Well
Uncle Sal has opened his mouth again and uttered a terrible
condemnation of gay catholics telling the press and the world at a
press conference in Oakland celebrating his soon moving on to greater
and greater things in the Catholic Church.
Sal
is currently bishop of Oakland but is going to take the reins of the
Church in San Francisco and all its subordinate 'suffragan' bishops
and dioceses including that of Oakland. He has pronounced that the
gay people in his flock if they are bound together in any kind of a
relationship be it marriage or something 'lesser' are “too sinful”
to be admitted to the Sacraments. Those comments were a major blow
personally as a catholic and very personally as a gay man. Obviously
it's a judgment of the first order. There can be no doubt that Uncle
Sal is making a judgment when he used “too sinful” in the
sentence uttered to the press. Not only was it a judgment but it was
an ugly one at that. Didn't someone big in the Catholic Church once
command people to 'judge not' unless they themselves relish being
judged? Apparently in Uncle Sal's view it's okay to “be into”
bondage and discipline or any other kind of 'kink' but you can't be
gay—that's too sinful. It's too sinful for you to be part of our
eucharistic community.
Uncle
Sal's view of the sinfulness of acting on your human gay nature is
certainly not based on science but neither was the heliocentric
nature of creation as commonly held and taught by earlier generations
of bishops and popes, successors of the apostles as they like to
call themselves. It's based on several things ignorance, fear and an
unfathomable need of some people to look down on and condemn other
people. I guess we are back to judgments again.
Personally
I think Uncle Sal might happier and a more effective christian if he
were to resign his high office and retire to write books on
spirituality in a nice quiet monastery somewhere after he does public
penance on the steps of 'his' cathedral. Sack cloth and ashes would
be a nice touch offset with a penitentially shaved head.
