I'm not a Catholic, although I used to pretend to be one. Were I still within the bosom of Mother Church I'd be deeply reconsidering about now, as the Pope gives the least progressive elements of the Anglican church an out.
My partner is Anglican. The church he attends has co-vicars - a married couple in fact. Both of them are amazing and inspired me to have a wee re-think about my rejection of organised religion. While I've discovered that I still lack the essential element of the religious (faith) I have a lot of respect for the good work that many Anglicans, and indeed Catholics, do in the areas of social justice. I fail to see how the Vatican's basic endorsement of discrimination towards those who are not straight men can be a step forwards for humanity. For me Christianity must surely be about love, and this is so clearly not.
4 comments:
yay tom scott. interesting discussion on why the mainstream media is too skeeredycat to say what Scott's cartoon says is on at NYT at:
http://ethicist.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/can-we-talk-about-religion-please/
Jon Stewart and the daily show did a good piece on this last night.
I don't see why anybody finds this surprising.
The Catholic Church has always had a reactionary stance on homosexuality - how is making it administratively easier for anglicans who share these views to join the Church anything other than an administrative matter?
It's not as if in ignoring (or even condemning) these Anglicans the Church would be doing anything to change its own views.
Indeed, Hugh, not surprising. But it's always nice each time these positions are made so blatant. There was a long post on the NYT discussion by a Catholic defending the church on homosexuality with the usual "it's just the act not the people" and the really inspiring "we don't discriminate because no one who's not planning to procreate is allowed to have sex, it's not limited to gays", and its intimate cousin "we don't discriminate because no one who's not married is allowed to have sex, it's not limited to gays". (Not actual quotes, my renderings.) Though there is that priest exception to all these rules! Because of all this mandatory procreation stuff, feminists and and gays have always had common cause in the fight against doctrines like that of the catholic church. I enjoy your posts.
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