{"id":8870,"date":"2010-05-30T21:57:47","date_gmt":"2010-05-31T01:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=8870"},"modified":"2010-05-30T21:57:47","modified_gmt":"2010-05-31T01:57:47","slug":"vatican-to-evangelise-atheists-some-atheists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/vatican-to-evangelise-atheists-some-atheists\/","title":{"rendered":"Vatican to evangelise atheists \u2013 some atheists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/europe\/vatican-reaches-out-to-atheists-ndash-but-not-you-richard-dawkins-1987518.html\" target=\"_blank\">The Independent<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Vatican is planning a new initiative to reach out to atheists and agnostics in an attempt to improve the church&#8217;s relationship with non-believers. Pope Benedict XVI has ordered officials to create a new foundation where atheists will be encouraged to meet and debate with some of the Catholic Church&#8217;s top theologians.<\/p>\n<p>The Vatican hopes to stage a series of debates in Paris next year. But militant non-believers hoping for a chance to set senior church figures straight about the existence of God are set to be disappointed: the church has warned that atheists with high public profiles such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens will not be invited.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As a Christian I believe that no-one is beyond redemption: Christ died for all sinners. It is interesting, then, that the Catholic Church \u2013 which presumably believes the same thing \u2013 is planning on excluding <em>some <\/em>atheists from their evangelistic endeavours. The only sentient creatures whom we would normally view as excluded from Christ&#8217;s offer of salvation are the demons of hell led by Lucifer himself \u2013 in whose company the Catholic church seems to have placed Dawkins and Hitchens. A satisfying thought, but perhaps a tad harsh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From The Independent: The Vatican is planning a new initiative to reach out to atheists and agnostics in an attempt to improve the church&#8217;s relationship with non-believers. Pope Benedict XVI has ordered officials to create a new foundation where atheists &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/vatican-to-evangelise-atheists-some-atheists\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[2049,2085,2238,1369],"class_list":["post-8870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism","tag-atheism","tag-christopher-hitchens","tag-richard-dawkins","tag-roman-catholic-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8870\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}