Carla Bruni criticises Pope Benedict XVI (France's First Lady)

[IndianaGreen]

Source: The Telegraph (UK)

Carla Bruni criticises Pope Benedict XVI

Carla Bruni has issued a scathing attack on Pope Benedict XVI saying that she has allowed her Catholic faith to lapse because of his approach to contraception in Africa.

By Henry Samuel in Paris
Last Updated: 6:26PM BST 18 May 2009

France's First Lady said that the Church's teachings had left her feeling "profoundly secular".

She departed from her post's traditional religious neutrality to accuse the Pope of "damaging" countries like Africa with his stance on birth control.

The Italian-born former supermodel risked angering believers in France and beyond by declaring that the Pontiff's proclamations showed that the Church needed to "evolve".

In March, the Pope sparked controversy while on an Africa tour by saying that the AIDs pandemic which has crippled the continent "can't be resolved with the distribution of condoms; on the contrary, there is the risk of increasing the problem".

Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy said: "I was born Catholic, I was baptised, but in my life I feel profoundly secular.

"I find that the controversy coming from the Pope's message – albeit distorted by the media – is very damaging.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/5345389/Carla-Bruni-criticises-Pope-Benedict-XVI.html

[blaze]

1. Good for her! nt

[Mythsaje]

2. She's right on this, at least...

Can't say anything else about her, but the Church's position on the subject is one of my big beefs against it (at least in recent years). And I really don't like the new pope at all. Fucking Inquisitor. Nazi trash in funny clothes.

Sorry, Catholics, but seriously... I just can't wrap my mind around the whole "direct line to God" thing. As if...

[JerseygirlCT]

3. I think Ratzinger is doing serious harm to the RCC

And I agree with you - I've found this position immoral since my teens. Will the Church be feeding those babies?

More of their subjugation of women, I'm afraid.

[Mythsaje]

5. Yeah...not only feeding the babies, but what about HIV?

Their teachings there border on criminal behavior.

[IndianaGreen]

6. While in Africa, Benedict told people that condoms were not reliable

Why would the former Hitler Youth care about the plight of non-Aryans?

[Mythsaje]

7. More reliable than praying, that's for sure.

What a jerk.

[JerseygirlCT]

9. Absolutely

And that still results in many starving, orphaned babies - particularly when the women contract HIV because their husbands insist on their "rights" and that they cannot use birth control.

So the result of this is hunger and disease, and the hardest hit ends up being the children and their mothers.

[pnwmom]

4. I doubt she'll offend very many French people. Most Catholics there

are as "profoundly secular" as she is.

[DeSwiss]

10. Yup. You're right.

Further in the article:

"The Pope's stance against the use of contraceptives in Africa was roundly criticised in France – including by many Catholics. Some 43 per cent of them wanted the Pontiff to step down, according to one poll. "

- K&R

[liberalmuse]

8. Anyone who calls out Bennie the Rat...

has my full approval. Worst. Pope. In the last 100 years. Yay!

[IndianaGreen]

11. I suppose all threads about the Pope get moved down here from LBN

just as all threads about Israel, or even a Jewish flavour, are moved to I/P forum.

Too many Papalist apologists around.

[hlthe2b]

12. Go, Carla....

Send the Ratzinger packing... He's no more a "Holy Father" than I am.

[applegrove]

13. Way to go Carla.

[avaistheone1]

14. Carla has more substance do her than I ever would have imagined

and more courage too.

[struggle4progress]

15. Maybe Bruni-Sarkozy needed a different kind of attention, given recent coverage:

Nude Carla Bruni, Dita von Teese in pin-up sale
Fri May 15, 2009 10:49am EDT
By Sophie Hardach
PARIS (Reuters Life!) - A nude drawing of France's first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is being put up for auction in Paris along with pictures of strippers and pin-up girls, in the latest reminder of her steamy past as a model. A frontal nude photo of Bruni-Sarkozy, who now prefers demure poses in prim Dior dresses by the side of President Nicolas Sarkozy, already caused a stir last year and was eventually auctioned off for $91,000 ... http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE54E2HN20090515

Carla's no longer got it taped
By Julia Molony
Sunday May 03 2009
It's been a bad week for Carla Bruni ... And as if that wasn't bad enough, then came another blow -- in the form of the news that "intimate" pictures and video tapes of Mrs Sarkozy with her former lover and baby daddy Raphael Enthoven had been stolen from a flat in Paris. The items, which were specifically targeted by the thieves, are said to date from her wilder days and are widely expected to surface on some seedy internet site ... It's so unfair that this would happen at a time when Carla has worked so assiduously to put her reputation as First Lady of Raunch behind her ... http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/news-gossip/carlas-no-longer-got-it-taped-1727375.html

Carla Bruni: Bad for feminism
Comment: Carla lost me on the bum shot, which takes us back to a time when dressing up in pretty clothes, marrying well and competing to see who was the prettiest of them all was the standard by which women were judged
By Anne Marie Owens, National PostApril 30, 2009
... It is a beautiful picture -- how could it not be? When two women with Barbie-like figures and unlimited access to high-priced fashion get together, of course it's going to be a nice picture. There's nothing wrong with it showing up in a fashion magazine. What offends me is that it was displayed prominently in newspapers that long ago abandoned running gratuitous ass shots ... Bruni's current fame is entirely derivative. She is known merely for marrying someone famous. That such a stunning, sexy beauty would marry a short man with a comical face is fodder for the middle-aged male version of a fairy tale come true ... This kind of coverage takes us back to a time when dressing up in pretty clothes, marrying well and competing to see who was the prettiest of them all was the standard by which women were judged ... http://www.vancouversun.com/Entertainment/Carla+Bruni+feminism/1547878/story.html

Photos of French first lady stolen
Henry Samuel, Paris
April 30, 2009
... Burglars took a computer containing photos of Mrs Sarkozy, a digital camera and video material from the home of the brother of her former lover Raphael Enthoven ... The former model met Raphael Enthoven, a married philosopher, while going out with his father, Jean-Paul Enthoven, in 2001. They separated six years later, with Raphael complaining that she was not sufficiently committed. His former wife, Justine Levy, later wrote a revenge novel about a former model who seduces another woman's husband. http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/people/photos-of-french-first-lady-stolen-20090429-and9.html

Stolen pictures and video may reveal scandalous past of French first lady
Updated: 18 days ago
French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has insisted that her wild, somewhat checkered past is long behind her. But a recent burglary has many wondering if that complicated past is about to catch up with her. While Bruni was in Spain this week, pictures and video documenting Bruni's relationship with former lover Raphael Enthoven were stolen from Enthoven's brother's Paris apartment ... http://www.kare11.com/news/whatsup/whatsup_article.aspx?storyid=662799&catid=333

It may not be causing the right-wing Sarkozy any political problems, but the subject of Carla either explicitly or implicitly naked certainly has been receiving a lot of attention recently

[RetiredTrotskyite]

16. Bravo, Carla!

I'd love nothing better than to see Ratsass run out of office. He is an insult to rational people everywhere. The crap about condoms in Africa is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Bennie. No problem at all for this NAZI to suggest that women risk death because a cheating husband may well end up transmitting HIV/AIDS to her because she cannot say "no" to her husband--his "rights" and all that.

I absolutely loathe this man with his evil smile while millions die to support the outmoded ideas of a fascist pope. He disgusts me. I was catholic but am now a happy Christopagan and will never return to Roman Catholicism. The Papacy has long outlived it's usefulness (if, indded, it ever had any) and should be abandoned.