Pope Benedict and the Gay Inquisition

I am a big admirer of the current Pope, am glad he came to America, and hope he had a good time.

Nonetheless, it really is about time for a papal proclamation announcing that God is a bi gender twister. But since that is not going to happen anytime soon, it would be good if he just turned down the gay bashing a bit.

However, I tend to pay him no mind on this stuff. When the Pope preaches the sin of queerness, it carries the same theological weight as the edict against birth control—who cares? Not most Catholics.

When dealing with any of these patriarchal religions, there is gonna be plenty of bullshit—it really has nothing to do with what God has to say on the matter, but what a bunch of old coots with dirty, misogynistic minds have thought up.

Jesus talked about a lot of stuff, most of which people don't follow. But he never bothered to mention homosexuality one time. And in the Bible there are only four or five passages on the subject, and the bulk of those are stuck back there with the dietary laws, which also address the necessity of griding your loins and wearing ash sack cloth on certain holidays. As far as specifically condemning dykedom-- there is one ambiguous obscure passage.

I am one of Benedict's biggest fans. He is a great thinker, and a great defender of the cause of reason and rationality, against the modern onslaught of moral relativism, and moral despotism in the world. But sometimes, people with great minds are able to construct seemingly rational explanations as a cover for their irrational prejudices and impressions.

The Pope admits, as he must, that a homosexual impulse is not a sin. It is only when the inclination is acted upon that there is a so-called sin. If that is as far as he went, I might disagree, but could accept it as a legitimate position.

But Benedict has turned the inclination into a "disorder" that requires constant pastoral monitoring to insure that it does not devolve into an immoral lifestyle:

"Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder. Pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living-out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not."

In other words, gays and lesbians are hopelessly flawed creations. God messed up.

Although this is already getting to be pretty unchristian, it is even worse when canon law is changed to affirmatively discriminate against persons who were born with this "disorder", even if it is checked.

That is what the new Vatican edict forbidding non-practicing homosexuals from entering a seminary does. Should a non-drinking person be excluded from the priesthood simply because he may be genetically predisposed to alcoholism?

Actually, I can appreciate why this might have been an understandable overreaction to the monumental sex abuse crisis.

Prior to the scandal, it was quite obvious, except to the most blind rosary bead bangers, that an unhealthy closeted gay subculture had developed in the priesthood, and this was bound to lead to the kind of problems that rocked the Church.

This is not because most gay guys are pedophiles, it is because most pedophiles are men. In society, as a whole, most sex offenders are heterosexual men. If you don't believe me, or the studies, go down some day and look at the criminal docket in your local court.

The "studies" that have managed to crunch the statistics differently, are simply playing the pedophile card.

But with a disproportionate number of gay men in the priesthood, living an active undercover twisted gay lifestyle, it was inevitable there would be a high number of altar boy molesters. And of course, pedophiles seek out positions where they can get access to and gain the trust of children. The priesthood was ideal for men who wished to diddle little boys.

The whole creepy all male “celibate” priesthood needs to be junked. But if the Church is not ready to go there, then the reaction should have been to put the screws on priests acting on their homosexual impulses, just as they would heterosexual priests. Suspected pedophiles should have been unceremoniously dismissed. And active pedophiles turned over to the civil authorities.

The Church abysmally failed children, and the Pope can not offer enough apologies, nor make enough amends.

However, it does not seem that the seminary edict was just an understandable over reaction to the sex abuse crisis, though it certainly precipitated it.

As Cardinal Ratzinger, the Pope many times made the argument that people who had homosexual inclinations were flawed individuals, deserving of Christian pity, charity and compassion, but who are forever morally crippled, and unequal.

And as both the head honcho of what was formerly known as the Office of the Inquisition, and as Pope, he has led an internal Inquisition against ideas different than his on homosexuality, and purged theologians who dare bring them up.

The man has thought too hard. He has taken a monumentally insignificant part of God's word, and ratcheted it up into a teaching justifying monumental discrimination.

Now I do not see the Catholic Church offering same sex marriages during my lifetime, if ever. And I think that is fine. Gay activists should not try to push religions to redefine their theological construct of marriage—it is none of their business.

Likewise, the Pope and his bishops should keep their nose out of the issue of civil unions and secular marital laws in the United States. It is none of their business. Besides the Church doesn't think civil marriages are real marriages anyway.

It is too bad that Pope Benedict, one of the world's greatest and most impressive advocates of human rights, when it comes to this issue, is crippled by the same type of blind eye, which he has so eloquently exposed in Islam, and Western moral relativism.