….Allow G.L.A.A.D. and I (but mostly GLAAD) to remind you…
New Pope Calls Same-Sex Marriage Anarchic and False
If anyone doubted his views on same-sex marriage, the new pontiff has made his opinion crystal clear. Pope Benedict XVI cemented his hard-line stance while speaking before a Diocese of Rome family conference on Monday, June 6. The pope said, “pseudo-matrimonies by people of the same sex are expressions of an anarchic freedom that wrongly passes for true freedom of man.”
Gay Catholics were disheartened by the comments but not surprised. “The comments by Pope Benedict XVI on gay civil marriage reflect what many had feared would be the continued language of hatred and disrespect that has come from the Vatican for many years toward gays and lesbians,” Charles Martel, a Catholic layman who serves on the board of the Coalition for the Freedom to Marry in Massachusetts told the Boston Globe. “The pope is creating a dangerous climate of inciting hatred toward gays and lesbians, and needs to be held accountable in attempting to encourage civil societies to perpetuate this prejudice.”
The pope’s rigid views about gays and lesbians go back decades. He was the top enforcer of Catholic Church doctrine during Pope John Paul II’s papacy. In 1986, the Pope Benedict XVI, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, signed a doctrinal document stating, “It is only in the marital relationship that the use of the sexual faculty can be morally good. A person engaging in homosexual behavior therefore acts immorally.”
In his June 6 speech, the pope also condemned divorce, abortion and contraception.
I’m pretty sure freedom from dogmatic teachings, oppressive institutions and governments, and people being able to read books other than the Bible (or people being literate–period), along with women’s civil rights, would have also been on his long list of whiny grievances against modern society. There’s your shocking revelation for the day: the new pontiff has an icky feeling for the Queers and them marrying their loved-ones. No wonder Dubya and other neocon Republicans have a particular fondness for his Holiness, Ratzinger a.k.a. Benedict XVI.
“It is only in the marital relationship that the use of the sexual faculty can be morally good. A person engaging in homosexual behavior therefore acts immorally.”?
Isn’t this actually a bit of a downgrade from previous stands on homosexuality’s immorality? Unless I misunderstand, it seems like he’s not saying liking people of the same sex is wrong, just that non-procreative sex is wrong and that this falls under that category. Which, if nothing else, seems to be a lesser condemnation than, say, evangelicals would give. They’re not even trying to say that falling in love with someone of the same sex is wrong, just that they’re uptight about sex being enjoyable in general. I’m not Catholic, so I certainly could be misunderstanding here. And its not that I’m trying to say ‘well be happy because they’re only kind of condemning your way of life.’ Just that it is maybe in the right direction that they aren’t inherantly condemning loving someone of the same sex.
Okay ….
“It is only in the marital relationship that the use of the sexual faculty can be morally good. A person engaging in homosexual behavior therefore acts immorally.”?
So, we can’t be equal to you because we can’t marry, and you won’t let us marry because that would make us equal to you?
bh … bh … bh … erk …
*brain collapses inward at the display of insanely obvious circular logic*
*blink*
*reboots wetware*
Jees, at least go back to the days where your bigotry was a little bit more difficult to spot than a 30 foot red flag at 10 paces.
And no, this isn’t a movement to a more liberal position. Even when Darth Benedict’s predecessor was wearing the funky hat the official position was that gay and lesbian people weren’t to be persecuted for simply having same-sex desires. It was just when we fucked, fell in love, or had the audacity to ask for the same rights as everyone else that we were “part of an ideology of evil”.
Evil, we are … eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil …. *insert evil laugh here*
This is the same position that Catholics have held for at least the last decade, which is that people are not intrinisically bad for being homosexual just for acting on their sexual nature, which actions can never be anything but sinful. What you need to understand about his use of hte term “marital faculty” or whatever, is that it doesn’t just refer to the act of marriage, but that sexual acts even within marriage must be open to procreation, however unlikely. Which by definition excludes gay sex, especially since the church also condemns just about any form of assisted reproduction.
So it may seem less extreme than the evangelical view, some of whom do basically assert that having gay leanings makes you evil and sinful (thus, these hysterical deprogramming groups). But in principle, there’s not a lot of difference, because even if your “leanings” per se are not sinful, you’re still being asked to deny one of the most basic aspects of your human nature, an aspect which is not considered to be inevitably evil for others. (Unlike, say, greed, which may be natural too, but which is condemned more or less in equal measure without regard to sexual proclivity.)
“pseudo-matrimonies by people of the same sex are expressions of an anarchic freedom that wrongly passes for true freedom of man.”?
Because true freedom consists in all the things you aren’t allowed to do . . . by people who are allowed to do them.
