tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post7062604769836283171..comments2024-03-29T18:17:34.956+11:00Comments on Thinking Out Aloud: BetrayalLorenzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-59826726740268078632009-09-04T05:57:59.118+10:002009-09-04T05:57:59.118+10:00Yes. well, quite so. I have reviewed a couple of b...Yes. well, quite so. I have reviewed a couple of books on the Church's history of Jew-hatred, <a href="http://lorenzo-thinkingoutaloud.blogspot.com/2009/06/constantines-sword.html" rel="nofollow"><i>Constantine's Sword</i></a> and <a href="http://lorenzo-thinkingoutaloud.blogspot.com/2009/06/popes-against-jews.html" rel="nofollow"><i>The Popes Against the Jews</i></a>.Lorenzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-23006080592272910872009-09-03T23:01:31.031+10:002009-09-03T23:01:31.031+10:00Argh. It ate my first reply!
At some point, gay ...Argh. It ate my first reply!<br /><br /><br /><i>At some point, gay folk tend to take the hateful, deceitful and hypocritical nature of the Catholic Church—and particularly the Church hierarchy—for granted.</i><br /><br />Jews, too. Jews have a long memory for this sort of thing, and the overwhelming Jewish experience of the tender mercy of the Catholic Church of Rome was of persecution, pogroms, ghettos, forced conversions, institutional indignities, and the joys of the Blood Libel.<br /><br /><br /><br /><i>It is certainly true that much of the betrayal of trust with adolescents was homosexual and that the priesthood is disproportionately homosexual. But the priesthood always has been.</i><br /><br />Beyond your other explanations, remember also the misogyny of the Church. Wasn't it Benedict (of the Rule) who was so against having anything to do with females of any kind that he decreed that all cats in the monastery would be toms, bought in eggs to avoid keeping hens, and refused to see his own sister on her deathbed, even as her dying wish. He wasn't alone in these attitude, if a little more extreme in implementation. And so you have a situation where men were, and for a gay man, the restrictions on interaction with women is somewhat less of a problem than for someone who might want interaction with a vagina at some point. I mean, if a man wants heterosexual sex, then it's easy to arrange such legitimately under the laws of God and man. But for a gay man, there was no way to legally express one's love or lust, so if it was going to be illegitemate, it may as well be in an environment of relative comfort and lots of potential partners. (Not to say that the average monk had a stunningly good time, but they were known for living well for a reason, and even under strict Benedictine Rule, it was still better than being a serf.)<br /><br /><i>The most obvious reason is a simple, even banal one: the Protestant establishment is overwhelmingly married-with-kids.</i><br /><br />As the saying goes, “you no play-a the game, you no make-a the rules.”<br /><br /><br /><i>The second reason is the centrality given to priestly authority.</i><br /><br />The Magisterium of the Holy Church is a reflection of the Authority of God. It is clear that, practically, maintaining the Authority of the Church is far more important than the rights, dignity, or even lives of however many laypeople. I imagine that Catholics will give howls of outrage at this observation, but the evidence of the practice far outweighs the rhetoric of the theory.<br /><br /><br /><i>Catholic doctrine on sex is not a structure of morality based on human purposes, but one of taboos based on form and function: one based profoundly on ignoring people’s (inconvenient) feelings and aspirations, no matter how intense and heartfelt. Not merely ignoring them, but deeming them of no warrant (or worse).</i><br /><br />I vote for <i>worse</i>. As with Benedict, there was a strong tradition of institutional misogyny in the Church, and it arguably goes back as far as John the evangelist. Women were seen as actively dangerous for holy men (and holy women were basically virgins). For an organisation which spent so much time annihilating the Cathars, the Catholic Church has a lot of disgust for the Physical World over the Spiritual. (A cynic might point out that people have personal experience of the physical world, and can make their own judgements, but for the spiritual you have to take the Church's word for it, and, conveniently, the Church is never wrong, and the spiritual world is Just Better, OK?)<br />The theory and practice of the Church has been of an organisation which despises the physical world, and has ignored all the inconvenient implications of Christ's incarnation. It is not irrelevant how nice something feels; on the contrary, it is extremely relevent: the nicer it is, the holier you are for denying youself it. And holier still if you deny those pleasures to other people as well.Catsidhehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07272218280125862151noreply@blogger.com