Protests Against The Pope

18th September, 2010 – Anti-Pope Protests, London

Joseph Ratzinger aka Pope Benedict XVI visited the UK, and with it came inevitable protests featuring a lot of blown-up condoms.  The biggest demonstration was in London, organised by “Protest the Pope” – http://www.protest-the-pope.org.uk/

I was actually quite surprised at just how much anti-Pope feelings there were.  It was clear that some demonstrators were incredibly passionate about this, with many people around me having their own personal stories and reasons.

A whole range of activists turned up – Women’s rights,abortion, gay rights, child abuse were just some of the issues people were demonstrating about.

I have a lot of images of placards which are worth full-viewing in my opinion.  This must be the only protest I have been to where there has been so much variety in terms of banners and placards.  Most of them were ‘home-made’ and these are always interesting to read. In fact, I took a whole bunch more but haven’t posted them all.

Condom umbrella. Now there’s a first:

Notice the guy on the left above – Pastafarian.

Some supporters of the Pope – slightly outnumbered in this instance:

This wouldn’t personally be my first-choice hoodie to wear but hey, each to their own:

Richard Dawkins was one of the guest speakers at the rally, which started at Hyde Park and ended at Downing Street.

He was soon surrounded by a crowd of people all keen to speak to him.  I’d imagine he would be a very interesting person to have a conversation with.

Notice the guy on the left with the flourescent jacket:

I did indeed Google Hollie Greig – I’m not sure how it’s relevant to the Pope (yes, it’s about child abuse but I don’t think this relates to the Church in any way?) but in any case it’s shocking..

Horribly out of focus:

Turnout was much larger than expected with an estimated 12,000 people marching to Downing Street.  Of course, this number is dwarfed by the hundreds of thousands of people who came out to see the Pope, but these demonstrators have definitely made their thoughts heard.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get any images of the Pope himself, although I would have quite liked to.

Religion is a funny thing. That is the only opinion on religion I’m going to include in this post before I end up typing an essay, and well, this meant to be a *photo*blog of sorts.  Well OK – one more thing – I know a number of people here who would consider themselves to be religious church-going Catholics who didn’t line the streets to see the Pope because they could not be bothered with the crowds. Hm.. I really have to say I find that incredible.  If you have that much faith surely you *would* make the effort to see the man who represents your faith, which could be the only chance in your lifetime? Oh, and one more thing – you don’t need religion in order to be a good, moral person – something I think a lot of people tend to forget. That is all.

——-

On a completely different note, leaving the protest, I came across this:

He was being filmed pogo-ing as part of an advert for KangaROOS.

Very cool and random.