By HITCHENS_JNR
Added: Sat, 09 Apr 2011 14:25:47 UTC

Some of you may remember Professor Roberto de Mattei's deplorable declaration that the Japan disaster was a "divine punishment". Professor de Mattei, the chairman of Italy's Centre for National Research, has been knighted by the Vatican for his services to the Catholic Church, is known for his extremely conservative religious and social views, and is clearly not shy about articulating his Bronze Age understanding of the world in the most uncompromising terms possible.

I saw in today's paper that he's just caused something of a storm in Italy for proclaiming on national radio that the Roman Empire fell because of the "contagion of homosexuality", and went on to deplore the malicious effects of "the abhorrent presence of a few gays" in ancient Rome. More details on his comments can be read here.

Lest anyone should doubt that his religion is behind this (entirely untenable) interpretation of history, I would draw attention to the following comment: "Every evil must have its punishment, either in our times or in the afterlife."

Even the genteel pursuit of Roman history is now being undermined by religious nonsense. Is no field of human intellectual endeavour immune from the malicious influence of the Grand Delusion?

TAGGED: RELIGION, SEXUALITY