on itself?
I’m not religious or anti scientific method either, but when people accept things that they don’t understand as truth then they will succumb to the same problems religion has brought
@Mjhint: Dropping Hitchins name is a lazy way of trying to add weight to your point.
Let me give you a synopsis of the big bang theory and tell me where I’m wrong.
Once upon a time nothing existed, then all existence appeared suddenly at one point and then exploded and expanded rapidly thus creating all that is in existence today.
@Bernie Roche: Science is not a religion and you saying it is doesn’t make it so. It does not require worship or devotion to an imaginary all powerful being, it has no dogma and unlike religion it changes its position when new evidence is presented. I said you are ignorant because your contention on peer review is false, in fact it is the opposite. We don’t hear about all the research that fails at peer review (there are some exceptions such as Wakefield which is an example of peer review working) because thats where the theory fails the test. Peer review is not just a rubber stamp, it is scientists disproving a theory because the work was faulty. As I said science is how we understand the natural world it is based on the evidences. Everything that exists is the sum of its parts and there is no evidence of the supernatural. If you are not religious or anti scientific why are you expressing yourself like someone who is? No one in science makes the claim that science is perfect or that it does not get things wrong. It is religion that claims it knows everything and has all the answers. Science does not pronounce “truths” it presents facts based on evidence, that’s all. Science has no position on abortion. Different scientists will have different positions just as you will find among the general population. Now it is a difficult question, no one denies that but if you are looking for the facts based on the evidence then who I ask is in the best position to provide them? A man who believes in talking snakes and zombies and supernatural all powerful beings (not Stan Lee) and dresses in funny clothes and hats? Or qualified people who are unbiased by mumbo jumbo and have medical and legal expertise? The answer to your question about the atom can be viewed here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE7Qoe2ZiXE
@SteoG: Science has plenty of dogma, whatever passes the peer review process is treated as sacrosanct, this is very problematic as errors that pass through are then compounded.
Wrt abortion science tells us that once the egg is fertilised that is human life, growing, developing etc.
Just for clarity can you tell me the difference between what is a truth and what is a fact?
@Bernie Roche, really hope you read stegos post. Please do, with unblinkered eyes
@angryDuck: I did mate, don’t think he read or understood mine though
@SteoG: That video is complete nonsense as well by the way
@Bernie Roche: That is your poorly formed opinion and you have failed to demonstrate any of your claims. Funny that you are prepared to use science when it appeals to your biases. It would be helpful if you could stick to the topic, asking other irrelevant questions when you don’t understand the scientific method or peer review doesn’t affirm your position.
@SteoG: I am all for the scientific method, experimentation, observation all that craic. What I’m not into is rabbitting off stuff I don’t understand because a famous scientist or whatever said it.
I’ll try and put it another way for the science buffs who didn’t get it the first couple times.
Unless the peer review system is infallible (I don’t think it is, you might) errors will slip through and then be used as truth later as new theories will have to match up with everything that has been approved as fact by mainstream science. This has the effect of compounding errors massively over time as they are measuring new theories against errors.
Just read over that a few times, an analytical mind will have no problem seeing the problem.
@SteoG:
Like did you even watch the vid you linked to?
Did you understand it?
It has nothing to do with the structure of atoms.
I need to come up with a name for followers of scientism.
Scientists are obviously the priests.
Get ready for the no voters to comment.
@Handsome Dan: Yes Yes
the mask slips again. his highly paid team of advisors &pr crew will wheel him out tomorrow to kiss a few babies or pop into see some refugees in his silk robes, he might even let them kiss his solid gold ring. maybe he’ll invite a few homeless people over for dinner, take a few snaps, then have the Swiss guards see them off the premises. He’s such a caring compassionate man is Francis
@Dean Anderson: the mask slips & reveals that the pope is indeed a catholic.
Hmm interesting comparison popey.
Now, if I hired a hit man to kill somebody I’d be done for murder.
So if a woman uses a doctor for an abortion why do no pro life groups want to charge the woman with murder?
During the ref the Pro life groups outright stated that if a woman illegally had an abortion using pills then she shouldn’t be charged with anything.
That seems an odd position to take if you think a fetus is equal a born baby.
