Have I ever at any point had a relationship with a massive afro? I would have to admit that I was, and have been brown for many years. I also had an afro that was so big I had to get planning permission from the council when I wanted to comb it. One of our dogs was lost in it for half an hour looking for a stick one of my brothers had thrown in.
That's how big my afro was.
When I walked across a skyline with the sun behind me, I looked like an oak tree, which was rather appropriate because I dance like a plank.
Just imagine, in this day and age, my being told that I was barred from priesthood because of my colour.
The Pope in his wisdom says gay people have an inclination toward evil. I suppose he thinks I would have an inclination to smoking weed, picking cotton and voodoo.
It's not racism but sexism; discrimination because of a person's gender. Sure, being a priest is not just like becoming a plumber, although interfering with other people's plumbs does seem to be happening more and more. Being a priest is a particular and peculiar kind of job whereby you wear a dress and a dog collar and drink wine; rather like being a member of parliament paying a visit to Miss Whiplash only without the extended holiday abroad, unless you are a missionary; the work, not the position, that is.
If the church wishes to question potential priests about their sexuality, I hope they’re going to be fair about it. I presume sodomy is part of the practice that the Vatican disapproves of. In which case, they need to probe the heterosexuals, so to speak, because sodomy is not strictly a homosexual practice; just like, through the ages, corruption and torture were not the sole province of the Church.
Gay men are, according to the Vatican, unsuitable for the priesthood because their condition suggests they have a personality disorder. It thinks being gay would detract ‘from their ability to serve as ministers.’ I don't see why. Being a crusty, small minded bigot didn't get in the way of Ratzinger being Pope.
And while I'm at it, isn't Ratzinger an odd name? There is a fast food product called a Chicken Zinger; and Ronald MacDonald has a burger named after him. I wonder if the Pope would consider launching a range of burgers named after his holiness?
A Ratzinger with atheist fries in perdition.
Perhaps not.
Let’s get things in perspective here. The Gay Pride Movement didn’t launch a couple of Crusades in the Middle-Ages and rape and pillage its way to Jerusalem. If it did organise a crusade, it would come back with a great tan, lots of funky clothes and the complete works of Shirley Bassey from the Duty Free shops.
Pope Benedict, when he was known as Cardinal Ratzinger, published a document stating homosexual relationships were ‘evil’. Now, speaking as a heterosexual man, the thought of having some chap put his tongue in my mouth is not a pleasant prospect, even if he has washed it first.
But, is that an act of evil?
How about having the Pope ramming his doctrine down your neck?
Is that evil?
....nah
Just boring and hard to swallow, especially if his doctrine is as big as he seems to be indicating in the picture below.
The influence of the Catholic Church and it's views on sexuality, have spread throughout the world at the point of a sword; or a big chopper; it depends on how phallic you choose to make that statement.
The descendants of the Aztecs in South American didn’t turn to Jesus because they realised cutting peoples hearts out wasn’t working as a cure for indigestion; it was because men with guns and swords and horses and virulent diseases and a hunger for gold turned up and gave them no choice; bend your knee to the Church or die. And to think the Jehovah’s Witnesses get a hard time for knocking on your door. The Catholic Church knocked out your teeth and used your kidneys to do it.
Christ and Church are two different things. Ronald MacDonald is not in his burgers, and Christ is not in the Vatican.
Christ would have other things to concern himself with if he suddenly reappeared. I imagine he’d have to spend a couple of weeks watching the Billy Graham videos to pick up a few tips. If, with this new knowledge of how the media works in spreading the ‘word’, he gave a televised version of the Sermon on the Mount, you can bet one thing; he won’t break off half way through to say, ‘hey, you! Yes, you at the back by the donkey. If you guys don’t stop holding hands you’ll go to hell!’
There is no record of Jesus saying gay people have a tendency towards evil even though in the Middle East at the time, it was not an uncommon practice ( eh...kissing men, not evil, let's get that straight). When he entered the temple, he threw out the moneylenders, not because they were singing to Abba on the Karaoke, but because they were using the Temple as a place to make money.
In fact, an open ban on homosexual priests was only introduced by Pope John XXIII in the 1960s; though, to be fair, they weren't exactly welcome before that. You could say all that happened was that the 'unofficial ban' came out of the closet. However, despite this, during the 1970s and 1980s the number of gay priests in America rose, while the heterosexuals went down. Not on each other, obviously, because that sort of thing is frowned upon by the Vatican.
What is the reasoning for placing the emphasis on banning homosexuals?
