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| Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, who has called homosexuality
an ‘intrinsic moral evil,’ was selected pope this week to succeed
John Paul II. (Photo by AP)
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: DYANA BAGBY
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When white smoke puffed from the Sistine Chapel chimney April 19 and church bells
tolled minutes later to signal the selection of a new pope, gay and lesbian Catholics
braced themselves for deep disappointment.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the man who described homosexuality as “an
intrinsic moral evil,” emerged at dusk on Tuesday on to the balcony of
St. Peter’s Square, drawing cheers from the thousands gathered as the
265th pope announced his new name, Benedict XVI.
But for Kara Speltz, a gay Catholic from California, the speedy decision symbolized
the church’s intent to abide by the staunch conservatism of Pope John
Paul II.
“If a decision was made that fast, I knew the Holy Spirit was not working
here,” Speltz said. “But in my worst nightmares, I did not think
Ratzinger would be the next pope.”
Speltz, co-chair of the Catholic division of Soulforce, a non-profit organization
seeking equality for gays in all religions, said she and her team members were
stunned by Ratzinger’s selection.
“Personally, I don’t know if I can stay in the church with a Nazi
in the papacy,” she added, noting Ratzinger’s brief stint as a Hitler
Youth during World War II in his home country of Germany. Ratzinger has said
that membership was mandatory.
Dubbed “God’s rottweiler” and “the enforcer,”
Ratzinger, who turned 78 just days before his selection, served more than 20
years under Pope John Paul II as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith, the office once known as the Holy Inquisition.
His hardline approach to dissidents earned him a tough reputation for enforcing
the doctrine of the church, and he has continuously spoken out against homosexuality
as well as other progressive issues, including ordaining women into the priesthood,
birth control and the acceptance of married priests.
Ratzinger authored the Vatican’s 1986 “Letter to the Bishops of
the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons.” Written
in English and aimed at American Catholics, the letter stated: “Although
the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more
or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the
inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.”
And in 2003, Ratzinger wrote the Vatican’s “Considerations Regarding
Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons,”
a battle plan guiding Catholic politicians to oppose gay marriage and adoptions.
“There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to
be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage
and family,” Ratzinger wrote. “Marriage is holy, while homosexual
acts go against the natural moral law.”
Mark Jordan, a gay Catholic who came out while a professor at Notre Dame, said
news of Ratzinger’s election sickened him.
“I felt kicked in the stomach. And then I probably felt kicked out the
door. Because certainly the room for people like me to present themselves as
Catholic theologians … will shrink even further,” said Jordan, now
a religion professor at Emory University in Atlanta.
Jordan, whose books include “The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology”
and “The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism,”
said the choice of Ratzinger to lead the Catholic Church at this time is an
obvious preference to reward enforcement of a strict and conservative doctrine.
“There will be no progress and perhaps much regress,” Jordan said.
“Many liberal Catholics who hoped they would roll back the legacy of Pope
John Paul II have got to be bitterly disappointed.”
That’s probably true for all Catholic dissidents, agreed Jude Dougherty,
dean emeritus of the School of Philosophy at Catholic University in Washington,
D.C., who said he was “delighted” with Ratzinger’s pick.
“I was surprised at how quickly it went, but he was obviously the choice
of the great majority [of cardinals] before they even went into the conclave,”
Dougherty said.
“We can expect nothing dramatic from this papacy,” said Dougherty,
author of the book “Western Creed, Western Identity.” “There
is no danger of the church losing its traditions or its intellect or morals.”
Dougherty, who personally knows Ratzinger and described him as a “very
warm, humble, unassuming person,” said he expects the new pope to focus
on educating church members on what it means to be Catholic.
“He is very wise and prudentially solid. He ...
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