Are Catholicism and democracy irreconcilable? According to Pope Benedict XVI, yes. The Vatican has just released a 140-page report entitled "Apostolic Exhortation" in which Benedict calls on Catholic politicians to defend the church's conservative faith and, thus, politics. He insists that they must have:

respect for human life, its defense from conception to natural death, the family built on marriage between a man and a woman, the freedom to educate one's children and the promotion of the common good in all its forms.

...Catholic politicians and legislators, conscious of their grave responsibility before society, must feel particularly bound, on the basis of a properly formed conscience, to introduce laws inspired by values grounded in human nature.

His Popiness also mourned the loss of Latin among Catholics and upheld Priest's celibacy as "a priceless treasure". Sure, purity's great and all, but nothing beats a good, long fuck.