Pope Francis and Gay People

[MrGongGong]

The way some members attack people with religious beliefs with such passion and venom suggests to me they have doubts in their stance. Why else do they protest too much?

That's a rather strange assumption

[Richard Barrett]

I see no venom. The central question being discussed here (correct me if I'm wrong), lest this get buried under obfuscation, is whether at least in principle the Catholic Church might eventually recognise gay equality. Examples of how that church has changed its stance on various issues have been adduced in support of this principle, whereas on the other hand scottycelt has insisted in a because-I-say-so kind of way that the church has never done any such thing, and that the church's attitude towards gay people is based on an "interpretation" of the words of Jesus, who however is not recorded as having expressed himself on the subject, so presumably he could equally have been "interpreted" as having had views quite different from those held by the apostle Paul and his followers. It's striking that the one professedly devout Catholic posting here always shies away from bringing in what is presumably the highest authority he recognises on such subjects, namely the bible.

[Mr Pee]

The way some members attack people with religious beliefs with such passion and venom suggests to me they have doubts in their stance. Why else do they protest too much?

It's not just religion that gets them going; try mentioning the Monarchy, or dare to state that you are even slightly patriotic, or not in favour of mass immigration, and the same venom won't take long to appear. Even a mention of BSkyB can set them off.

[MrGongGong]

It's not just religion that gets them going; try mentioning the Monarchy, or dare to state that you are even slightly patriotic, or not in favour of mass immigration, and the same venom won't take long to appear. Even a mention of BSkyB can set them off.

It's the lizard conspiracy at work Peester ......... just has to be

[scottycelt]

There's a change of emphasis - or is that merely Jesuitical equivocation on Francis's part?

Here's more from a liberal Catholic source:

I’ve just watched the actual video of Pope Francis’ airplane press conference, and it’s even more remarkable than the quotes we gleaned earlier from reporters like John Allen. What’s so striking to me is not what he said, but how he said it: the gentleness, the humor, the transparency. I find myself with tears in my eyes as I watch him. I’ve lived a long time to hear a Pope speak like that – with gentleness and openness, reasserting established dogma with sudden, sweeping exceptions that aren’t quite exceptions – except they sure sound like them...

...What Francis is doing is not suddenly changing orthodoxy; he is instead pointing us in another direction entirely. He is following Saint Francis’ injunction: “Preach the Gospel everywhere; if necessary with words.” He is a walking instantiation of the way Jesus asked us to live: with affection and openness, charity and forgiveness; and a reluctance to seize on issues of theology instead of simply living a life of faith, which is above all a life of action in the service of others:

"We all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much."

Yes, we do, Holy Father. We so sorely do.

Well, that's all very well and exciting, but nothing has actually changed, has it?

Why this modern obsession with style and personality?

I see absolutely no difference between Francis and Benedict other than the former has a more outgoing manner and can 'mix it' with 'ordinary folk' probably better than his predecessor. He knows all about football. Nothing much wrong with that!

Benedict, in contrast, had(s) a rather different personality, being somewhat more reflective, and with a particular love of classical music, especially Mozart. Nothing much wrong with that as well!

Yet, when it comes to the crunch, they believe and preach exactly the same about the issues being discussed here.

So ... the world goes on very much the same as before ...

[MrGongGong]

.

So ... the world goes on very much the same as before ...

Is that an official view ?
Same old Vatican, same old corruption, same old abuse, same old hypocrisy ?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

That's a rather strange assumption

Why is it strange. People who feel secure in their beliefs don't need to "defend" them by attacking others. Think of famous atheists who stood on their soapboxes for years...

Such as Malcolm Muggeridge and T.S.Elliot...

Then they jumped ship.

I'm waiting for Richard Dawkins to do the same.

[Flosshilde]

People who feel secure in their beliefs don't need to "defend" them by attacking others.

So the christians attacking atheists (as the last pope did) are likely to renounce their beliefs and declare that god doesn't exist?

[Richard Barrett]

People who feel secure in their beliefs don't need to "defend" them by attacking others.

(a) the position taken by myself and (presumably) others has nothing to do with feeling secure in any belief but is rather a scepticism applied to the supposedly secure beliefs of others, in particular wondering why those beliefs are so secure when (as in scottycelt's seeming belief in the immutability of the Catholic church's attitude) they can so easily be shown to be false
(b) nobody is being attacked
(c) for every atheist who has "jumped ship" I'm sure I could find you numerous ones who didn't, but that would prove nothing, and I wonder why you bother bringing it up at all

This is not a discussion about whether religious belief in itself is true or false, but about whether the Catholic church's attitude towards gay people is immutable or not, and (tangentially) where that church's current attitude stems from, if not (as would seem to be the case) from Jesus himself.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This is not a discussion about whether religious belief in itself is true or false, but about whether the Catholic church's attitude towards gay people is immutable or not, and (tangentially) where that church's current attitude stems from, if not (as would seem to be the case) from Jesus himself.

