A pope’s hypocrisy
Pope Francis has issued numerous statements regarding acceptance and disapproval of the LGBTQ citizens in our world. This may be interpreted as being hypocritical.
As Archbishop in his native country of Argentina, he fought the government tooth and nail against same-sex marriage and indicated his strong views on gay the “lifestyle.”
He suggested “civil unions, but no gay marriage.”
Then, as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, he called the gay marriage proposal a political movement “the destructive attempt toward God’s plan”, and “the envy of the Devil.”
As well, he said that allowing a same-sex couple to adopt children is a form of discrimination against children. He said, “At stake are the lives of so many children who will be discriminated against in advance, depriving them of the human maturation that God wanted to be given with a father and a mother.”
Recently, on the other hand, he apparently sent a congratulatory note to a gay couple in Brazil as their adopted children were baptized in the Roman Catholic Church.
In 2014, he advocated that children should be raised by a mother and a father, commenting at a Vatican colloquium named, “The complimentarity of Man and Woman, Pope Francis insists children should be raised by heterosexual parents. He further stated that, “The family is the foundation of co-existence and remedy against social fragmentation. Children have a right to grow up in a family with a father and a mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child’s development and emotional maturity.”
Of course, this utterly ridiculous conclusion has been outrightly rejected by psychiatrists world-wide who have stated that children raised by two moms, two dads, or a single parent are equally successful.
The point is that this pope seems to go back and forth with a confused mind and speaking in riddles, clearly rejecting the idea of gay parenting.
On July 10, 2015, Pope Francis blessed a same-sex couple, one of whom wrote the book, Why do you have two moms? The author and her partner received the pope’s blessing, but as a Vatican spokesman said, “The blessing was meant for the individual only and was not in line with the church’s doctrine on gender theory, which has not changed in the slightest.” The letter was not “meant to endorse behaviours and teachings unfit to the Gospel.”
In October, 2015, Francis fires Monsignor Krystof Charasma, a mid-level Vatican official, for revealing that he is gay.
Then, on Dec. 8, 2016, Pope Francis signed a declaration that bans gay men from the priesthood and this includes those who “support gay culture.” This is a reiteration of the original document signed in 2005 by Pope Benedict XVl.
The Roman Catholic Church under Pope Francis deserves no credit in trying to reconcile itself with the LGBTQ community. Instead it’s creating a mess that signifies insincerity and a definite right wing Christian ideology that keeps on ticking in a homophobic, biphobic, transphobic and discriminatory manner. Francis will comment and sound as if he is accepting, but does not embrace equality for all, perhaps in trying to keep the pews from emptying too much. Hypocrisy is intact in the church with a pope who will not budge on equal rights as human beings.
Comments and information: lgbtconnectionsgv@gmail.com