I have, unfortunately, been watching King Charles’s state visit to the Vatican to meet Pope Leo and listening to a bunch of other male cardinals and bishops waxing about the importance of the visit. The first thing that struck me was, where is the newly appointed and first female Archbishop of Canterbury? Apparently, she was not invited because she had not been formally installed, or Leo was worried that it would ignite the debate around women priests, to which he is clearly opposed, thus upholding the long-standing tradition of the Catholic Church, misogyny. Commentators discussed how such a visit hadn’t taken place since Henry VIII broke from Rome, as if the break was part of some sort of Lutheran awakening. In fact, Henry broke from Rome because the then-Pope Clement VII refused to annul his marriage to Catherine. By declaring himself Supreme Head of the Church of England, any impediment was removed to “getting his leg over “Anne Boleyn. Just as an aside, Henry’s new title allowed him to seize the Church’s wealth through the” Dissolution of the Monasteries”, and he remained a Catholic to his dying day. Commentators waxed lyrically about the two elderly Christian men praying together, as if it were a profound revelation and a seminal moment in the history of Christianity. The Pope started by saying, “Oh God, make speed to save us”. It seems that the Abrahamic traditions need to get over the fact that their idea of God as an interventionist being does not hold water, other than you believe the parting of the Red Sea and Noah. Buddhists and Hindus seem to have cottoned on millennia ago that God is not an interventionist, or was he just asleep when the Holocaust happened, or did he agree with the Christian civilising zeal of slavery and colonialism? The Pope went on the thank God for” making us in his own image”, you cannot be serious. Just think about it, the Pope has just implied that we humans who are destroying this planet through consumption, greed, have no respect for the biodiversity and other sentient beings, alleged created as part of the creation myth, who have engaged in genocide in Rwanda and Gaza, the Inquisition, and slavery are made in the image of God. What this implies is clear: God is a megalomaniac, a narcissist and has many other shortcomings, all of which he has bestowed on us. Do phrases like Allah Hu Akbar and Praise the Lord really make any sense? Especially when you take into consideration the genocide in Gaza, the tragedy that is Sudan and the earthquake in Turkey. Let us not forget the brutal misogyny of the Islamic Republic of Iran over what, how to correctly wear a Hijab. If the hijab, as many Hijab wearing women claim, it is their choice, why were they not out in their millions to support the young women in Iran who made a different choice? Maybe the word choice is not fully understood.
Leo’s church is euphemistically called “the body of Christ”. Let’s examine this a bit.
Shortly after the brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk, US Catholic Cardinal Dolan went to Fox News and stated that Kirk was a modern-day St Paul. He went on to say that Kirk was a true Christian, as he believed the truth would set you free. In that moment, he showed his Trumpian stupidity, the truth according to a right-wing evangelical Christian. Kirk said without equivocation that Israel was not committing genocide or ethnic cleansing and that children were not being starved in Gaza. Kirk also disagreed with the separation of church and state and said that Michell Obama lacked brain processing power. On race, he said, If I see a black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he is qualified. Finally, on feminism, his advice to Taylor Swift was, reject feminism and submit to your husband. This is the type of Christian that Dolan elevates to the status of a Christian martyr.
Dolan and his cabal of American Catholic Bishops considered denying super Catholic Joe Biden communion because of his stance on a woman’s right to choose. On abortion, Archbishop Lori, supported by Dolan, said, as reported in the National Catholic Reporter in October 2022, “the church seeks the protection of all unborn children, this includes the innocent child conceived in rape or incest.” Note that innocent does apply to the victim.
The misogyny of the Catholic Church is only matched by its utter stupidity on the issue of celibacy. The institution continues to oppose the ordination of women despite their Christian brothers, sorry, I mean Protestants, having ordained the first female Archbishop of Canterbury. The Church’s opposition to this is based on the illusion that its imaginary friend in the sky is a man. Quoting the Lord’s prayer, “Our Father who art in heaven”, unlike my father, a Hindu whose equivalent of the Lord’s prayer starts “You are my mother, you are my father”.
The Catholic Church’s cynical strategy to attract the next generation of sheep is the canonisation of the Church’s youngest saint, Carlo Acutis, who died of leukaemia in 2006 at the age of 15. He was known as God’s Influencer and was also known for launching a website seeking to document every reported Eucharistic miracle. Like Mother Teresa, his miracles were discovered at warp speed, and then he was fast-tracked to sainthood. “By the way, the idea of God’s Influencer “is contrary to the Catholic Church’s view of Predestination.
Let’s be clear, the meeting between Pope Leo and King Charles was far from groundbreaking, but it reaffirmed that religion continues to be the “opium of the masses “, and as Oscar Wilde suggested that “Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn’t there. It is also underpinned by the fear of death; ironically, Wilde converted to Catholicism just before he died.
Let me finish with two quotes by Robert Ingersoll about humanism: “Happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest.” and “Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.”
I leave you with a question: What’s God got to do with it?
Suneil Sharma
28th October 2025
The Gob 
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