The Pope visited Spain, where gay marriage was recently legalized, on Saturday. He delivered an address about the importance of protecting traditional marriage from...well, he doesn't actually say what. Some of his statements are just baffling to me. Can he really not realize how empty and hypocritical his rhetoric is? You be the judge.
At an evening celebration with pilgrims from around the world, the Pope urged politicians to value the traditional family.
"This is the best way to counter a widespread hedonism which reduces human relations to banality and empties them of their authentic value and beauty," he said, to waves of applause.
I would argue that it is the anti-gay marriage side that reduces human relations to banality, by treating committed gay relationships as worthless. Their fanatical obsession with gay sex completely blinds them to the fact that such relationships are no different from their own relationships. There is authentic value and beauty in the committment of two people who love each other and share all of the burdens and responsibilities that come with that commitment, but that is ignored completely by those who fight against gay marriage.
The Pope has branded gay unions an expression of "anarchic freedom" but said he wanted to focus on the positives, not negatives."The family is itself based primarily on a deep interpersonal relationship between husband and wife, sustained by affection and mutual understanding," the 79-year-old said, before hundreds of fireworks burst into the sky.
But this completely ignores the reality that there are millions of families around the world that are based in an identical fashion on a deep interpersonal relationship between husband and husband, or wife and wife, sustained by affection and mutual understanding. Does the Pope really believe that only heterosexuals are capable of such relationships, or of sustaining affection and mutual understanding? Apparently so. But reality doesn't budge under the assault of his silly prejudices. Like it or not, there are lots and lots of families already in existence that do model those same traits. The only difference is that the two heads of the family are gay. And that makes no difference at all in terms of all of those emotional components that bind a family together.
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And this coming from an organization where none of the men in charge are married and thus have little insight into how a lifelong partnership should work.
I think that we are witnessing a big transformation in the use of religion from this pope.
Living in Italy I can tell you that very few people really care about what the pope says.
Teenagers have sex like never before, abortion in legal and there are no signs of criminalizing it, contraception are no tabu anymore, young people go to live together without being married and so on.
So, I think, the pope realized that Vatican have very little grasp on the people's mind.
From this situation the pope could choose to either modernize Vatican's doctrine, which means becoming just one of many forces in the definition of morality, or "fundamentalize" the doctrine.
This second choice allow the Vatican to become a strong voice in the "speak the truth" game.
So I think that this pope could be understand to be the "Ann Coulter" of the Catholic church.
With this pope, the Vatican become the Fox News of the European's right wing.
They [the pope and his clowns] understood that mindless bullshit sell much better that reasoned confrontation.
The idea is that reasoning is very bad for faith, and a true christians should abstain from knowledge.
(Just for give you and example of this, a year ago our government made a very restricted law on assisted reproduction. Many restriction were justified as "avoiding eugenetics". The problems is the one restriction forbid heterologic reproduction. Nobody asked why a baby concived with this tecnique is unfit to born).
Anyway, I think the pope is becoming more and more dembskied. One spend the day asking why real scientist don't see design in nature, the other asking why real people can't see the dangers of gay marriage.
Could it be because neither design in nature nor the dangers of gay marriage really exist?
PS: Regardless the pope's ranting, gay marriage is still legal in spain. I look forward to the day the pope will declare the he will hold his breath until gay marriage is declared illegal.
Regards,
Diego
Living in Italy I can tell you that very few people really care about what the pope says.
I wish it were the same amongst some of my friends. I have one friend who was gung-ho to have ID taught in public schools here until the Vatican announced it didn't believe it should. The very moment she heard that she explained that while she didn't understand why the vatican had made such a pronouncement she had to believe they were right. The only point of contention she has with the vatican is the use of condoms on Africa. And that was only after I haranged her mercilessly and pointed out all sorts of facts about the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
Quote:..."reduces human relations to banality and empties them of their authentic value and beauty," he said, to waves of applause."
"Authentic value and beauty" refers of course to pumping out horrendous numbers of future communicants. No birth control, and all that, you know.
Let me get this straight...
Two consenting mature adults, either both male or both female, in a long term committed relationship or marriage... bad.
Sexuality immature or deviant priests butt-porking altar boys... best swept under the rug.
Yeah, this Pope is really on the ball. Maybe his name should be Pope Pederast.
You must have a few of the remaining fundy Catholics as friends. A rare breed indeed. I have quite a few Catholic friends and they don't view the Pope as correct very often. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. As a whole they think the church is wrong on alot of issues and these are Catholics who attend services weekly.
You must have a few of the remaining fundy Catholics as friends.
Our own term is "orthodox Catholics",
"fundamentalist" being a Protestant term... Still, you and SharonB must get your story straight. Either orthodox Catholic are nearly extinct, or they breed like rats, but it can't really be both.
Chance - I think that is the only reason that Benedict won't try to split off the "liberal" elements of the Catholic church. I would dare say a majority of Catholics worldwide fall into that "liberal" category. To split them off as not teaching Vatican doctrine would cut the cash flow by a lot.
But I think that the percentage of fundy Catholics changes with diocise or even parish. I don't think that they are nearly as rare a breed as you might believe. I imagine that I run into more of the fundy types because I am a Christian and do spend a lot of time communicating in religious forums, many of which have an unfortunate prediliction towards extremism.
DC-
I think fundy Catholic is just fine, but call yourself whatever you like. My story is based on my group of friends. In the USA I would likely vote for nearly extinct given how they poll on various items. But that is a fickle measuring tool. And Sharon has more than valid point.
Treban-
I would agree. I am also Christian and am only speaking from my experiences. Although If one goes by message board experience you are probably drawing those which have an interest in such topics and with religion often seek to prove that with which they where raised is correct so your likely seeing more fundy Catholics there.
Personally I am growing sick of how religion seperates people and am seeing more and more merit in the arguments from the other side.