More homophobic zaniness within Vatican politics according to 365Gay.com…
(San Francisco, California) San Francisco Archbishop William J. Levada has been named as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the Vatican department that has led the attack against same-sex marriage and gay rights.
The Congregation led the infamous Spanish Inquisition from the 15th to the 18th century. It’s last leader, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, is now Pope Benedict.
Well gee, Levada just sounds perfect for this job then! A modern vicious Inquisition against the people of the LGBTQ Community–yep, that’s good PR on the Vatican’s part. Way to reach out to everyone else in the world.
Ratzinger was the author of the a 2003 Vatican directive to priests around the world calling for a proactive stand to stop governments from legalizing same-sex marriage and for a repeal of those those already on the books that give rights, including adoption, to gay couples. (story)
The 12 page document called on Catholic bishops and lawmakers to oppose the legalization of same-sex unions.
Under Ratzinger the Congregation also spoke out against the use of condoms to combat HIV/AIDS.
He also was responsible for ordering Sister Jeannine Gramick to stop ministering to American gays and lesbians. Gramick was a co-founder of New Ways Ministry in 1977 to provide educational programs for gay and lesbian Catholics nationwide.
It is considered unlikely that the Congregation will change much under Levada, who has headed the Archdiocese of San Francisco since 1995.
In 1977 he told a Synod of Bishops his experience with gays in San Francisco shows the LGBT community is highly organized.
“The city’s human rights commission named me as contributing to a ‘climate’ of discrimination against homosexuals because I said public recognition should not be given to so-called ‘gay marriages,'” he said.
That same year, Levada opposed a city ordinance requiring all agencies contracting with the city to provide spousal benefits to domestic partners of their employees…[…]
Yep, he’s perfect. Now how about a more positive newsbyte on the state of the LGBTQ Community’s relationship with organized religion.
(Vancouver, British Columbia) Despite pleas from many of the world’s top Anglican leaders, Bishop Michael Ingham said that the blessing of same-sex unions continues within his New Westminster Diocese.
Ingham endorsed an April 27 statement from a meeting in Windsor, Ontario, where Canada’s Anglican bishops unanimously committed themselves “neither to encourage nor to initiate the use of such rites” until a nationwide synod settles the issue. The next synod session is in 2007.
But as Ingham sees it, the bishops agreed to take “no further actions beyond those already started” and left his diocese free to continue its practice of same-sex blessings.
“No bishop was in any doubt that I did not commit myself to a moratorium on same-sex blessings,” Ingham said.
A same-sex blessings moratorium was part of a unity plea from a February meeting of 35 top world Anglican leaders…[…]
That’s somewhat positive…oh well I’ll take what I can get from organized religion and its treatment of the LGBTQ Community.
More zaniness:
Vatican plan to block gay priests.
“The new Pope faces his first controversy over the direction of the Catholic church after it was revealed that the Vatican has drawn up a religious instruction preventing gay men from being priests. “
But it’s not because they feel “homosexuality is immoral”, not at all. They are just trying to be fair.
” The instruction tries to dampen down the controversy by eschewing a moral line, arguing instead that the presence of homosexuals in seminaries is ‘unfair’ to both gay and heterosexual priests by subjecting the former to temptation.
‘It will be written in a very pastoral mode,’ Haldane said. ‘It will not be an attack on the gay lifestyle. It will not say “homosexuality is immoral”. But it will suggest that admitting gay men into the priesthood places a burden both on those who are homosexual and those they are working alongside who are not.’ ”
I was under the impression that the Catholic Church already had a shortage of priests. This doesn’t seem to be too bright a move if that is the case.
But Pope B is clever, if not too bright. He doesn’t plan to sign it himself. He’s is going to make a cardinal do it. That way, when it gets published it won’t reflect badly on him personally. He wouldn’t want people to think he is anti-gay, because he is not. He just thinks that gays are immoral and deviant and shouldn’t have any rights.
I hate to think it but some of the phobia may be from wrongfully associating Gay with child molestation. Forget that girls were molested by some Priests as well. The Church feels the need to do something in the face of many pressures and demands. The problem is that one cannot eliminate bad Priests (which are a small minority) and will never quiet the fears of the ultra conservatives. What to do? I move for sitting down and eating together. It is hard to make a good decision when one is fearful. It is also hard to discriminate when you see the person you are judging as yourself; eating together has a way of bringing folks to see each other in this light. Fears just seem to go away over a hearty French onion soup dripping with Gruyere and a crusty baguette. That would be a decree that many could support; a “Diet of Gummy Worms” (pun intended) weekly setting the table with those we think are different, it would not be long and we would see that we are the same, and the fears would go that way too. Blessings.
As a celibate gay priest, I see the Vatican’s “pastoral visitations” to seminaries as a civil rights matter. Face it: the Church has a dysfunctional view of gender and sexuality.
Let Cardinals and Bishops be interviewed to see if they are gay. Won’t happen. The time may come–and it may come soon–when all gay priests will need to come out–especially the thousands who are not sexually active. Loving the Church as I do, I regret this intrusion into the privacy of good people. But I urge all gay priests to be prepared to
take action. The march for civil rights in the US has always been marked by non-violent but public demonstrations. How can we sit by and watch the Church discriminate against
gays who want to enter seminaries? I want to see the document and make a decision. Yes, perhaps the Vatican
document will be counched in “pastoral terms.” Bigotry is bigotry–no matter how it’s expressed. The time for action
may be drawing near.