POPE BENEDICT’S visit to Britain in September is “a mistake”, and the Catholic Church’s response to clerical sex abuse is “very weak” and “an absolute disgrace”, former DUP leader Rev Ian Paisley has said.
Dr Paisley, in an extended interview with the BBC broadcast last night, said he stood by long established claims by him that the pope is the anti-Christ, and that Catholics were encouraged by their church to breed like rabbits.
He told the World Service he believed Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness would never be First Minister at Stormont, and that there should be closure on lasting controversies from the Troubles such as Bloody Sunday. “We can’t live with these things before us,” he said.
Dr Paisley, who will be introduced to the House of Lords on Monday as Lord Bannside, also denied he had changed his opinions since deciding to enter government with Sinn Féin at Stormont.
Regarding the pope’s visit to Britain, the first by a pope since 1982, Dr Paisley said it was a mistake. “I think he should not be invited to the country,” he said. “But I don’t know how it has been done because they have had it all secret. Nobody knows who made the thing. You go and ask a question of any Minister and he says he doesn’t want to have anything to do with it.”
He criticised the Irish Catholic Church for its stand on sex abuse of children, claiming the bishops had been “very weak”. “I believe that any man that destroys a child’s life, as we have seen scores of young people in this day and generation – and then the church having to wait until it’s uncovered – is an absolute disgrace,” he said.
He denied his decision to share power with Sinn Féin in a Stormont administration marked a personal transformation.
“I don’t think it is,” he said. “I think it is a misunderstanding that if you are going to have an agreement that we have had in Northern Ireland, there are some basic things which must be fulfilled. And of course I took a stand on those basic things, and I haven’t compromised.”
He also stood by his long-held beliefs regarding Catholics. Reminded of his claims that Catholics were vermin who bred like rabbits, he said: “I don’t think that it’s wrong to say that the Roman Catholic Church did believe that they [adherents] should have very large families. And large Roman Catholic families were brought into existence simply because of that.”
Asked whether he regretted such comments, he said simply: “I haven’t said anything that is contrary to what I believe to be truth. And for me to say that I am going to turn my back on all I’ve said would be nonsense. I believed it and I said it, and it stands the test.”
On the question of the pope being branded as the anti-Christ by Dr Paisley in the European Parliament in 1988, he said: “Well it’s quite true. [The pope] does seek by his claims to replace Christ. And he puts himself in the place of Christ.
“Take the list of names that he calls himself. The Roman Catholic Church turns to us and says you shouldn’t call him the anti-Christ. Well, if a man comes to me and says he can forgive sins, then he is taking the place of Christ – no one can forgive sins except God.
“A person like some of the priests we’ve had destroying the lives of young people and then going out and saying I can forgive sins – it’s only right that be called what it is. That is anti-Christ in teaching and in doctrine.”
Dr Paisley was asked whether he stood by comments that the papacy is “the seed of the serpent, the progeny of hell”. He answered: “Yes, yes, and so it is.”
Asked whether he could live with Martin McGuinness as First Minister if Sinn Féin emerged from next year’s Assembly election as the largest party, Dr Paisley said he did not think Mr McGuinness is “going to be leader”.
He said those shot dead on Bloody Sunday were indeed “shot wrongfully”, and “were innocent people”. “I don’t think you will find any Protestant trying to defend that. And I think these things now need to come to an end. There needs to be a closure of these things. We can’t always live with these things before us.
“We must come to the place where Protestants and Roman Catholics have got to live together, practise whatever religion they want provided it’s within the law, and in their own churches. And get away from the old days when you wanted to wipe out your neighbour because he had different politics and different religions.”