Pope Benedict XVI: India Knight Voices My Very Thoughts 3

Gay - Religion, Religion, Social Commentary • Tags: , ,

India Knight had a great piece, three years ago on why she had let her Catholicism lapse:

Money quote:

Vague because it’s hard to pay lip-service to a faith that you feel hates you; a faith that would rather let you die in childbirth than have an abortion, won’t let you take the contraception necessary to prevent said abortion, hates gay people despite having many homosexual priests; a faith that talks ignorant nonsense about HIV and Aids, that would rather watch people die in Africa than let them use a condom; a faith that is unbelievably slow to say sorry about the fact that some of its members are habitual rapists of children.

I mean, you know, at some point you just give up. Not one of these things is defensible taken individually. Collectively, they are beyond comprehension.

My thoughts exactly. This Pope has been an unmitigated failure, with his reign characterized by cover-ups, even rewarding, of priestly pedophilia, foolish resistance to contraception by a Pope who has never raised a child or had to worry about where his next meal would come from, publicly inveighing against homosexuals while continuing to secretly hire them into the priestly ranks … one could go on.

The only positively radical thing Benedict XVI has done in his entire Papacy is to resign. Time for a Pope ready to live in the 21st Century.

To a gay man living in 201013, the Catholic Church Vatican I see and read about is an abomination.

Related reading:

.1. Pedophilia, celibacy and the priestly vocation
2. Is the notion of a sexually active gay clergy tenable?
3. If Biblical teaching is unquestionable …
4. Stephen Fry on the Catholic Church
.

PS. I first posted this on March 29, 2010. Sadly, everything herein is still true, three years later: an indictment, surely of Benedict XVI papacy.
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3 Comments

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  2. ”Time for a Pope ready to live in the 21st century”. Well yes, some of us actually believe that it is possible to have such a pope even now.

    Remember 75 year old Pope John XXIII, now beatified, who within a few months of his election in 1959,unexpectedly convoked a Council which radically changed catholicism?

    That very progressive Council which began in 1962 and ended 1965, may seem dated to us but was rather upsetting to the status quo of the time.

    For instance, it got rid of Latin masses,allowed drums and other instruments to be played in church;recognised all religions as valid; recognized lay vocations as equal to clerical ones;permitted non-celibate married deacons, made justice and peace issues foremost; was restrictive of papal infallibilty, and universal papal administrative authority, (many of Benedict’s statements are actually NOT infallible or theologically conclusive) and other far reaching changes, some of which are still not yet implemented.

    Significantly at that council, with the entire world’s catholic bishops and even protestant ones (as observers and advisers) present, there was a unanimous acceptance of artificial contraception

    Pope Paul IV later and infamously, rejected their conclusions and produced a ”minority report” called Humanae Vitae, forbidding contraception, but permitting natural family planning methods. The ”infallibilty” of that document is still contested by many theologians today and may be revisited.

    I fully understand why one would want to opt out of catholicism.There is only so much abuse and hypocrisy one can take. Some of us however, notwithstanding abuse and hypocrisy, still feel that we can and must eviscerate all this stupid pseudo-orthodoxy from within, so to speak..We lie in he belly of the monster (of church tyranny) tearing away at its insides believing, may be a tad naively, that eventually some things will change( hoping we don’t get too mangled in the process!.)

    Like Hans Kung, the priest-theologian censured by Benedict and one whom I continue admire, we will keep on agitating for optional priestly celibacy, ( it existed in the early church), for a completely revised understanding of homosexual orientation, contraception,female ordination and church authority…

    I now believe (and I didnt before) that the reality or ”scandal” of non-celibate catholic priests and bishops, whether gay or straight, active or not, must remain a thorn in the church’s side and a counter-testimony to the idealized theology and spirituality of what I call ”catholic fundamentalism”.

    This has nothing to do with priests raping children, a direct result of forced celibacy, and which horror is an eternal blot on catholic priesthood.

    There are thousands of unfaithful priests and bishops, who have no thought of raping kids but happily break their chastity vows with impunity, and whose two-timing and hypocrisy continues to make the church a laughing stock. I think that that is actually a good thing for the church right now…Didnt someone say that laughter is the best medicine?

    In any case, with the exit of Benedict, I believe that monolithic catholicism, which was always a myth, will pass into oblivion.

    (The author is campaigning for the Chair of St Peter. To vote send your tweet to the Vatican.)

  3. Pingback: The lunacy and Hypocrisy of Catholic Priest Celibacy « sebaspace

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