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The Vatican Speaks out on Intellectual Property

The Vatican has spoken out against unduly aggressive intellectual property protection. In a statement at the World Intellectual Property Organization, it noted “on the part of rich countries there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, especially in the field of health care.”

7 Comments


  1. You know it’s bad when those who brought us the likes of the “Crusades” and the “Inquisition” speaks out against it. The Catholic church is not exactly known for it’s openmindedness.

  2. As the Church has now spoken out, I guess the international governments are simply waiting for the Dixie Chicks to also climb aboard.

    That’s because when both the Vatican and the Dixie Chicks oppose, you ought to know you’re on the wrong side. *cough* *gulf* *cough*


  3. Tom, you literally made me laugh out loud!!! LOL

  4. The “Crusades” and “Inquisitions” of the Medieval ages are products of its own time. They are byproducts of the kind of governance the Catholic Church had in those era.

    But if you study closely and scrutinize deeply, there have been many instances where Catholic Church has been the most open-minded institution (and belief system) in the history of humanity. What is unfortunate is how most historians and history books have unduly emphasized these atrocities (inquisition, crusades, and the like) over (1) the reasons why such things occurred and (2) the context by which such events were came about.

    I will not go into the details or even state for you examples. It’s for you (and for all of us) to do our research on.

    The church has been one open-minded institution. It may seem to us as conservative or reserved in embracing radical societal changes, but it is for the very reason that it tries to uphold certain values and principles it has long since upheld since its foundation/establishment. It may seem to us that it dons a conservative stance but it mere a product of the church’s deep reflections (of the past) and its ruminations of the possible (even untoward) repercussion(s)come the embrace of such radical ideas.

    There are evidences in our history that the church, when it has acknowledged the universal truthfulness of such seemingly radical ideas/movements/societal shifts, it shall make the effort to embrace such, but always with degrees of reservation.

    We have to remember that the church before isn’t exactly the church as it is now, in terms of its attitude to the “secular world.” The church, like us human beings, change. We are not the same person as when the time we where born. And neither we would be the same person in the few years to come.

    Things ain’t too simplistic if you dared to look closely.

  5. just a quick offtopic
    About the crusades that i see everyone always bashing..
    Everyone attacks the crusades as if they were some gratuitous violence on the poor arabs. Guess what, they weren’t! If you do know your history you will know that the Muslim faith was founded around 622 DC. that’s 600 years after Christ and after the christianity was all spread around the mediterranean. The local communities of those days, in the middle east, the holy land and all around were christian!
    Then the Arabic/Muslim Expansion came and by violence conquered most of for us now is the “arab region”. This including Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Now you might understand that for the christians of those days being kicked out of their spiritual birthplace might sound a bit offensive. And as such, then came the Crusades. not a matter of Conquering land through sectarian violence but of Reconquering land that was lost, specially the one with deep religious meaning.
    So, stop bashing te Crusades and understand what it was. They weren’t pretty but then again, the Muslim violent land grab wasn’t also…

  6. @l.jeremias – just a quick offtopic
    The Arabic/Muslim hostile takeover I’ll give you. But what of the 10’s, perhaps 100’s of thousands of Jews killed along the way and in Jerusalem because they would not convert to Chritianity? …and the deliberate demonization, over approximately 500 years (Far beyond the crusades), of the Jewish people. The Catholic church pretty much created anti-semitism. This is well documented. Yes, the primary goal of the crusades was “perhaps” to retake Jerusalem (The Holy Land) from the Muslims. However, something commonly overlooked, a “secondary” goal was to eliminate non-Christian religion, either through conversion or execution. Most often, the latter prevailed. This was nothing less than systematic genocide, of both Jews and Muslims, at the hands of the Church.

  7. …correction…
    “”secondary” goal was to eliminate non-Christian religion”

    this should have been “non-Catholic”