by Grania Spingies
Terry Pratchett once wrote:
“Words have power, and one of the things they are able to do is get out of someone’s mouth before the speaker has the chance to stop them.”
Pratchett was right, of course. I don’t think the Vatican can help it much, for Terminal Foot-In-Mouth Disease seems to be afflicting many high-ranking members of the clergy. Hot on the heels of Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin denouncing Ireland’s “Yes” result in its Marriage Equality Referendum as a “disaster for humanity”, we have another senior cardinal, Raymond Burke, pronouncing Ireland as “worse than Pagans and “defying God”.
I’m at risk of appearing obsessive about the subject, so I will try to make my final points and then bow out as gracefully as possible.
First, yes, they really believe this stuff.
These men may represent the Old Guard of the Catholic Church, but as Cardinals they can hardly be called radical outliers. Yet their pronouncements are fairly extreme. Whether the issue is born of a desire to arbitrate morality or to maintain a position of power over peoples’ lives; the result is the same: they are aghast at the notion that anybody – let alone a nation of mostly Catholics – could even contemplate same-sex marriage as an issue of equality. The legal rights aspect of the recent Referendum is something that doesn’t appear to register at all in their counter-arguments.
The vote comprehensively rejected the Church position. That ought to cause concern among the clergy, and it clearly does in the case of Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin as it doesn’t bode well for the future of the religion. But even Martin’s comments didn’t show that he might be reconsidering whether his Church’s position was wrong, merely that it had clearly failed to impress its position on its members.
Its official position, lest we forget, is this:
Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
This quote is not from some hard-line lunatic fringe. It is from the Catholic Catechism on the Vatican’s own website.
This is why weirdly offensive letters were written by Bishops to be read to the faithful of Ireland at Mass during the Sunday Homily. However progressive and liberal the local parish and its priest may be, there is no getting around what the Church actually has to say about homosexuality.
Second, they are so out of touch with people that they have no idea how unintentionally funny and simultaneously insulting they are.
I think I can speak for everybody here when I say being called “worse than a pagan” is not the worst thing one can be called in life, nor is it likely to cause most atheists a moment’s pause. However, one has to remember that the overwhelming majority of people voting Yes in the Irish Referendum were Catholics. Those Catholics presumably do have an opinion about being told that they have defied God for ratifying the idea that people are entitled to equal rights regardless of their sexual orientation. These sorts of pronouncements do the Church’s reputation a great deal of harm, so it’s telling that even now the Vatican permits its leading men to tell the world how they really feel rather than instructing them to maintain a dignified silence on an issue where they cannot fail to look archaic, intolerant and downright offensive. Gay Catholics who were hoping for the Church to start moving towards a more progressive and tolerant position must be profoundly disappointed and wary.
Third, they fear the Internet
This is either because the Internet is the plaything of demons, or because it gives every Catholic access to opinions and ideas that may not coincide with those of the Church. With the Vatican going to enormous trouble to put an exorcist into every parish in the world, it is not impossible that it is the former that worries them the most as if the world were literally an episode of Supernatural, only with slightly less subtext.
Realistically, it is also because ideas have to fight hard for credibility when they are forced to go up against a world of alternative ideas. “Because the book says so” is a pretty useless argument when your opponents also have books that say different things. However, it is pretty hard to exorcise the Internet, so it seems that people will “imbibe this poison that’s out there” and will ask harder questions and make better arguments. Terrible stuff really.
Fourth, they have no intention of changing the Church’s position
In spite of recent papal soundbites along the lines of “Who am I to judge?”, the official Church position is going to be difficult to alter or undo—assuming of course that those in power have any intention of changing the status quo. Religions are not democracies, and popular vote is not generally an option. Liberal academic Catholics can point to sound analyses of scriptures that show the original texts are not a particularly good source for justifying the intense homophobia displayed in the official Catholic position. Unfortunately, the usual reaction from the Vatican on this sort of issue is to completely ignore the arguments made, or as last resort to point out: “There seems to be a certain element who think that the Synod has the capacity to create some totally new teaching in the Church, which is simply false.”
I’ve never been so proud of Ireland as when the Yes result came in on Saturday 23rd May; even though I think that equality is something that shouldn’t even have been put to the vote in the first place. Nevertheless, Ireland was wonderful in every possible way. It’s not going to change the Catholic Church’s position. Perhaps that doesn’t matter, because Ireland is already changed in the very best way and the battle about morality and equality has already been won. I’ll leave you with this quote from the heart-warming piece by Irish blogger and journalist Donal O’Keeffe on his experiences canvassing for the Marriage Equality referendum.
Then two young men, walking close together, came toward me from Rory Gallagher Plaza. “Hello,” I said. “Are you voting on Friday?” They gave me the most beautiful smiles and held up their joined hands.
I thought that was a really mean thing to do, to make a grown man cry in public like that.
If the Catholic Church is so disgusted, why don’t they just pack up and leave Ireland and the 37 states in the US who now have same-sex marriage.
Worse than Pagans, eh? I stand with Malachy McCourt: St Patrick screwed up a perfectly good society.
“[A]nother senior cardinal, Raymond Burke has pronounced Ireland as ‘worse than Pagans’ and ‘defying God’.”
Yes…says the man (see the picture here: http://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/2108/0/ireland-is-worse-than-the-pagans-for-legalising-gay-marriage-says-senior-cardinal) wearing a large, bulging glans penis on his head. Said glans penis wrapped in material that might make quite fetching lingerie.
And Jerry, thank you for the link to the Donal O’Keeffe essay. Quite lovely.
They’ll show themselves to be good Lamarkians and adapt. Or they’ll die.