Well
In recent times, huge scandals involving paedophilia have rocked the church. And, basically, the church needs a scapegoat so it can say this was not ‘us’, it was ‘them’. They point to a report that says ‘eight out of ten, of the eleven thousand young victims of abuse in the US were male.’
A large percentage of the abusers were homosexual, so the reasoning is, that all homosexuals are abusers which is nonsense. It also means that the other, smaller percentage was heterosexual, so why not impose a ban on them or do heterosexuals only have a disposition toward good in which case how do you explain the fact that most abuse of children is carried out by heterosexual males.
We know: all men are not paedophiles just as not all homosexuals are abusers.
There are some in both camps, forgive the pun.
The men within the church who abused, were all priests; but not all priests are abusers, in fact I dare say the majority are quite nice chaps.
The assumption of the Pope that gay men have a disposition toward evil, including child abuse is not based on fact, but on bigotry and ignorance which is quite something coming from a man who is supposed to be inflammable. Sorry, not inflammable; I meant to say infallible; inflammable is what the church discovered people who it didn't like, gay people and protestants and little old ladies who dabbled with herbs to heal people were during the Middle Ages.
Strangely enough....
Most of the abusive acts suffered by children are committed by men who are ‘straight.’ For some reason this appears to have been reversed in the Church who claim that the perpetrators were homosexual, but only because it can't spell paedophile.
How can this be?
Well
The protected nature of the church attracts a certain section of society into its midst where they can commit such crimes. Some, no doubt, join the priesthood with this in mind. Perhaps others seek refuge in what they consider a spiritual calling, hoping to overcome their tendencies. As we know, though, the clothes you wear do not change your nature in any fundamental way. Being part of an organisation does not make you a better person; and it certainly, most definitely, absolutely does not give you absolute moral authority or insight, to be the head of such an organisation.
The Church, due to its undeserved status as a bastion of spirituality and respectability, gave a perfect cover for those who were inclined to abuse. It went unchecked from within its walls and without, because of the moral authority it had claimed for itself. The Church offered them a degree of protection and a position of trust.
And, interestingly enough, the Pope, is one of the people who gives protection to those who are alleged to have been abusers. In the Nineties, before he won the final round of 'Pope Idol', and got the top job, he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
One of his responsibilities was to investigate allegations of child abuse.
One such allegation was made by Professor José Barba Martin, a 68-year-old professor of humanities at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. He is one of nine former members of the Rome-based Legion of Christ who allege they were abused by Marcial Maciel.
Marcial was a confidant of Pope John Paul II, the predecessor of the present Pope
When Cardinal Ratzinger, as he was then known, was presented with a letter outlining the allegation against Marcial Maciel, his response was less than enthusiastic. Ratzinger simply said, according to the priest who gave him the letter, that 'Maciel had brought many 'benefits' to the church and that it was a 'touchy problem'.
I'll say it is.
Touching children is a big problem, especially in the Church.
This statement seems a little odd for a man so concerned about sexual morality. Homosexuals who have a calling to serve Christ through the church are out, but an alleged paedophile is in, because he has been of use to the church and is an influential figure.
Cardinal Ratzingers secretary, 'Father Gianfranco Girotti, wrote to the men saying that their claims - many allegedly corroborated by each other's detailed testimonies - had been examined but, for the time being, the Vatican considered the matter closed. In a last-ditch attempt to persuade Ratzinger to change his mind, another letter was despatched to him in 2002 through an intermediary.
It went unanswered.
I've taken that quote from a report in The Observer, by the way.
Let me repeat the last bit
It went unanswered. That was when, as I say, the Pope was a Cardinal.
And now he is Pope, how on earth can he find time to answer it now. He's a busy man, pointing fingers at men who have committed no crime, and ignoring something about 'let he who is without sin, cast the first stone'.
Fuck it; I ignore it often enough myself, but then I'm not the Pope.
Yet.
Ratzinger is far too busy to reply to the nine men who claim they were abused.
But then again, Marcial Maciel is now a very old man. Perhaps the Pope has decided to leave it to a higher court, to judge what is the truth of the allegations against Father Maciel?
It could be that he is so concerned with finding evil in the outside world that he doesn't see it, when it walks down the corridors of the places of prayer; lighting the incense; giving absolution; echoing through the the halls of the ages; repeating itself because nobody listened to the victims.
Good and bad exist within us all, side by side. A good man can do bad things. A bad man can do good things. It is not a question of evil, but of human nature; and that being what it is, well, if there is something dark within us, if it is given a safe place to come into being, free from prosecution, immune to investigation, protected and cloistered...
Then it just might do that.
