Break down these Cardinal Kasper comments

PATXPATX 2,820 Posts
edited September 2010 in Strut Central
"when you land at Heathrow you think at times you have landed in a Third World country,"

At first I LOL'd because I am an expat and this is how we feel every time we return. But now the Vatican is spinning it as a (positive) comment on multi-culturalism, which the UK press is then spinning as an anti-immigrant thing? That seems like bullshit considering the context.... you mean to say he was talking about the cleaning crews rather than the endless temporary structures, broken transporation, and general smell of despair?

  Comments


  • Its more likely hes talking about the infrastructure and the immediate environment of the airport, with all its chaos and such, rather than any racial issue. But maybe the two were mixed in this slip of the tongue...

  • Vatican sources said Cardinal Kasper - who stepped down in July as the head of the department that deals with other Christian denominations - was suffering from gout and had been advised by his doctors not to travel to the UK.

    They also said his "Third World" comment referred to the UK's multicultural society.

    aka, too many black people - its like africa out here! christ alive!

  • JuniorJunior 4,853 Posts
    I actually thought this one:

    in England, an aggressive neo-atheism is widespread

    Was bang on the money.

  • PATXPATX 2,820 Posts
    Ulysses31nicholas said:
    Vatican sources said Cardinal Kasper - who stepped down in July as the head of the department that deals with other Christian denominations - was suffering from gout and had been advised by his doctors not to travel to the UK.

    They also said his "Third World" comment referred to the UK's multicultural society.

    aka, too many black people - its like africa out here! christ alive!

    See, this is what I am getting at. The UK likes to paint itself as a multi-culti tapestry of tolerance, but I only ever see posh toffs running anything, and running it into the ground. I feel like this is closer to what the Cardinal was getting at. What am I missing? (apart from decent Indian food)

    As an example, the first time me and a friend tried to take the train from Schipol airport to Amsterdam, we nearly crapped our pants because this massive train crept up on us in total silence. Waiting on an empty platform, we turn around and suddenly there's this big yellow train there waiting to take us punctually to the city at a fair price. That was a culture shock.

  • magpaulmagpaul 1,314 Posts

  • PATXPATX 2,820 Posts
    John Betjeman sheds a tear for the lost art of language and urban planning

  • Junior said:
    I actually thought this one:

    in England, an aggressive neo-atheism is widespread

    Was bang on the money.

    Can we get some of that over here??

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    SportCasual said:
    "when you land at Heathrow you think at times you have landed in a Third World country,"

    At first I LOL'd because I am an expat and this is how we feel every time we return. But now the Vatican is spinning it as a (positive) comment on multi-culturalism, which the UK press is then spinning as an anti-immigrant thing? That seems like bullshit considering the context.... you mean to say he was talking about the cleaning crews rather than the endless temporary structures, broken transporation, and general smell of despair?

    Apart from the fact that he's unlikely to be familiar enough with the UK to recognise "the endless temporary structures, broken transporation, and general smell of despair" as simply being normal, do you seriously think that, when a senior figure of a religious institution that spends so much time stumbling from one PR disaster to another makes a remark like that, he's actually being nuanced?



    He's a Roman Catholic Cardinal who's probably seen more of the so-called Third World than anyone on this board. When he said that, he meant one thing.

  • i think you make a salient point sporty spice but it seems a little too sophisticated for Kasper the unfriendly cardinal.

    The only way you could excuse such a remark is if he had landed at Luton, which in infrastructure terms is definitely third world. Terminal 5 on the other hand is blingtastic!

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    Junior said:
    I actually thought this one:

    in England, an aggressive neo-atheism is widespread

    Was bang on the money.

    Speaking of which, look at who the Tories roll out to complain that Labour left religion to "oddities, foreigners and minorities".

  • PATXPATX 2,820 Posts
    Somewhat agreed. If he had said "Former Eastern Bloc" he could have conveyed the same ideas about infrastructure without all that nasty race stuff!

  • PATXPATX 2,820 Posts
    DocMcCoy said:
    Junior said:
    I actually thought this one:

    in England, an aggressive neo-atheism is widespread

    Was bang on the money.

    Speaking of which, look at who the Tories roll out to complain that Labour left religion to "oddities, foreigners and minorities".

    That is extremely odd considering Blair was the most overtly religulous PM in memory.

  • magpaulmagpaul 1,314 Posts
    He's a Catholic as well which explains the Good Friday Surrender.

  • and he only converted after he left downing street, theres never been a roman catholic prime minister.

  • delete

  • delete

  • OkemOkem 4,617 Posts
    I am so glad we don't get the mix of religion and politics over here. The sooner the Pope fucks off, so we can go back to being godless heathens rotting on this festering isle, the better. Shit makes my head hurt.

  • JuniorJunior 4,853 Posts
    Putting all my neo-atheist aggression to one side for a moment, I have to say that I'm kinda loving the popemobile.

  • PATXPATX 2,820 Posts
    Don't step on my Brothel Creepers!

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    SportCasual said:
    Don't step on my Brothel Creepers!

    Made from the hide of a tanned kid, one presumes.

  • JuniorJunior 4,853 Posts
    What a sorrowful waste of good Italian leather. All he needs to do his draw a CND logo on there in marker pen and he'll have his eightes UK look down pat.

  • Junior said:
    Putting all my neo-atheist aggression to one side for a moment, I have to say that I'm kinda loving the popemobile.

    quality ride. stick 18" rims on that and you could really be talking. when it stops, the wheels keep spinnin' and he keeps grinnin'

    nice little elevator in there as well, 2 secret service upfront, riding with more gatts than pdiddy. that's gangsta.

  • shame the number plate didn't say chr1st 1 though.

  • ReynaldoReynaldo 6,054 Posts
    Is the third world not darker?

  • SoulhawkSoulhawk 3,197 Posts

  • Options
    Fuck the Vatican.

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    PelvicDust said:
    Fuck the Vatican.


    They should build mini-Vaticans next to all the Homes for Abused Ex-Altar Boys.

    Sorta like bridge building.

  • Options
    Rockadelic said:
    PelvicDust said:
    Fuck the Vatican.


    They should build mini-Vaticans next to all the Homes for Abused Ex-Altar Boys.

    Sorta like bridge building.

    Where are these Homes?

  • Options
    Meanwhile Ratzi the Nazi had this to say in Blighty:

    "Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. I also recall the regime???s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a ???reductive vision of the person and his destiny??? "

    He's not just an asshole, he's a liar. The Nazis were not atheists. Mein Kampf is replete with Christian references. Nazi soldiers wore "Got Mit Uns" belt buckles. And the Vatican was the very first nation to enter into a treaty with the Reich.
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