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Cardinal Timothy Dolan: Gays and lesbians are “entitled to friendship,” not equal rights

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 12:44:00 +0000

New York Archbishop and president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Timothy Dolan was on "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos to talk about the current state of the Catholic Church.

When asked what he would say to a gay couple who told him: "We love God. We love the Church. But we also love each other, and we want to raise a family in faith," Dolan replied (emphasis mine):

Well, the first thing I'd say to them is, "I love you, too. And God loves you. And you are made in God's image and likeness. And – and we – we want your happiness. But – and you're entitled to friendship." But we also know that God has told us that the way to happiness, that – especially when it comes to sexual love – that is intended only for a man and woman in marriage, where children can come about naturally.

We gotta be – we gotta do better to see that our defense of marriage is not reduced to an attack on gay people. And I admit, we haven't been too good at that. We try our darndest to make sure we're not an anti-anybody. We're in the defense of what God has taught us about – about marriage. And it's one man, one woman, forever, to bring about new life. We gotta do better to try to dis – take that away from being anti-anybody. And – and I admit – we haven't been too good.

When asked how he feels about 60 percent of Catholics reporting that they feel the church is out of touch with the public (on marriage equality and contraception, among other issues), Dolan replied: "Sometimes by nature, the Church has gotta be out of touch with concerns, because we're always supposed to be thinking of the beyond, the eternal, the changeless, okay?"

The Vatican plays landlord to Europe’s biggest gay bathhouse

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 13:04:00 +0000

Happy Conclave Day, everyone. While you are discreetly scanning TMZ on your office computer or contemplating the Chipotle you will eat for lunch, 115 cardinals have gathered at the Vatican to select God's new representative on earth.

But there is something more than just choosing a spiritual leader for the world's 1.2 billion Catholics weighing on the cardinals today: Gay bathhouses.

News broke on Tuesday that the Holy See had purchased a $30 million dollar share of Rome real estate that includes Europe’s largest gay sauna, making them its official landlord.

As reported by The Independent:

The senior Vatican figure sweating the most due to the unlikely proximity of the gay Europa Multiclub is probably Cardinal Ivan Dias, the head of the Congregation for Evangelisation of Peoples, who is due to participate in tomorrow’s election at the Sistine Chapel.

This 76-year-old “prince of the church” enjoys a 12-room apartment on the first-floor of the imposing palazzo, at 2 Via Carducci, just yards from the ground floor entrance to the steamy flesh pot. There are 18 other Vatican apartments in the block, many of which house priests....

Cardinal Dias, who is seen as a social conservative even by the current standards of the church hierarchy, is no doubt horrified to learn of the activities taking place a floor below.

Pope Benedict the liberal?

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 20:02:00 +0000

There’s a moment in Keith Richards’ recent memoir when he pauses his tale of addiction and debauchery to reflect that, once a certain number of stories about his excesses had been told and retold in public, his reputation became fixed. No countervailing or complicating evidence of moderation could change it. “Image is like a long shadow,” he writes. “Even when the sun goes down, you can see it.” In this, and most likely nothing else, the Rolling Stones’ guitarist is a bit like Pope Benedict XVI.

When Benedict delivered last year’s address to the Vatican diplomatic corps, it was reported by Reuters under the headline “Gay marriage a threat to humanity’s future: Pope.” Never mind that the lengthy speech contained no reference to gay marriage, and only one reference to opposite-sex marriage. (The speech noted that “policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself.” This may imply same-sex marriage, but the “policies” he explicitly identified—prenatal sex selection and the patenting of human embryonic stem cells—were denied top billing in the press.)

Catholics everywhere have something to say

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 23:40:00 +0000

Catholicism loves its traditions. Being 2,000 years old, this is perhaps not surprising. What is surprising is when those traditions are broken.

On Monday, the Vatican announced that, for the first time in 600 years, the pope will resign at the end of the month. Pope Benedict XVI, for reasons of poor health and old age, has said he will step down Feb. 28.

Reactions around the world have been swift and varied. Many who respect the church are congratulatory toward the pope, while others have expressed disdain.

As Catholic numbers dwindle in Europe and North America the growth of the church in Africa and elsewhere has led to calls for the next pope to be selected from the "global South." That call was ignored last time around when Benedict XVI replaced John Paul II.

Perhaps this time that tradition too will be broken.

50 reasons to boycott the Church

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:39:00 +0000

Last month in Ireland, Savita Halappanavar died, and she shouldn't have. Savita was a 31-year-old married woman, four months pregnant, who went to the hospital with a miscarriage in progress that developed into a blood infection. She could easily have been saved if the already doomed fetus was aborted. Instead, her doctors did nothing, explaining that "this is a Catholic country," and left her to suffer in agony for days, only intervening once it was too late.

Savita's death is just the latest in a long line of tragedies directly attributable to the doctrines and beliefs of the Roman Catholic church. I acknowledge that there are many good, progressive Catholics, but the problem is that the church isn't a democracy, and those progressives have no voice or vote in its governance. The church is a petrified oligarchy, a dictatorship like the medieval monarchies it once existed alongside, and it's run by a small circle of conservative, rigidly ideological old men who make all the decisions and choose their own successors.