Tuesday 30 July 2013

Pope Francis Reminding His Flock That They Actually Have To Follow The Tenets Of Christianity

The media and Twitter exploded in gushing over some quotes from an in-flight press conference by Pope Francis. Among some gay tweeple you'd think we'd had the Second Coming. But the most interesting thing to me was that we should be surprised at all by what the Pope said.

"If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge? The catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well. It says they should not be marginalised because of this but that they must be integrated into society." 

Isn't that basically how anybody who follows the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth should act? It is pretty damning that the Catholic Church has moved so far away from those teachings that when the Pope simply reiterates Christian concepts as found in such passages as Matthew 7:1 there is surprise! Surely that is meant to be the Pope's job.

For us atheists there isn't much joy to be had, the Pope is simply restating the same position the Church has held for a while. And he's hardly kind about activism to protect our freedoms (throwing us in with greedy people, politicians and Masons!!).

"The problem is not having this orientation. We must be brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worse problem."
Move along people, nothing to see here.

3 comments:

Paul Brownsey said...

Yes, he did reiterate the old doctrine: nothing wrong with BEING gay but sinful to engage in gay ACTS.

I did wonder, though, that notwithstanding the above reiteration his talk of gay people being integrated into society (plus all the stuff about not judging gay people honestly seeking God, etc) MIGHT just signal something new.

Might he be saying that though the ACTS that a gay couple engage in are sinful, that is no reason to, for instance, ban a gay teacher in a RC school from taking his partner to the staff dance; no reason for a housing charity to refuse shared housing to a gay couple; no reason why gay couples shouldn't adopt; no reason for school authorities not to deal with a pair of same-sex parents on exactly the same terms as they deal with mixed-sex parents; no reason why the state shouldn't recognise gay couples; etc, etc? If he's saying *that*, then this is a significant shift of emphasis.

So far as I have seen, no commentator has explored this possible interpretation of what he meant.

Jae Kay said...

I'd hope you are right but I'm afraid I'm a bit too cynical.

Paul Brownsey said...

You may right, but it does leave a tiny gap that i have not noticed in RC pronouncements before.

P.