OPINION

Pic takes the cake

Re: "Uproar over cardinal's cake photo", (BP, Dec 25).

The photograph, published in newspapers and online media around the world, of Myanmar Roman Catholic Cardinal Charles Bo holding hands with Min Aung Hlaing as they cut a Christmas cake, is horrifying.

The report included the explanation that they were meeting to "talk about peaceful and prosperous affairs". This defies credibility. What "peaceful and prosperous affairs" exist today in Myanmar, where we read that the Tatmadaw has attacked and killed numerous civilians in an attack on the Karen in Myanmar, burning their bodies in an attempt to hide the atrocity?

You have to go back to Pope Pious XII in the 1940s to find equal acts of pious (pun intended) hypocrisy. Before he was elected pope he was the Cardinal Secretary of State to Germany when the Vatican and Germany signed the "Reichskonkordat", which allowed the Vatican to sit back and watch Germany kill 6 million Jews.

The Catholic Church has made many attempts to rehabilitate this notorious prelate, saying he was working behind the scenes to save Jews. But it doesn't wash.

Neither does Cardinal Bo's talk of peaceful and prosperous affairs.

Re: "Power and the glory", (PostBag, Dec 26).

Ye Olde Theologian mentioned that early Christianity glorified poverty but such theology is not quite accurate. The New Testament does warn against the love of money, but not money itself.

Most folk quote this wrongly. Jesus said no man can serve both God and mammon. Helping the poor and being generous to those in need is a virtue. In days of yore, monks took a vow of poverty to live simply and to focus on ministry.

Taking the biblical teachings in context, nowhere is poverty encouraged. It would be more accurate to say that Christianity teaches empathy for the poor.

Balance this with the teaching that God blesses those who serve and obey, and the fact that the vast majority who embrace the Christian faith are uplifted economically anywhere on the planet, it would be safe to say that neither riches nor poverty are a clear indicator of spirituality.

"Foreign indecency", (PostBag, Dec 21)

I am amazed and offended by Vint Chavala's attack on "foreign traits".

A few decades ago there were no mass media conduits to "learning". All civilisations have profited from learning from others and protest and exclamations are no less a form of learning.

VC's cloistered and arrogant view of Thai society's only good civil traits is wholly self-serving and flies in the face of real street evidence.

In which other nation on planet Earth could you, while driving, flash your lights or toot your horn at a speeding, irritating and frankly dangerous fellow motorist and expect that delinquent to stop you, get out of his car and shoot you to death! A middle-finger seems a far more civil way to register offence.