I find it hard to carve a single passage from Colm Toibin's quite astounding essay in the London Review of Books on the Catholic church and the homosexuality question. It's beautifully crafted and honest and true and inescapably Catholic. It covers a lot of ground that this blog has covered, but its description of the crisis of moral authority in the hierarchy is particularly nuanced and fine. What Toibin conveys is the special love many homosexuals have had - for two millennia - for this institution and its mission; and the choice the hierarchy has had for several decades to move forward in hope with these Catholics or to move back in fear against them…
…It seems pretty obvious to me - as it does to Angelo Quattrochi, whose book is reviewed by Toibin - that the current Pope is a gay man (just as it was blindingly clear that John Paul II was straight). I am not claiming that Benedict is someone who has explored his sexuality, or has violated his own strictures on the matter. There is absolutely no evidence of that, or of hypocrisy of any sort. But that does not mean that he isn't gay. In fact, Ratzinger's command that gay priests should actively lie about their orientation makes any public statement about this on its face lacking in credibility. But when you look at the Pope's mental architecture (I've read a great deal of his writing over the last two decades) you do see that strong internal repression does make sense of his life and beliefs. At times, it seems to me, his gayness is almost wince-inducing. The prissy fastidiousness, the effeminate voice, the fixation on liturgy and ritual, and the over-the-top clothing accessories are one thing. But what resonates with me the most is a theology that seems crafted from solitary introspection into a perfect, abstract unity of belief. It is so perfect it reflects a life of withdrawal from the world of human relationship, rather than an interaction with it. Of course, this kind of work is not inherently homosexual; but I have known so many repressed gay men who can only live without severe pain in the world if they create a perfect abstraction of what it is, and what their role is in it. Toibin brilliantly explains this syndrome, why the church of old was so often such a siren call for gay men who could not handle their own nature. In Benedict, one sees a near-apotheosis of this type, what Quattrocchi describes as "simply the most repressed, imploded gay in the world." Read complete article:
Among the Flutterers - Colm Tóibín
The Pope Is Not Gay by Angelo Quattrocchi
translated by Romy Clark Giuliani
London Review of Books
Gay Marriage -> Restores “Hope of Love”
To Children In Early Childhood
Gay marriage, (marriage equality) is essential to the well-being of very young children. Gay marriage will not become a reality until people learn that its most vital purpose is that it restores the “hope of love” to children in early childhood – essential to their development and well-being for life. Without Gay marriage we teach children how to hate love and how to be mean and indifferent to people as adults. With all due respect, without Gay marriage we would teach them in much the same way as has been shown by Benedict XVI and the hierarchy, especially in their lack of care and protection of children for decades. MSK. Read more:
The Quality Of Lasting Homosexual Relationships Deserve Respect – Roman Catholic Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Vienna
In March 1997, after attending a National Symposium of the New Ways Ministry that was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I learned that children as young as 4 and 5 years of age know that they are different. This feeling “different” is only identified in their adult years as being gay. However, the harmful influence of antigay social and religious norms -- in particular, for Catholics the Vatican’s unsubstantiated antigay teachings -- are severe and are lasting throughout a child’s lifetime. The harmful effects are not isolated only to these children who grow up to be gay, but affects their families, siblings, friends and anyone who they might consider special in their life. It is a prescribed societal sentence of implicit isolation, which places at risk of suicide so many innocent adolescents and young adults. It stifles an enormous amount of human potential in the world that otherwise could be put to use for finding cures for diseases, offer better ways of maintaining peace among people and improve the quality of living for everyone in the world. Read more:
Auschwitz - Christmas 2008
A flashback far more severe than in
Brokeback Mountain
…The question I asked myself was: what would it have been like for someone growing up gay during the Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933 -1945?
What would be the severity of the psychological effects on a boy who grew up to be gay in Germany during the time of Hitler’s NAZI PERSECUTION OF HOMOSEXUALS 1933 -1945? During the Nazi regime, homosexuals were publicly defamed and falsely accused for the major social problems of that time, which was done to incite massive public hatred and hostility directed against homosexuals. Homosexuals were used for medical experiments, physically mutilated, brutally tortured and exterminated.
Would this child, as an adult, in a severe dissociated state of mind from his own homosexual feelings (Harry Stack Sullivan MD, Dissociative Processes, Clinical Studies on Psychiatry (1956)), unconsciously perpetuate the terrifying horror of the insensitivity he had experienced growing up? If he found himself in a position of authority would he recreate the same social and political environment of violence and terror for homosexuals that he experienced, as a child who grew up to be gay, during the NAZI PERSECUTION OF HOMOSEXUALS? Read more:
Gay marriage - Sexual orientation
is less about sex and more about love,
being one with another human being - Attachment Theory
LOVE & RELIGION
Gay Marriage - Galileo Condemned As A Heretic
Misinterpretations of The Bible
Homosexuality? Natural Law? Benedict XVI?
Kids Are Being Hurt!!!
“Someday, maybe, there will exist a well-informed, well considered and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child’s spirit.” Erik Erikson
Kids Are Being Hurt!!!
…whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Matthew 18:6
Important note: No disrespect meant to Pope Benedict XVI or the hierarchy, the one and only concern is the safety and well-being of children.
Kids Are Being Hurt !!!
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