On eve of visit, Pope slams gays, praises anti-choice activists
Pope Benedict, ahead of his first trip to the United States, praised Americans on Friday who oppose gay marriage and abortion and called for global nuclear disarmament. In an address to new U.S. ambassador Mary Ann Glendon, Benedict touched on issues he will likely raise on his April 15-20 visit, during which he will meet President George W. Bush in Washington and address the United Nations…. He said Americans’ appreciation of religion’s role in public life is “reflected in the efforts of so many of your fellow citizens and government leaders to ensure legal protection for God’s gift of life from conception to natural death.”…. Benedict also spoke of safeguarding the family and “the institution of marriage, acknowledged as a stable union between a man and a woman.”
Well, so much for coming to our shores and spreading the message of God’s love and infinite charity, eh? No, it’s all about unyielding and unwavering fealty to Church doctrine set and enforced by a cloistered, clueless, and hopelessly out of touch cabal of celibate White males more concerned about the power they wield over Catholics than anything else.
OK, OK…it’s no secret that I’m not exactly a fan of the Catholic Church. I’m not anti-Catholic, but Catholicism as a doctrine is about as vacant and morally bankrupt as Christianity gets. All you have to do is to look at the gilded palaces of worship that the Church has built worldwide as a monument to itself to understand what’s really important to the Vatican. If Pope Benedict VXI is the human representative of God on Earth, then I’m Roger Clemens.
The Vatican has taken a perfectly good religion and turned into an institution designed to exert as much influence as possible over the thoughts, words, and deeds of believers as possible. A case could be made that the Catholic Church may well be one of the reasons why poverty remains rampant and pervasive in so much of Latin America. The Church takes from adherents and provides precious little in return.
Now Benny’s taking his mobile salvation show on the road, where he’ll be blessing us with his unique brand of wit, wisdom, and bigotry. Yep, there’s no absolutism quite like Conservative Catholic absolutism, is there? Not surprisingly, while he’s in the US, he’ll be meeting with our own Conservative Christian absolutist, Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader ©, a man not exactly renowned for Christian tolerance and charity himself. Benny also will be speaking the the UN, where diplomats will treat him as one of their own. The problem with that, though, is that Benny’s “state” and authority are both corrupt and artificial…which means that he’ll probably feel right at home at the UN.
I don’t want to make it sound as if I’m completely down on the Catholic Church. I do realize, of course, that there are certainly good things and charitable works that the Church is responsible for. What I simply cannot stomach is the fact that the Vatican is so much more concerned with engendering blind obedience in the faithful than in the welfare of the faithful. Perhaps the control freaks at the Holy See really do think they’re doing God’s work…and who am I to question the divine Will of God?
Here’s the problem, though: like so many “Christian” religious organizations in this country, the Vatican has become drunk on their own power and greed. While megachurches in this country exist primarily as a monument to the piety of wealthy, well-scrubbed White folks who show up for Sunday services in SUVs, the Vatican was the first megachurch. I could live with this reality if, like so many megachurches in the country, the Vatican’s message wasn’t so filled with hatred and exclusion for those who don’t think, act, live, or believe as they do.
I’m not going to advocate for the Gay community. They’ve got plenty of organizations to do that for them. What I am going to advocate for is that we as a nation turn our backs on people and organizations who profess to live by the teachings of Jesus Christ while doing nothing of the sort. When Christian tolerance is conspicuously absent in the pronouncements of Christian leaders, shouldn’t we all be intelligent enough to recognize it (and tell them where they can stuff it)?
Don’t make me answer that….
I’ve had enough Gay friends and acquaintances in my life to know that, more than anything else, they just want to be left alone and treated as if they belong. They’re not trying to “recruit” our children (there are more than enough pedophiles willing to take on that responsibility), and they don’t want “special” rights. What they want is equal rights. Why is that so difficult for so many of the pious, self-righteous haters like Pope Benedict XVI to grasp?
And don’t even get me started on abortion rights….
Here’s to hoping that Benny does a face plant when deplaning in Washington….
