VATICAN HOMOPHOBIA / PATRIARCHAL ABUSE–PART 2

Sadly, warlike men in Syria, Yemen and Myanmar wreak havoc. Misguided males in the Taliban, Isis, Boko Haram and Al Shabaab bring death and destruction. Small, unbalanced groups of well-meaning holy men who claim entitlement to control can lead us down wrong roads. We have had far too much of Crusades, Inquisition, Homophobia and Abuse of women and children. Good people worldwide must find constructive and effective ways to halt, divert, enlighten, and convert patriarchal control groups. There is a better chance of wholesome outcomes when all women and men are involved in democratic mode to determine governance, vision, ethos, narrative and ministry in every country, religion and church.

God’s wonderful Creation is awesome, diverse, complex, and blessed with variations and unique individuals, species, families, and religions. It was an imperial arrogance to claim for too many years that there was no salvation outside the Roman Catholic Church and subjection to the Pope. It was wrong to persist with the tradition of anti-Semitism in our clerical teaching and liturgy by praying for the “perfidious Jews” many years after the horrors of the Holocaust. It was primitive and wrong that some Irish children were beaten in schools in the 1950’s for the “intrinsic disorder” of being lefthanded just because a majority are righthanded. The human family is majority heterosexual with a glorious rainbow minority of LGBTQ+ persons. God saw that it was good. All of God’s creatures have a place in the choir. All human beings can celebrate, love, marry, form family, and raise children. It is dangerous and wrong for the Vatican clerics to persist with their dogmas of “intrinsic disorder” decades after medical science and enlightened people in many countries have concluded that homosexuality is a non-pathological, minority variant within the broad spectrum of human sexuality.

On June 22nd, 1633, ten Cardinals of the Roman Inquisition convicted the scientist Galileo Galilei for asserting that the Earth is not the centre of the Universe and that it revolves around the Sun. This was contrary to Holy Scripture and clerical tradition. This was almost as “heretical” as the later development of doctrine in Vatican II that the loving union of marriage between two people is about far more than procreation. Under torture threat, Galileo was forced to deny the new findings in astronomy. He was condemned as a heretic and imprisoned until his death in 1642. 359 years later, in 1992, Pope John Paul II acknowledged that the cardinals had erred. The lethal combination of unleavened patriarchal groupthink allied with outdated biblical interpretation plus rejection of modern science leads surely to error with cruel consequences for innocent people. This shows that, despite the false programming that the Roman Church never changes, change can and does happen. 

Vatican II brought monumental change in liturgy, ecumenical dialogue, and teaching on religious freedom to name only three issues. There has been a complete turnaround on important moral issues to do with usury, slavery, and anti-Semitism. Teachings on Limbo, capital punishment and just war have evolved. The women do not have to be “churched” any longer post childbirth. Misogynistic and homophobic clerical doctrines must change too as a matter of extreme urgency.

Will we have to wait another 359 years for the Vatican clerics to repeal their outdated homophobia and patriarchal denial of equality and justice for women? People will not wait. It is understandable that millions of Catholics over the past many decades have walked and are walking away from elements of Vatican homophobia, misogyny, patriarchal monarchy, medieval narrative, warped teaching on women and sexuality as well as refusal to share power. The above issues and variants thereof are among the major concerns of Irish Catholics if the bishops arranging the forthcoming Irish Catholic Synod genuinely wish to listen, change, and reform.

Can we practising Catholics continue to collude in the persecution of the innocents as the homophobes today use the clerical weapon words of “intrinsic disorder” and “sin” to assault our LGBTQ+ sisters and brothers? Thank God that the majority of the Irish People of God in 2015 rejected the Vatican obscurantism and voted firmly for love, respect, inclusion, and marriage equality. It was indeed Good News that we gave our Christian blessing to LGBTQ+ persons.

Dundrum, Co. Dublin