Pope calls gays "evil"; God strikes Pope mute

[ruggerson]

Coincidence? Or...

<insert Twilight Zone theme>

[neuvocat]

1. Hmmm...makes you wonder...

[Kathy in Cambridge]

2. Karma

.

[Bluebear]

13. Wonder if Bernard Law will be up for the big job if something happens

[Kathy in Cambridge]

15. I hate that man

nothing like being implicit in thousands of acts of child abuse and being rewarded with a primo post in Italy. :grr:

[Bluebear]

18. Bingo. This I can't 'respect' because the man is ill.

I wish the Pope no harm and when he dies I will feel for my Catholic friends who mourn, but don't ask me to suddenly cherish this man for his words and deeds.

[imenja]

when did the pope call gays evil?

[JanMichael]

7. "Homosexual marriages are part of "a new ideology of evil""

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/02/23/pope.book.reut/index.html

"Homosexual marriages are part of "a new ideology of evil" that is insidiously threatening society, Pope John Paul says in his newly published book."

Maybe he didn't say that Gays were themselves "evil" just thier desire to have full rights and protections under the law.

[imenja]

23. that is a crucial distinction

and the quote you provide is the one I found. Many conservative Catholics believe the practice of homosexuality to be sinful, but gays, like everyone else, are children of God. Unlike George Bush and Jerry Falwell, the Pope doesn't typically condemn people as evil.
This is certainly not to justify his prejudice, but it doesn't really help anyone, including gays, to go around saying that religious leaders have condemned them as evil.

[Zenlitened]

32. I disagree. I think it's a semantic trick and nothing more.

Kind of like someone trying to skirt the rules on DU: Instead of calling me an idiot, they'll call my point of view idiotic. Keeps the post from being deleted, perhaps, but the contempt and rejection are still there.

I'm just not willing to cut the pope any slack on this issue, particularly since his recent comments are just the latest in a long campaign of oppression of gays and lesbians by the catholic church. Just a look at the history of GLBT civil rights in Massachusetts makes it clear to me that the catholic church has nothing but hatred for gays and lesbians. This whole "love the sinner" thing is just insulting and deceitful.

[imenja]

34. I'm not suggesting you cut him slack

rather that you represent the ideas accurately. Your outrage is entirely justified, but the difference is far more than semantic for those who hold those beliefs.

You're probably aware that a good proportion, by some accounts an overwhelming majority, of priests are gay. In typical fashion, the Church has projected it's internal struggles onto society at large.

[Zenlitened]

37. I'm not ready to concede that most priests are gay. I think rather that...

... they are pedophiles, incapable of a healthy relationship with an adult, female or male. But... is the perception you describe there? Sure is.

Still, I would have expected better from a group calling itself christian. Finding a scapegoat to take some of the heat off... it strikes me as terribly unfair, to say the least.

And if one side in this debate is experiencing real pain -- real, sobbing anguish over the pope's worlds and policies -- while the other side is parsing shades of meaning to various words... well, it doesn't seem as if conditions are primed for healing and reconciliation just yet. :(

[imenja]

41. your expectations are fair

but the Catholic church has consistently allied itself with power and failed to speak out against injustice, whether slavery, the holocaust, or dictatorships, and now prejudice.

The majority of priests certainly are not pedophiles, but as we all know, far too many pedophiles found refuge in the Church, which enabled their crimes. The question of homosexuality is separate. Some former seminary students have discussed the prevalence of homosexuality in seminaries. There is also a good deal of documentary evidence from, for example, colonial Spanish America that shows that priests regularly took lovers, some male and others female. Gay male priests lost their positions in only the most audacious cases. If they were relatively discrete, they were safe.
So while celibacy restrictions have been in place since the Middle ages, they were commonly ignored.

While monasteries have long served as a refuge for gay men, women of means who did not wish to take husbands entered convents. Sister Juana Ines de la Cruz was rumored to have been involved with the wife of the Viceroy of Mexico. Her poems certainly suggest a strong emotional relationship if not a physical one.

[Bluebear]

42. .

.

[oasis]

3. Lounge "discussion"???? BTW, some believe we should respect the Pope. He's

gone through a lot more than most people on the planet.

[K-W]

31. He also thinks gay people are evil.

No life gives you a free pass to spread hate.

[LostInAnomie]

4. Good spot.

I hope I can post this before this thread is locked.

[Placebo]

5. Err, this thread, just like what the Pontiff said about homsexuality...

seems in bad taste.

[DrWeird]

11. Well there you go.

Then he's just as good as the Pope.

[tritsofme]

6. I think people

should have better things to do with their time than say things like this about a sickly old man who doesn't have much time left on this earth.

[foreigncorrespondent]

10. When...

...that sickly old man shows some sympathy to me, my partner, and our many queer brothers and sisters, then maybe, just maybe, he might begin to earn some sympathy from those of us that suffer because of his bigoted words.

[tritsofme]

29. His judgement will come

I'll give him his peace on his final days.

[Mandate My Ass]

8. I think actually it was the trach that did it

and if you're so sure terrible things happen to people who say judgmental things about others....ooops, too late now!