They knew it was toxic to say a woman should be jailed. The public would turn against them even more then the ref vote showed.
Well,when it comes to contract killers,his church in Ireland’s history would know!
Fitzgerald and zappone, reasons why fathers need to pull out
And what does he compare clerical abuse too?
Somebody needs to point Fran to the part of the bible that mandates abortion.
@The Risen: you’re such an authority on said matter, why not point it out yourself.
@The Risen: everyone seems to think Google has the answer to everything now, amazing Thayer could survive before its advent.
@Liam Mernagh: Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find..Praise the Risen.Praise the Google Search Engine.Praise the Bible.
@The Risen: The vast majority of biblical scholars would think your position laughable. You can find any absurd thing you want on the internet.
@Patrick Oshea: you.
Going to confession is like visiting a lot of pedophiles comes to mind.
@Hans Vos: how do you know this?
Tusla social workers…family terminators
It is almost universally acknowledged up till modern times that abortion is evil. Even Marie Stopes, whose name is constantly linked with abortion, disagreed with its use. The fact that we live in a culture where God has been forgotten, a culture of greed, selfishness, narcissism, should not blind us to the fact that abortion is only one evil. Homelessness is another. And I don’t see many putting their hands in their pockets to help. They’d rather abuse and troll in the Journal comments.
If he or she swallowed does that make them serial killers
“How can an act that suppresses innocent life be therapeutic, civil or even human?” he asked.
There are many of us who wonder the same thing about your lot, Frankie.
Seriously what sort of idiot is this Francis lad? A 4 week old collection of cells is not equal to a sentient human. Is he just trolling?
@angryDuck: you might have been a clynck of cells I was a baby from the minute I was conceived.
@Mona Murphy: nice sentiment, unfortunately a simplistic one probably ideological based.
You, I and every living organism that has ever existed were many things before we were a ‘baby’. First you were a a single cell formed when a sperm fused with an egg. The sperm was probably one of thousands that was luck or fit enough to make the journey, on another day, ‘you’ would be someone else. That single cell divided in two, then four, then eight and so on. At some point later on you could have been called a baby.
You may have been a ‘planned baby’ (as my kids are)….. But it is plain silly to say you were a baby from conception. This is just not possible.
@angryDuck: it looks like you’re still a collection of cells; can you recollect when it all changed for you ?
@Liam Mernagh: true, every living organism is a collection of cells, as well as its experiences and mental state /history, we’ll done, bravo. Your learning :-)
@angryDuck: you didn’t answer my question.
@angryDuck: American College of Pediatricians – March 2017
ABSTRACT: The predominance of human biological research confirms that human life begins at conception—fertilization. At fertilization, the human being emerges as a whole, genetically distinct, individuated zygotic living human organism, a member of the species Homo sapiens, needing only the proper environment in order to grow and develop. The difference between the individual in its adult stage and in its zygotic stage is one of form, not nature. This statement focuses on the scientific evidence of when an individual human life begins.
@angryDuck: i think she means she had life from conception. Cells are living and have the potential to become a child. It is difficult to say when the cells become a child but it is not difficult to say that once the cells meet and start to multiply, they are alive. Terminating that terminates life and the potential child.. many are ok with that and may not agree with Pope Francis’s assessment. Many agree with him too.
@Paul Whitehead: It is not a child,end of..We don’t say that when a neonate loses it’s life that a potential adult lost it’s life..
@Mona Murphy: No you were not.
Pope Francis is dead right!
Yeah, and the planet desperately needs more people. How about a nice big war to wipe some of the critters out? Oh wait, that would be like hiring contract killers
What’s having a peddle, genocide?
F*&k off Frank
@JJ O Riordan: a beautiful sentiment
@Liam Mernagh: Smartest thing you’ve said on this thread.
@Martin Meyler: I’d say irony is in short supply.
@JJ O Riordan: I’d say that sentiment was loud and clear when he visited.
TAX THEM!!!! double!! And out of schools and hospitals!! No doubt there’s some disastrous private company that can fill the void for buckets of cash? Anyone got O’Brien’s number??
Ah sure everyone look over here…… stop looking at Pennsylvania :D
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