(December 18, 2023 at 12:13 pm)Nanny Wrote: El Jefe says it's okay to bless same sex togetherings as long as it doesn't resemble marriage.
https://www.boston.com/news/world-news/2...aturestack
Homophobia is one of the main reasons why sheep are leaving the Catholic Church, so what the church are trying to do is have their cake and eat it too. And they usually do it by having the pope say something as a sideshow for these cafeteria Catholics so that they get the impression that the Church is changing.
Which reminds me of this article from 2016
Quote:Pope Francis’s gay-friendly comments don’t match the Catholic Church’s actual policies
Pope Francis’s latest comments on gay people have triggered yet another round of coverage about how gay-friendly this pope is. But as welcoming as Francis’s latest comments are, they’re being graded on a weighted scale — one that still allows a lot of homophobia.
In his latest remarks, Francis said Christians and the Catholic Church should apologize to gay people and ask for forgiveness. He said, “We Christians have to apologize for so many things, not just for this [treatment of gays], but we must ask for forgiveness. … I think that the Church not only should apologize … to a gay person whom it offended, but it must also apologize to the poor as well, to the women who have been exploited, to children who have been exploited by [being forced to] work. It must apologize for having blessed so many weapons.”
This all certainly sounds nice. But as with other examples in which the media embraced Francis as unusually LGBTQ-friendly for a pope, Francis’s words are getting much, much more credit than his actions. Because as far as actions go, the Vatican is still anti-gay.
As William Saletan pointed out at Slate, this isn’t a radical departure from what's been the typical line of conservative Catholics for some time now: “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” Francis was saying that he won't “reject and condemn this person,” but that still leaves room for condemning the alleged sin of homosexuality itself.
And the Catholic Church has continued doing just that: The Church states that while gay people “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity,” they are still “called to chastity” because “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”
It's hard to think of any other leader who would be called progressive while holding Francis’s views. Imagine if Hillary Clinton tomorrow came out and said gay people shouldn’t be allowed to marry, and that gay people should be celibate. Would anyone consider her progressive? Of course not. She would likely be labeled an anti-gay bigot.
But the pope gets a pass on his anti-gay views, simply because, in comparison to his predecessors, his rhetoric is nicer. That may make him slightly progressive compared to some members of his church, but it's far from liberal on gay issues. And if evaluated fairly, the pope's positions are still highly regressive and condemnable among anyone who cares about gay rights.
https://www.vox.com/2016/6/27/12039742/p...ogy-church
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"