What the hell is the matter with that guy? Is it pride? I think so.
His pride grows with his fear, as it always does. Though what he has to be prideful about I don't know. The church's name stands in disgrace due to Her leadership, and he himself is no different. I despair that the day will never come when a full-throated denouncement of sexual abuse within the church's heirarchy, and thorough prosecutions forthwith, will issue from the Vatican. But others have already covered the latest grotesque absurdities on that front.
Now, Benedict, what the f*ck?
Leader of a billion souls? Holy Father to a billion children? What sort of household are you running? A wise father sees signs of change, change perhaps which is frightening, and then when that change is revealed as righteous he must be capable of seeing it himself, and for the love of Pete he must forget his proclivities along with his pride. The church came around to Galileo, She came around to Darwin. Benedict himself showed significant wisdom in affirming anthropogenic climate change. But no wise father could see such an obvious change taking place, as has been happening to the human awareness of sexuality for decades, and double down so harshly on fervent opposition to that change. That is not wise, nor is it even decent. At present both wisdom and decency seem to be in depressingly low supply in Vatican City.
The latest awful chapter in the part the church has had to play in our quickening world is below the fold.
Disclosure; I was confirmed Catholic. I could say it was all mom's idea, and I'd be mostly right. I have always felt a tithe of allegiance to Her, even though according to the church my beliefs have always been a bit, if we're being technical, blasphemous. I hold NO allegience to the pope, mind. It's just, well, my priest was one of the good ones, and the church was a force for good in my home town.
And my first teacher was a nun. I won't elaborate; save to say that she was an excellent teacher, though as strict as they come. She remembered the day she had to put down the ruler, and had refined her teaching techniques, and her voice, to an expertly wielded surgical buzzsaw. I admired her a great deal, though of course I found her strange. It was a cool kind of strange.
She was a wise woman.
Apparently when a nun is the one showing the wisdom she doesn't quite enjoy the countenence of her church, she doesn't even get to enjoy a simple blind-eye. If that wisdom is at odds with "official doctrine" it doesn't matter how wise it is; she feels the Wrath until she gets back in line.
It was so ridiculous to hear about the Vatican's denouncement of the Leadership Conference for Women Religious, saying the conference promotes "radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith."
But Holy Mother this is f*cked up backwards: Vatican attacks popular US nun over sexuality book
From the article
The Vatican's doctrinal department, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a stern "notification" about Sister Margaret A. Farley, a member of the Sisters of Mercy and a professor emeritus of Christian ethics at Yale University. The Congregation sharply criticized Farley, saying her writings manifest a "defective understanding of the objective nature of natural moral law" and pose "grave harm to the faithful."
Monday's notification, signed by department head Cardinal William Levada, an American, and approved by Pope Benedict, sharply criticized Farley's award-winning 2006 book "Just Love, a Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics".
The Vatican rejected Farley's views on four subjects, masturbation, homosexual acts, homosexual unions and remarriage after divorce.
On masturbation Farley writes that it "usually does not raise any moral questions at all" and "actually serves relationships rather than hindering them". She writes "same-sex oriented persons as well as their activities can and should be respected", and that homosexual marriage can help reduce hatred and rejection of gays.
"I do not dispute the judgment that some of the positions contained within it are not in accord with current official Catholic teaching," Farley said in a statement issued Monday. "The book was not intended to be an expression of current official Catholic teaching, nor was it aimed specifically against this teaching. It is of a different genre altogether."
The response from the Vatican? That those views "are in direct contradiction with Catholic teaching in the field of sexual morality" with warnings that her popular and much acclaimed book "is not in conformity with the teaching of the Church".
The world is changing, to not see it is to be a fool, and all powerful dynasties are eventually faced with the choice that the dinosaurs couldn't make in time: change with the world, or fizzle.
His "Holiness" has a choice to make.