Tuesday, February 02, 2010

It did occur to me...

...that if we really wanted to increase the diversity of the Catholic Church, we should be forcing them to take on a few non-gays in senior positions…

24 comments:

Sophie King said...

Aaargh - don't get me started. And please could someone tell me what "natural law" means?

Brit said...

Did you ever get that email before xmas, Sophie?

malty said...

No room for gays up in the higher echelons Brit, mostly occupied by pedophiles.
Rumour has that Bennie will shortly be advertising a new Vatican post..Tomas de Torquemada 2010.

Sophie King said...

Yes, I got the one with the picture of the lovely Christmas Pudding. And what is more I responded in a suitably festive way. But now I've just checked my 'postponed messages' folder and am mortified to see that I never actually managed to press the 'send' button.....

Brit said...

Ah yes, curse these new-fangled contraptions...

Recusant said...

Ouch! Bit harsh Brit, but with a seasoning of truth to it. Still, as John XXIII said: "Sexual sins are the least of all sins".

Sophie: You know what Natural Law means, so I am going to embarrass myself by pretending your question was real. At it's most simplistic, the innate sense of right and wrong that all who aren't totally amoral possess.

Brit said...

Yes it was perhaps a bit blunt, Recusant. To expand (and I speak as an, admittedly lapsed, Catholic): the irony of this Papal outburst is that for centuries the priesthood has done a sterling service to society by offering a respectable refuge for nice old gays.

Gareth Williams said...

Apparently, a priest isn't even allowed to be a celibate homosexual.

Surely unenforceable. One little amusing trick I've come across is to look for something priests will be buying on Amazon and check out the 'people also searched for' recommendations.

Today, if you look for a pack of 1000 communion wafers you'll be recommended a film whose synopsis is as follows:

Everett (Brendan Bradley) is in an unsatisfying relationship with Miles (Tad Coughenour); with their essentially platonic partnership held together by their young son. When his family go out of town, a shy Everett strikes up a friendship with struggling writer Chase (Matthew Montgomery). As the men's feelings for each deepen against the stunning Redwoods Country backdrop, Everett's loyalty to his family is put to the test. David Lewis' REDWOODS is a beautiful love story, told with genuine charm.

Poor chaps obviously need some sort of outlet. It's really quite touching.

Gareth Williams said...

Sophie: Natural Law is the belief that morality is reflected in nature. God designed the world in a way that made it congruent with the moral. So to be immoral, as the Church sees it, is to do something unnatural.

Brit said...

Heh, very crafty, Gaw.

Sophie King said...

Thanks Gaw and Recusant. Go tell it to those naughty Bonobos.

Anonymous said...

Ah, the bonobo, poster-animal for libertines and relativists, especially those who seem to have trouble getting any. Sophie, they are all in Hell. We natural law traditionalists look to the swan for inspiration--elegant, monogamous, doting, protective and incredibly bitchy.

Brit said...

Oh dear, Peter, better not look at this.

malty said...

Bennie may well be following the Gordon Brown school of defence, when in trouble set up some diversion, anything that takes the punters mind off reality, find a suitable doll and stick in the pins. Their is also the possibility that as his customer base has shifted somewhat to continents where attitudes to homosexuality may not be as enlightened as they are elsewhere, perhaps the cry 'no pooftahs here' is also a bit of a crowd pleaser.
Never mind the finer points of natural law, whatever happened to good old Christian tolerance, not much of that in evidence.

Don't make no neverminds, by now there may well be more lapsed than active Catholics, voting with their feet perhaps.

Anonymous said...

Brit:

See what happens when swans start hanging out with bonobos? It's the old, old story.

Sophie King said...

That Leda was anybody's for a nice firm banana.

Gareth Williams said...

Over here we have sensible safeguards against that sort of thing: I believe only the reigning monarch is allowed to be intimate with a swan. It's the Law, probably Natural as well as Common.

Anonymous said...

Gaw:

I assume the monarch is simply execising his right of droit de cygneur?

Brit said...

Oh God don't encourage him Peter. He'll coming Swanning over here to Ram some more sheep jokes down our throats.

malty said...

Come on everyone, dying to know the lakeist on the swans, as you appear to be the Fonteyn of all knowledge.

OutaSpaceMan said...

Oh, I so wanted to contribute to this post in a meaningful way...
Then I realised my carefully considered remark would invoke Godwin's Law...

BTW: A swan can break your arm y'know...

O.S.M.

p.s. the code I have to enter to upload this comment is 'undradax'. A word I rather like...

Susan said...

For one curiously shocking moment a vision of Peter Jennings clones popped into my head, but I presume you're referring to the esteemed vocation of priesthood?

malty said...

It is almost 12 months now since Bennie forgave one of his understrappers and opened the door to him, the said understrapper made this soundbite....

"Not a single Jew died in a gas chamber." The 68-year-old Cambridge graduate then proceeded to talk about technically unsuitable chimney heights and poorly sealed doors at Auschwitz. When asked about his anti-Semitism, Williamson replied: "Anti-Semitism can only be bad if it is against the truth. But if something is true, it can't be bad. I am not interested in the word anti-Semitism."

Was Henry No eight right or what.

Hey Skipper said...

p.s. the code I have to enter to upload this comment is 'undradax'. A word I rather like...

At least you get a code. I had to bin two previous comments on posts above this one because there was no visual captcha.

So I hit the link for the audio captcha.

And got Chinese in response.

=====

If The Church is so about natural law, why is It so et up about celibate priests?

It defies imagination to come up with a policy that could possibly be more effective as dissuading precisely the group The Church ostensibly desires.