The Pope says he's cool with homosexuality. Not with anyone actually doing anything about
being gay, all that icky holding hands and kissing and such, but with
them having those thoughts, urges, and presumably loves. By implication,
also a whole load of loves, thoughts, urges of bi people too: the
pronouncements of most religous organisations on sexuality tend to be
deludedly black-and-white.
It's not magnificent. Compared to
where the Catholic Church was a week ago, it is a welcome improvement,
but for compairson I think it only takes us to something like where the
Anglicans were about two decades ago: love the sinner, hate the sin.
Two decades down the line, that's still Condemn The Marriage.
Now,
I'm not at all convinced that there is any sin involved, even if we
were to take their movement's texts as some kind of authority, which I
suppose as Pope or Archbishop you probably are expected to do. But hey,
it's less sinful. If you fall in love with someone of the same sex for
the first time today, congratulations: you just dodged an afterlife
bullet.
It could be a good sign. The new Pope may be about to
reveal progressive tendencies over a period of a few years, dragging
Catholicism all the way forwards into the... I dunno, 1950s, 60s at a
push. Like David Cameron trying to persuade the Conservatives of the
benefits of living in the same century as the electorate, even a
fiercely modernising Pope would be trying to turn around an oil tanker
of conservatism and reactionary values. Maybe he's going to turn out to
be a good religious leader for humanity: today he's at the "hug a
huskie" stage where it is too soon to say.
Perhaps I'm seeing too
much cause for optimism, as also it reminds me a little of how, about
20 years ago, a previous pontiff suddenly declared that masturbation was
now OK by his god. It's progress and hope for the future, but it is a
Pope merely playing catch-up with most of the faithful and not giving
actual leadership.
But let's enjoy a rare moment of hope in the pontiff, even if we can't have faith.
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