True, but it does sometimes become a little personal between certain posters.

[scottycelt]

Is that an official view ?
Same old Vatican, same old corruption, same old abuse, same old hypocrisy ?

Yup, could well be .. sadly, no guarantee of anything else, tbh ... the Vatican's made up of fallible human beings just like any other institution, including, heaven help us, the Percussive Arts Society.

Quite frightening, eh ... ?

[Barbirollians]

The strange thing is that the Catholic church appeared to be rather more tolerant of homosexual acts in the past than Protestants .

Pope Francis's rather more liberal attitude could be due to recent assessments that suggest that 40% of Catholic clergy are gay - well an ideal place to go for a child of religious parents who knew he was not going to be interested in girls ! and Pope Francis realising that the vatican is run by gay priests .

[scottycelt]

(a) the position taken by myself and (presumably) others has nothing to do with feeling secure in any belief but is rather a scepticism applied to the supposedly secure beliefs of others, in particular wondering why those beliefs are so secure when (as in scottycelt's seeming belief in the immutability of the Catholic church's attitude) they can so easily be shown to be false

Do carry on ... why did you suddenly stop at the very point when you got to the crucial bit?!!

nobody is being attacked.

Of course not. No member of this forum would ever even dream of indulging in such a horrid practice.

Especially you, Richard ...

[Pabmusic]

Well, of course, the Church itself originates from Christ and the very first Pope, St Peter...

Hmmm... The Catholic Church (and of course almost all Protestant faiths) originates from an early Christian group that followed the teachings of Paul. In particular, they believed in the Trinity (especially that Jesus was one incarnation of God, but in human form) and that reward would be in heaven - an other-worldy place - at sometime after death. Their faith was non-Jewish (in fact, anti-Jewish) and they converted gentiles. It is not surprising that Pauline Christianity spread to Rome and that in 325 it was to Pauline Christianity that Constantine the Great converted (and, fifty years later, the Roman Empire adopted Pauline Christianity, ensuring its success).

There were other versions of Christianity, though. Perhaps the most significant were the Ebionites, whose leader was James the brother of Jesus (and one of whose leading lights was Peter, whom the Pauline Christians would later treat as being their first Pope, although he'd never been one of them). This was a Jewish sect whose members had to adopt Jewish practices such as circumcision. They followed Jesus's teachings and prepared for the Kingdom of Heaven (a well understood idea from Judaism) when the pre-Babylonian Jewish state would be restored under the Son of God (another well understood Jewish term for a mortal favoured by God - David had been described as the Son of God, for instance). Jesus, who had been an apocalyptic preacher, taught that this would happen soon, within the lifetimes of some of the disciples, and that the Kingdom of God (that is the new Israel) would be divided into twelve parts, each headed by a disciple. (This is all in Mark and Matthew - Mark is the earliest surviving gospel.) In this earliest form of Christianity Jesus was not divine but was a man - a Son of God as David had been.

There was also a fairly loose collection of Christian sects we now call Gnostic Christians. They had in common a belief that they had to attain the 'knowledge' of the impure state of mortals and the purity of immortals. Jesus had been a mortal, but his body had been used by a divine spirit, which then left Jesus as he hung on the cross ("My God, my Gd, why do you forsake me?"). The distinction between the earthly Jesus and the divine God was central to their beliefs. Some writings were later excluded from the Bible by Pauline Christians because they were too 'Gnostic' - the Gospel of Peter, for instance, where the divine spirit leaves Jesus's body and hovers over the cross, laughing, as Jesus dies (the point being they're killing the wrong person).

Under the Paulines, Gnosticism was called a heresy. The Ebionites were also heretics because they denied the divinity of Jesus, but they also fell foul of the Pauline anti-semitism that flourished in later centuries, when The Church taught that the Jews followed Satan and that they were responsible for Jesus's death.

As for following the teachings of Christ, well it's interesting to see how Jesus's divinity develops. As time went by and no Kingdom of Heaven appeared, writers altered the teachings to make them fit the idea of a divine spirit that promises redemption after death, and the Kingdom of Heaven became a supernatural entity. Just compare Mark (written about 70 CE) and John (about 95 CE) to get a flavour of this.

[Richard Barrett]

Do carry on ... why did you suddenly stop at the very point when you got to the crucial bit?!!

Because Pabmusic and others have already shown how mutable the attitudes of the church in various areas have been; another one alluded to in Pabmusic's last post is the institutionalised antisemitism of the church, which only officially stopped collectively blaming Jews for the death of Jesus at the Second Vatican Council in 1965.