No, no, “true freedom” is the freedom you feel in your heart when you do exactly as you are told by those who know best, even if they don’t follow their own teachings now and again. Or even again and again. You must learn the magic words.
That’s right. We all know that old men who have never been married or had children are the BEST experts on the subject of family. Their judgement can’t be swayed by annoying things like feelings of affection for a lover or offspring who might tempt them with such sinful ideas as, say, maybe women are people too! maybe we should think about people who aren’t exactly like us as full humans! embryos and fetuses actually don’t have more rights than anyone* living outside a womb.
*anyone excludes straight, white, non-poor Xtian men
ah, I see now … I shoudn’t be just going for “freedom”, the ability to make choices for myself, to love who I fall for, to have human rights, to have control over my body …. these are all false …
I should instead be going for the “TRUE freedom” of just listening to (mostly) old white guys that know diddly about my life, or who I am, or that of any of my friends or family have … even though they themselves don’t follow their own pronoucements.
Oh! It’s all sooooo clear now!
Well, Sarah, if you can’t find a male sex partner good enough for you, you don’t deserve to have any fun. I mean, jeez, they made nunneries for women like you, didn’t they ?
Can someone remind me in ten words or less why more liberal Catholics don’t just revolt ?
Can someone remind me in ten words or less why more liberal Catholics don’t just revolt ?
Because then they would go to hell.
You know, I’m about as spiritual as a bucket of cold gravy, and that’s one of the reasons why. Who would want a God that puts an asshole in charge as his CEO, and then gets mad at ME if I say, “Uhhh, God, why are you always promoting these big assholes to CEO ?”
Blecch. :(
“Can someone remind me in ten words or less why more liberal Catholics don’t just revolt ?”
Because then they (the conservative Catholics) would win and taint the true message of the faith. Which isn’t hate, intolerance, and threats of eternal damnation, but rather one of love. And as a very liberal Catholic (who would probably be ex-communicated if Darth Benedict -love the name Sarah-knew about me), I can’t let that happen. So instead, I stick it out and fight against a multitude of critics who tend to ignore my “sinful”? views.
I wasn’t calling on liberal Catholics to abandon God, Sydney. I’m an atheist, but I’m not an evangelical atheist.
What I was wondering is why there is no movement to create a Liberal Catholic Church. Liberal views themselves are not enough to sever a Catholic’s link with her/his God, right ? So why would saying, “We’re taking our money, our time and our organizational skills on the road and setting up a home down the road where we don’t have to tolerate shitheads for our leadership anymore” be enough to sever it?
I’m not trying to be obtuse. It just genuinely confuses me.
Sydney either you are counting to ten in octal or we are going to have send you to remedial math :)
alsis,
You know, I’m about as spiritual as a bucket of cold gravy, and that’s one of the reasons why. Who would want a God that puts an asshole in charge as his CEO, and then gets mad at ME if I say, “Uhhh, God, why are you always promoting these big assholes to CEO ?”?
Organized religion really has nothing to do with spirituality. It is really a form of governance, a special case of the social contract. That’s why the leadership values obedience to the rules over matters of faith.
Well, that’s all right, Andi. I don’t go to synagogue any more either. Haven’t for years. So the “organized” part doesn’t do a thing for me, either.
Yeah, I gave up on Judaism a long time ago (but don’t tell my mother). I really think that organized religion is one of the worst ideas humans have ever created. Yes, there are religious people who do good but I think that they do good in spite of their religion, not because of it. I have found that I admire people who have great faith and despair of people who are very religious.
Alsis, that strikes me as one of the classic problems of political strategy. A large labor union is controlled by a conservative bureaucracy: do you try to build a rank-and-file caucus within the union, or do you split off and create a new union, that will be smaller and weaker than the old union and may generate hostility between the two, in the hope that it will be stronger in the long run? If the Communist Party has become undemocratic and Stalinized, do you try to reclaim it from within, or create a new party?
Splitting isn’t always the right answer — you may end up in an irrelevant sect. Sticking it out and trying to reform from within isn’t always the right answer — you may end up marginalized and silenced.
As a rough guide, I think it calls for a judgement in terms of quantity or quality — are there just a lot of problems, or are those problems so extensive that the organization has become fundamentally opposed to your interests, and can no longer be saved?
I’m an atheist and have never been associated with Catholicism, but from the outside, the Catholic Church looks to me like it is fundamentally, essentially opposed to the cause of human liberation — even though there are forces within the Catholic Church that are progressive.
Libertarian Theologians obviously disagree with me, as do liberal Catholics.
Er, that should be Liberation Theologians.
Feh. Language.
