Folau must be without sin to be confident in throwing stones

Israel Folau leaves after a code of conduct hearing in Sydney last month. Picture: AFP

The drama surrounding Israel Folau refuses to go away. Now it’s about whether he can even have a GoFundMe page.

GoFundMe’s decision to take down his page strikes me as an ­affront to those among us who ­believe in the concept of religious freedom. The argument then ­becomes one about free speech. The basis of any rule about free speech must be the right to offend. One right fits, hand in glove, with the other.

While I am in no position to pretend that I am a person of faith, I was raised a Catholic and the ­Sisters of Charity drilled into my core the concept that we should “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”.

In making his pronouncements about liars, fornicators and other ne’er-do-wells, Folau must consider himself as being in that category. Personally, I am having real difficulty believing that Folau is such a perfect human being that he has never succumbed to any of the devil’s wide range of temptations.

If he has indeed lived a perfect life then he should be in the running to make sainthood in the same manner as Mary MacKillop. I am unaware, however, of any moves to canonise him. As someone who has committed every sin on many occasions, his belief that I am headed for hell, a place I do not believe exists, does not cause me any angst.

As an unfinancial Catholic, I suppose there is always the option of the deathbed confession to wipe away the prospect of any punishment for my myriad wrongdoings. This is the safe option. You repent at the very end of your life and then suffer no penalty for having been a thoroughgoing bastard for most of your life.

Scott Morrison is a man of faith, but the Prime Minister doesn’t wonder around the country warning sinners of the warmish fate they can expect if they refuse to change their ways.

When I was a lad, the odd man out was the one who did not go to church on Sundays. Now the churches are struggling to hold on to fast-disappearing congregations. The so-called “happy clappers” of the evangelical churches use well-appointed stadium-type venues, while the traditional churches are stuck in buildings ­designed to make parishioners sweat in the summer and freeze in the winter.

Watching successive popes preach against birth control and divorce is almost sad. In Africa there are huge numbers of children with distended bellies from a lack of food.

To suggest there should be more children born only condemns those kids to a short life of sickness and misery. Africa could do so much better at feeding its citizens if governments got over the chip on their shoulders about their former colonial masters. Zimbabwe was a productive country until Robert Mugabe dismantled the big farms and allowed them to be cut up into small holdings.

In South Africa there are gangs attacking the few farms left in white hands. Had Nelson Mandela lived longer, this tragedy may have been prevented, but his ­successors possessed none of his wisdom.

The story of Africa is one of tribal rivalry and missed opportunities. I remain an optimist ­despite the body of evidence at hand and hope I will live to see ­improved living standards in a continent that has failed to fire.