Pope Benedict: The Athiest's Satan?

I'm no christian by any stretch of the imagination. I have empirical and moral reasons to oppose its dogmatism. However I'm amazed at the near-equally dogmatic dislike that some people have displayed towards the pope during his time in Australia.

Is the basic message that came from the pope not healthy for us or any Western nation in its current stage of material propsterity? Like the call to ease back on the superfluous levels of individualism and materialism that currently characterise us and to focus instead a bit more again on the processes which make our communities possible in the first place rather than simply the results which these processes enable us to consume/benefit from. From a nihilist or corrupt perspective these processes include: the environment, community bonds, mutual respect, family, the authority of experience and wisdom, and so on.

Sure the catholic church might have some funny particular views on 'the processes', but at least they are concerned with this sort of thinking and starting dialogue in these very areas of thought. Any organisation or thinktank or religion which is concerned with a society in the same way you might think of an organic living thing, which is born for various reasons and which may die/decline for various reasons, has to have at least some merit when you address reality.

If secularism means the same thing as an Australian state seperated from any deeper but at the same time practical and non-abstracted thinking about what it takes to maintain a healthy and strong society behind the stockmarkets, gadgets, wage disputes, art vs porn debates, etc then its simply another dangerous fanaticism itself.