|
Why, the Pope’s word were so embracing and illuminating
that when he spoke to the joint session of Congress, in the
background, you clearly saw the House Speaker John Boehner
wiping his eyes.
To have the Pope visit and speak to Congress was one of
the lifelong dreams of Boehner who said, in part, that the
visit and the words of the Pope were a partial cause for him
to resign his speakership.
The Pope even met with a same-sex couple and
purportedly with Kim Davis, the Kentucky court clerk who is
still balking at having her name listed on any marriage
license by which same sex couples are married.
With all of the merriment and goodwill and cheer caused
by the Pope’s visit, you could think that the Age of
Aquarius was nigh over the next bend in the road. You know,
peace and love and happiness for everyone!
But wait. What is this I read? When the Pope returned
to his enclave known as Vatican City, he fired a Polish gay
priest who is in an active and “committed relationship” with
another man.
Somehow this priest thought that with all of this talk of
goodwill and acceptance and unity, it was a propitious time
to make known his romantic feelings towards his boyfriend.
Boy, did he ever misread the Pope’s tea leaves! I guess
this now unemployed priest is sitting somewhere in a
near-empty bistro in Rome wondering three times over, what
happened?
What makes this priest even the more clueless is that he was
part of the powerful committee that determines the doctrine
of the Catholic Church
And to date, that committee has not remotely hinted at
changing the Catholic Church’s position on gays and same sex
marriages.
When the news of this priest voluntarily outing himself
and the swift response of the Pope to dismiss him from his
cleric duties hit the airwaves, the media was somewhat
dumbfounded because they assumed that the Pope, would strike
a conciliatory tone.
After all, earlier, before he came to America, he was
asked a tough question about homosexuality and his tepid
response was, “Who am I to judge?”
Well, for this particular Roman Catholic priest, he
was judged and was found wanting.
For the media to believe that there was a clear nexus
between the exuberance caused by the Pope’s visit and a
softening of his position on gays and same-sex marriage, it
is clear that the media also does not know how to read the
tea leaves.
To their chagrin, media watchers and those not
familiar with Catholic doctrine simply assumed that the
grandfatherly Pope would turn a blind eye and say again,
“Who am I to judge?” on that issue.
For readers who were blindsided by the Pope’s
pronouncement of firing this errant cleric, it shows that
you err because you know not the scriptures.
The Pope was and is the champion of the Catholic faith
and he was not about to violate his view of scripture for
the sake of generating warm fuzzy feelings from his
parishioners or to play up to the media to get “papal
points.”
I know…I know. One might feel somewhat miffed at what
appears to be a Pope riding the crest of popularity and
people expressing statements that he is changing the world
and that his compassion and love is refreshing and his
embracement of the outcasts of society is commendable and
needs to be emulated by others…but.
The “but” is that the pontiff is still grounded by
church dogma on certain nonnegotiable issues of the faith
and that those judgments will remain intact by those
guarding that dogma in spite of the wishes and demands of a
pluralistic society that want change – wanting that change
in their way and in their fashion.
Contact Lafe Tolliver at Tolliver@Juno.com
|
