My Refrigerator Magnet

Since Benedict could not get through his Portugal trip without obliquely condemning gay marriage, I thought I would put Benedict’s picture up on my blog which is from a refrigerator magnet given to me by a gay couple.

Now be truthful when you answer the question on this refrigerator magnet.

Here is a further reflection as you gaze at Benedict.

Professor Mark Jordan from the Harvard Divinity School, who wrote The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism, suggests all the protests by popes, cardinals, and bishops against gays and gay marriage is an attempt to distract and hide from the laity the reality that there is a significant number of gay men in the priesthood and a strong element of homoeroticism in the Catholic Church.

There are quite a number of other comments from other bloggers about Benedict's recent trip to Portugal and his continual condemnation of gays and gay marriage.

Here is the opening paragraph from John McNeill’s blog Spiritual Transformation. “On his recent pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal, Pope Benedict XVI used the occasion to announce that he thought the greatest threat to the human race, apart from abortion, was gay marriage! To my knowledge no mention was made of the nuclear arms race; no mention of the destruction of the environment; no mention of disease, poverty and starvation which afflict the vast majority of humanity; no mention of the decrease in respect for the sacred value of the human person which has led to a remarkable increase in genocide, violence, murder, torture and enslavement. Which leads me to wonder what alternate universe the Pope lives in; what alternate reality is he dealing with?”

You can read the whole thing here.

http://johnmcneillspiritualtransformation.blogspot.com/2010/05/pope-benedict-xvi-on-gay-marriage.html

Some bloggers have noted that Benedict may have been more restrained in Portugal when it came to the things he loves to condemn. This may be a positive movement. Unless Benedict can cool the anti-gay rhetoric all his renewed calls for dialogue will be hollow. One could hope that someday there might be a dialogue with hierarchs in the Vatican and gay and lesbian people. Popes, cardinals, and bishops just might learn something. They might also begin to learn something about themselves.