[eShirl]

9. it 's a joke

sheesh

[Dirk39]

12. I wished the gays would just smile over the pope.

A real catholic and a real conservative, who - at the same time - is at least defending social justice like no other pope did before.

Who wouldn't expect from the head of the catholic church to discriminate gays and abortion etc. ?

Do you wake up everyday and expect the pope, to celebrate gays, gay-marriage, abortion, masturbation and whatdoiknow??? Really??? Do you expect him to be engaged in a BED-IN for peace and social justice?

The "conservative" turn capitalism has taken under the leadership of the neoliberals is much more frightening. The totaly and completely "free" market, the ultimative "laissez-faire" combined with the christian fundamentalistic discourse against freedom and liberty and civil rights and gay marriage: This frightens me!

Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[eShirl]

14. maybe he could just

stop calling people evil

but no, that would be asking too much

[Moochy]

19. Papal Bull

> Stop calling people evil?

Isn't that kind of his schtick? What with being pope and all.

[eShirl]

20. I thought that sort of thing went out with the Inquisition?

I suppose I didn't really expect it...

[DrWeird]

16. Here's a crazy idea. How about the Pope be a real christian...

instead of a damn bigot.

Too much to ask?

Apparently.

[Bluebear]

17. Not celebrating it is one thing. He called gay marriage EVIL

so I don't think the gays have anything to smile about.

[Dirk39]

21. Compare him to all other popes before....

What kind of miracle should have taken place within the catholic church to have a pope, not calling gays evil?
Allow me to look at it from the other side: the reason that people are so angry about his remark, is that indeed he IS different from any other pope before. People didn't expect HIM to make such a remark.

For official catholics and any other pope, it would just have been, what you've expected. The other popes (sorry catholics, I'm not religious at all and have not much respect for any church) - were just authoritarian, often fashist stoneage life-hating zombies.
This pope is still - as sad as it seems - a major step forward.

Dirk

[eShirl]

24. I just thought he was better than that. I was wrong.

After all,isn't this the pope that pardoned Galileo? I thought "man, now we're getting somewhere!"

[Dirk39]

26. Many people feel the way you do....

Now we're getting somewhere...
Maybe 149 years from now, we're allowed to masturbate.

Actually I don't wait until that day at all, and I hope for the gays they're doing the same:-)
As you said, the catholic church did just accept that the earth isn't flat - that's far ahead of Bush and creationism!


Dirk

[justiceischeap]

22. I like that line of thinking... (eom)

[porphyrian]

25. He won't be Pope for much longer.

Perhaps the Church will be smart and make the next Pope still more progressive than this one, but it won't really affect me either way.

[Bluebear]

27. The next one is conservative on steroids

What's the early odds-on favorite, Ratzinger? Ultra right from what I read.

[porphyrian]

28. Christ, there goes the neighborhood... - n/t

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Boomer]

35. Just what the church needs

At a time when the laity is seething over abusive priests and the attendant indefensible arrogance on the part of the church, plus falling numbers of seminarians, the church will take a giant step backwards in terms of its "new" leadership.

That could provide another big push in the downward spiral of the church's appeal.

Then again, given the revivial of fascism, it may be the first sign of a new resurgence in popularity for good old times like the Spanish Inquisition. Why should the soldiers at Abu Graib have all the fun?

[Bluebear]

36. Prosit Dirk

:toast:

tchuss

[Dirk39]

40. How about this new pope????!!!!!

August 05 - 11, 2004
"New Vatican Attack on Women and Gays
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican’s powerful Congregation for the Doctrine on the Faith, has issued a 37-page document decrying the dangers of feminism, and accusing feminists of a tendency “to deny the differences between the sexes.” Ratzinger wrote that “the institution of the family is called into question in its natural two-parent structure, and the equivalence of homosexuality and heterosexuality is asserted, in a new model of polymorphous sexuality” with “lethal” consequences for the family.

Frances Kissling, leader of Catholics for Free Choice, said that she felt as if she had “passed through a time warp” when she read Ratzinger’s statement and that the Vatican is interested in keeping women at a societal disadvantage to men."

http://gaycitynews.com/gcn_332/newsbrief.html

Can't they take a fashist asshole from any country, but Germany, is this asking too much, dear god in heaven: you hate him like I do, although you don't exist! This was always the problem with you.

Dirk

[Lisabtrucking]

30. Was thinking the same thing earlier. n/t

[librechik]

38. why didn't God do that the last dozen times the Pope said that?

Answer: THERE IS NO GOD!

But I'm tempted to worship that cute ironic coincidence of his going mute like that.

[Catherine Vincent]

39. uh oh, the Pope better not post here and say that or

Texas_dem41 and others will lambaste him for saying that!

j/j :-)

[donheld]

43. So when is it going to be Rush's turn

He was struck deaf a few years ago, I think due the fact that even his ears got tired of hearing his rants. If God was really kind he'd strike the bastard mute then NOBODY would have to hear him.

[Clark2008]

44. Why is the Pope so evil to you people?

Seriously, I'm Catholic and we don't listen to the Pope nearly as much as some of you do.

:eyes:

However, he is a man and deserves prayer. Geesch. Get a grip, guys!