It’ll be slightly more convenient or the forces of rationality if they’d just curl up and die, but this sort of toe-curling stupidity is probably a first sign of them curling up and dieing.
If you detect a sliver of sympathy for them, your Sympath-o-Meter needs recalibration.
Remember that the church is a worldwide organisation. While becoming more accepting of gay rights might be in its interest in places like Ireland it could be really harmful to its brand in, for example, a lot of african countries.
As long as they continue to get support from Africa and South America they probably won’t feel the need to change. They’ve long known that Europe is a lost cause as secularism and individual liberty has dominated both the political and cultural scene.
They’ll just continue to mutter dire warnings about corruption and decadence (takes one to know one, after all) and continue to rake in millions from other continents.
I am proud of Ireland, too. And I’m not even Irish.
Congratulations Ireland. I know an Irish girl from the fencing club and I congratulated her too. It was especially moving to see old people vote ‘yes’ because they have lived under the yoke of the catholic church; they have lived through the times when that horrible institution still held power over the minds of the Irish.
Would the church say that same sex marriage is as bad as a pedophilia? 10 pedophilia? twenty? Tell us father…
Pretty much all they say on the subject of rape is that it is a sin against chastity, so it’s about as bad as masturbation and extra-marital sex.
It’s on the same page of the Catholic Catechism I linked to in the article.
Well, people who commit them all end up in the same Hell. It’s also on par with grievous moral failings like skipping Mass on Holy Thursday or eating the cracker after failing to confess having masturbated. That lands you in Hell too.
Catholics are not alone fearing the internet. All despots fear information and privacy.
SPAM! According to Da HoLy InTeRnEt there is no such series.
Well said Grania. And, thanks for a nice series of posts.
Perfectly stated, too, Ms Spingies.
And The Best to you and to your comadres and compadres in dealing out the scientifically evidenced conclusion of .choice. to Ireland’s other centuries’ long matter, please: abortion.
Blue
The people campaigning for abortion legislation are just as passionate and hard-working. However, to change the law will also require a referendum and the current regime has refused to hold one on abortion.
So it isn’t going to happen without a regime change, and then only if that regime decides to allow a referendum. Currently the Irish Labour party has promised to hold one if they get elected, but they have only ever held a coalition position to date, never winning outright.
Gives me an idea for a box of t-shirts and bumper-stickers to send over to my distant matrilineal relations.
Change is loss of power. Denial always retains a certain percentage of hardliners. Some republicans still defend Nixon…
Some capital-“R” Republicans still might, but no true “republican” ever defended Nixon — and by “ever” I mean since before Alger Hiss, since before Tricky Dick made the crack about Helen Gahagan Douglas being “pink right down to her underwear.”
I would like to hear what the logic behind ruling out mental disease before resorting to exorcism entails. Maybe an administration of propofol and the person remains awake with her head spinning (in the literal sense as opposed to the metaphorical head spinning that would take place we’re one to witness such a test). I’d wager a fairly large sum that they’d fail to find a single person who wakes prior to the medication wearing off.
Twenty-first Century trial by ordeal?
LMAO at the picture of Raymond Burke from one of the links — looks like he can barely hold his head up under the huge pointy hat.
Maybe if Irish priests hadn’t Duggared so many kids and had it covered up by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the church could speak with more moral authority there.
Catholics are religious nutters just like the rest of worlds holy fruit-cakes. Can’t expect more from them than from a baptist,a hindu, a muslim, a hebrew or any of the other knee bound types. To believe in sky-fairies is intrinsically wacko.
“worse than Pagans and “defying God”.
’bout time they defied God a bit more and did something about their toxic abortion laws…
Isn’t it a little odd that their all powerful God decided to let the Irish vote for gay marriage and not prevent it like we’re told he could.
Yep. And all he’d have needed to do was make every Catholic vote in line with their bishop’s orders, no earthquakes, volcanos, tornadoes or tidal waves required.
Yes, in the past I’ve always been mystified as to how people were able to defy an all powerful god. Nowadays I see gods as being a bit like tinkerbell, they fade away as fewer and fewer people believe in them.
A phenomenon clearly manifested in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, most notably described in ‘Small Gods’.
I do however firmly believe in Anoia, Goddess of Things Stuck in Drawers…
Semantic trickery. If the god were not all powerful, there would be nothing one could be said to defy. Ah, that makes me nostalgic for the old days, when truly courageous mortals would defy god, with impunity!
Beautifully written, Grania.
At some point the Catholic church in Ireland threatened to stop doing the legal element of weddings if this went through. Hopefully they’re going to stand by their principles and make good on this threat/promise? That would be a great way to marginalise themselves even further.
The French have the right idea (And it’s not often I say that!). To be legally wed you go to the town hall. If you also want to be wed in the eyes of whatever god you subscribe to you then you troll along to your temple/church/sacred grove of choice and undergo the religious part of the process. Whatever else it is, essentially marriage is a legal contract and the state shouldn’t be farming out that responsibility to others.
It’s the same in the Netherlands. Religious marriage only appears in the criminal code: it’s illegal to have a religious marriage before civil marriage. Sometimes a religious couple goes to a notary to make a legal contract that contains the religious promises they made to each other.
Most catholics pro equal marriage.
They’re denounced by church heirarchy as pagans etc.
Not too clever from their point of view, driving an even thicker wedge between them and their flock.
Reblogged this on JerBear's Queer World News, Views & More From The City Different – Santa Fe, NM and commented:
A great post on some of the Catholic Church’s hierarchy’s reaction to marriage equality coming to Ireland…
“disaster for humanity”
Funny, that description far better fits the Catholic church versus, say, giving gay people equal treatment under the law.