AndiF: I’ve decided why count to 10 when you can count to a billion. It’ll take that long before anything I actually want to happen will happen :)
Alsis: I don’t think that you’re trying to obtuse. Your question is one that I’ve begun to seriously ask myself. Why do I bother sticking around? I do have a couple of theories from my observations of others. Warning, this is all speculation on my part.
I think it’s this crazy stubbornness that keeps us from splitting the church. I think that Catholics sometimes don’t want to be like other faiths which they view as weaker because they’ve split into discernable factions. It’s almost like they think that “when the going gets tough, we’re better people if we stick it out”?. Then there is the whole, “no one in actual church power has the guts to stand up to Darth Benedict and say you’re being an ass”? aspect. I also think liberal Catholics worry that their faith won’t be given validity if they do just pack up their shit and go without a legitimate supporter in the established church hierarchy. And then there is how I personally feel which is that my Catholic faith really is between me and God so the whole Vatican hierarchy can go and STFU. For me, faith is a personal thing and I don’t agree that the dogma the church uses is the best way to interpret the catholic faith. I’m still trying to figure out why I personally just don’t say “fuck it”? and move on. Because it’s not like I’m winning any fans by being a queer, feminist, pro-choice, and slightly socialist Catholic.
Can someone remind me in ten words or less why more liberal Catholics don’t just revolt ?
Liberal Catholics are already revolting. (Ba dum bump!)
But seriously, liberal Catholics have been revolting since Pelagius. Every Christian denomination on Earth except for the orthodox represents a split from R ome (or a later split from Rome-splitters). I tell my uber-theologically-liberal parents that there’s a word for Catholics like them, and that word is “Presbyterian”.
As for why existing Catholics don’t bite the bullet, admit that they’re Protestants, and go across the street, good question. Probably momentum, for a lot of them; the church doesn’t go around persecuting liberal laity, it just ignores their views (as it should), so why leave a comfortable church home, where they’ve ensconsced themselves among a like-minded caucus within the church?
It should be noted that “liberal” and “conservative” are generally theological labels within the church, with only vague connections to secular political polarization. My mother is theologically very liberal, and is also a lifelong Republican pro-lifer. Usually “liberal” means desirous of more democracy and representation for the laity in church governance.
“It is only in the marital relationship that the use of the sexual faculty can be morally good. A person engaging in homosexual behavior therefore acts immorally.”?
It’s not their fault that they can’t get married in most places. In fact, they’re *trying* to get the right to marry.
Because the Roman Catholic Church provides no way for gays and lesbians to be married to the Roman Catholic Church’s satisfaction, the Roman Catholic Church has only itself to blame for the “immorality” of homosexual behavior.
You cannot make it impossible for people to do something, and then blame them for not doing it.
“Even when Darth Benedict’s predecessor was wearing the funky hat . . .”
Sarah, you owe Darth Vader an apology.
Homosexual relations are immoral regardless, per Catholic teaching. It’s ALSO immoral to have relations outside the marital relationship.
Kyra –
the way I figure it, there are different levels of ‘Darths’ … just like we don’t see all presidents as the same :)
(though, have to say, Anakin Skywalker suddenly got MUCH cooler when he finally switched and became Darth Vader)
Thanks for the explanation, Sydney. Corny as it sounds, I do understand a little more now.
alsis – What I was wondering is why there is no movement to create a Liberal Catholic Church.
a) For the same reason there is no anti-war Pentagon.
b) There was such a movement, a few hundred years ago, and now what’s left is a few million Anglicans who only go to church when a member of the royal family dies, or a lot more million evangelicals who are very crazy, very rich, and very powerful. Was it even worth it?
;-)
Let me add something, as I have to stand up for poor Darth Benedict & co.. Someone has to! You just don’t understand why they say what they say. Let me expain, with the help of Mr Freud, who despite also being a mysoginist homophobic bastard did get a few things right*. See, these men who spend their whole life and career inside the richly decorated walls of the organisation known as the Catholic church are there since they’ve been teenagers. They’ve been told that their chosen profession is the highest calling there is for a man. That they’ve been called directly by God, no less. That God said that this calling requires them to abstain from all sex and to never marry and to never debate this rule. So their whole existence, the entire purpose of their life is predicated upon this rule. That’s why they are so unnaturally obsessed with sex: they’re not having any. (Well, not officially at least.)
And here come liberals and feminists and gays and other fun-loving people to ask that this change, that these men give up the only rule that justifies the peculiar lifestyle they’ve chosen, a lifestyle that’s been developed across centuries and regulated down to the minutest details. These rules are routinely violated in the secrecy of old, dusty rooms, but their official dissolution would lead to the whole edifice crumbling.
