Making "Make Poverty History" a real Sin.

Following up on Ratzinger's call for immediate debt cancellation of the poorest states on Earth, today 8 bishops of the Catholic Church met with Tony Blair to remind him about what he promised he would do his best to do.

You remember he was with Geldof on MTV?
Gleneagles?
July 2005?

G8 of bishops tackles Blair on poverty
Tony Blair meets a delegation of global bishops at Downing Street to discuss the promises made by the G8 to make poverty history [Marcin Mazur]

"Tony Blair today met a delegation of global bishops at Downing Street to discuss the promises made by the G8 to make poverty history Group of eight bishops from around the world visits Downing Street urging Tony Blair to ensure the promises of the G8 to end poverty are kept"

"Eight leading church figures – including Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Archbishop of Westminster; Archbishop Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria; and Archbishop Monsengwo of Kisangani, DRC – comprised the group of Bishops bringing their moral weight to the anti-poverty campaign."

I believe this is the highest number of prelates including primates who have ever been let through the door of 10 Downing street at one time.

Link to full coverage on today's meeting and its campaign - from the Catholic Oversea Aid organisation who like people to remember the Catholic Church thinks poverty is a sin.
For the benefit of non-Catholics - Catholics have strong opinions on many other things which are classified as either mortal or venial sins, sins of action, transgression or omission.

For the benefit of the tits amongst you - The Catholic church in those EU states where its formal relation with State are ordered by legislation or constitution - carries the bulk of responsibility for conservation of Cathedrals, Abbeys, Shrines and what-nots. In the last generation encouraged by practical types in the Curia (the Vatican civil service) and under pressure from their Bankers the Catholics actively supported development projects such as motorways (the pan Hellenic southern European link) , tunnels and of course airports.

You might have seen Knock. You might have seen the Basilica. well that was all to cover the cost and spiritual needs of those who wish see the gable end wall. (the little bit of brick covered in floodlights and statues)-

But today is not for knocking catholics. Especially not when they have distracted our attention from their dire record on conservation and archaelogy - Today they're talking about SIN. real SIN-

Sin of omission - transgression and neglect.

Of the 18 "poorest" states on earth who recieved strings attached debt cancellation at the G8 of 2005 over half have now seen escalation of their internal wars. They are absolutely no better off at all. Leading Geldof to whine last week that is all "grotesque". Quite. It was. Shame on those who followed it.

If you are worried about SIN and its place in these elections - you could always ask your sitting TD or prospective candidate what their opinions on SIN are. Make a list of priorities. Start with A.
aardvarks - letting them go extinct would be a little sin.
abortion - bit bigger of a sin now - very popular. our party is against it of course.
adultery - oh well - let's not get into that before May22
etc. etc. etc.
Zorastrianism - oh well like tara gods and goddesses that would be heresy : big enough SIN.
Zygotavorism (the eating of recently split gamedes and human or other embryonic material)
: well if it's a human baby that would be a SIN if its cod's roe you could pass that off as caviar.

Let's keep it simple.
In the time it took you to read this article real people died of starvation, thirst, disease and war.
They've gone to Heaven now.