If the Catholic Church were ever to stop speaking ill of gays and gay relationships, or even to start speaking well of them, then they’d have to stop speaking ill of any sex that’s not between a married man and a married woman; which means, they’d have no more reasons to uphold both the requirement of marriage for sex to be godly and good, and the requirement of celibacy for the priesthood.
Do you understand what you’re asking here? You’re asking the Catholic Church to recognise the Protestant Reform was right all along. It’s like asking Microsoft to declare that Apple has always had a better operating system. It wouldn’t just be a very bad marketing error, it would mean the end of the organisation as it is. And since it’s racked in so many profits as it is, why change it?
You poor naive folks, you want the policy to change because you think the organisation is supposed to be working for its customers, but it’s their shareholders they have to serve. And the shareholders like things just the way they are.
* (With a little help from Mr Marx, too, who also, despite being an hypocrite bourgeois lazy fucker who lived off his wife’s wealth, did get a few things right too.)
… typo: raked in, not racked…
I don’t know about the rest of your theory, but priestly celibacy is not a doctrinal requirement for the faith, nor has it ever been given any kind of privileged status. It’s simply a matter of administrative policy; Benedict can change it tomorrow with an encyclical if he wants, and his successor can change it back. (Although in truth, there would be a lot more consideration than that.) I can certainly tell you that whether there should be priestly celibacy is a hotly-debated topic within both lay and clerical circles.
Priestly celibacy could end any time (and in my view ought to); there are other non-libertarian teachings of the church which will never change.
Robert, yes, it’s true that celibacy of the priesthood not a doctrinal requirement of the faith; but neither is sex only within marriage, or homosexuality as a sin. They could change all that too, but haven’t done so for about, well, a thousand years. I think it’s safe to say it’s not something that anyone can realistically expect be changed overnight.
I think that people who belong to organized religions actually divide into two distinct groups: those who have faith and those who have religion. Sydney, by her description, has faith; the Pope has religion. People who have faith are introspective, spiritual, and concernced with their personal beliefs. People who have religion are concerned with obedience, dogma, and defining who gets to belong and more importantly, who doesn’t.
As far as I am concerned, the hyper-religious can be blamed for a large portion of the evil that has been done throughout history.
AndiF: I think you’ve stated the situation very neatly. Faith and religion are two different things. I personally think that faith is more in keeping with the way Catholicism is supposed to be. So I sure as hell don’t want to be the one to leave-I think the religion people have it wrong. And maybe that’s why liberal Catholics won’t leave. We’re arrogant enough to think we’ve got it right and it’s the other people who need to stop messing it up! :)
Noodles: Hilarious! And probably very true. Now if only we could get Darth Benedict to listen to you…… (and I’ve gotta say, we should keep calling him Darth because there is always hope that in the end he’ll return to the good side of the force!)
Robert, yes, it’s true that celibacy of the priesthood not a doctrinal requirement of the faith; but neither is sex only within marriage, or homosexuality as a sin.
Most all of the church’s teachings on human sexuality are deeply rooted in the theology, and will not change. Priestly celibacy is not so rooted, and it could change very easily.
I shouldn’t have glibly used “doctrinal requirement of the faith” as the bar; that’s a very high standard and only a few things fall under that rubric.
The possibility of abolishing mandatory celibacy for the clergy was a topic of discussion at Trent in the 16th Century, but more intriguingly Paul VI put a proposal before the bishops at the Roman Synod held in 1971 to the effect that married men could be ordained in cases of pastoral need, at the Pope’s discretion. To his surprise, the bishops voted down the proposal.
Robert: theology is doctrine, doctrine is theology. Every position of the Catholic church is by necessity rooted in theology, that’s how they justify it. With their own theology, certainly not with the rules of chess.
Apart from the actual unchangeable tenets of the Catholic faith (those regarding the nature of God, Jesus, incarnation, resurrection, trinity, afterlife, and all that divinity stuff religions are often about as it happens), the rest can and has been changed at will through the centuries. The notions about priest celibacy go hand in hand with the notions of human sexuality and marriage and women and so on. Celibacy was not the enforced rule in the early Catholic Church, but the institution fought long and hard to make it an official rule and they’re not going to change their minds after a thousand years.
In theory, yes, anything that can change without requiring Catholicism turn into another religion could change, but there is no sign of that, and all the signs of the contrary. Contemporary theologians advocating an end to celibacy have been openly opposed and the last two Popes have been busy reversing even the small openings made in the 1960’s. So, saying ‘it could change easily’ is a bit of a stretch, to say the least.
[An interesting link: A Brief History of Celibacy]
Noodles – Very interesting link. Although as I understand it, in the Eastern Orthodox churches, priests may choose whether or not they marry; married priests get one career track, if you will, while unmarried priests get the other. I think married priests are assigned parish priest duties and unmarried priests get administrative posts.