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The Pope is not Gay: book review

By Ralph Seccombe - posted Tuesday, 28 September 2010


The Pope is Not Gay! is an entertaining and informative book on the attitude of the Catholic church towards homosexuals.

As the title indicates, the central thesis of the book is that the pope has gay tendencies. There is sufficient evidence, including very fetching colour photographs, to make me wonder.

Even if you dismiss the thesis or regard it as unimportant, there is plenty of substance in the book to make it a worthwhile read.

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There is significant information about the life of the pope and of his private secretary and particular friend, Georg Gänswein, including a sketch of Ratzinger's Nazi past. It would be absurd to suggest that his experience made him a lifelong Nazi - but the book does not say that. On the other hand, it is reasonable to relate the experience of growing up in a repressive state to an enduring repressive attitude to homosexuality and indeed sex in general.

For me the most valuable part of the book is the detail it provides on the church's attitude to participation in political debate and to homosexuality, with extensive quotes from doctrine and the full text of key documents including the "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons" issued in 1986 by Ratzinger as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, aka the Inquisition, and "Some Considerations concerning the Response to Legislative Proposals on the Non-Discrimination of Homosexual Persons" of 1992.

On this and other issues, the church, especially in the person of Josef Ratzinger, has worked to roll back the progress made by the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).

Its starting point is that it is the only church: by definition, this gives it a unique platform. (During the papacy of John Paul II, Ratzinger refused to attend a prayer meeting with other - what do you call them? - churches.) Secondly, it makes an unqualified bid for power, claiming "responsibility" to prescribe conduct for non-Catholics. Its position is determined not only by God but also by "non-negotiable ethical principles" or "natural law." This is claimed to be independent of religious doctrine and hence applicable to all, not just the faithful.

On the other hand, the church makes a bow to the secular state by acknowledging that the recognition of civil and political rights, as well as the allocation of public services, may not be made dependent upon citizens' religious convictions or activities. If that were fully applied, it would have big implications for state subsidies for Catholic schools.

The church explicitly acknowledges the humanity of homosexuals and allows that it is not a sin to have homosexual tendencies. Tolerance stops there. Homosexuality is an "objective disorder." Turning a blind eye to science, the church also finds it "largely unexplained." Homosexual acts are "deviant" and under no circumstances to be tolerated. The church suggests that they are not even human. At least, it states that sexual relations are human under certain conditions within marriage, which leaves the fascinating implication that they are otherwise not human.

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There is no doubt about the importance of making a homosexual union equivalent to marriage (which of course must be between a man and a woman): "with this move we are abandoning the whole of the moral history of humanity." No beating about the bush there.

"As in every moral disorder, homosexual activity prevents one's own fulfilment and happiness by acting contrary to the creative wisdom of God. The Church, in rejecting erroneous opinions regarding homosexuality, does not limit but rather defends personal freedom and dignity realistically and authentically understood."

The above paragraph seems to be saying that a prohibition is liberating. There are many instances of such turgid sophistry, some of which I found quite funny, once I had worked out the drift.

For many years the American Psychiatric Association included homosexuality in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Without going quite that far, one turbid paragraph in the "Considerations" document starts with the rights of homosexual persons and finishes with contagious or mentally ill persons, via logic which was too dark for me. The document seems to be throwing mud and expecting some of it to stick.

Discrimination against homosexuals, for example in employment and housing, is justified on grounds of protecting children and the family.

Rape of children is acknowledged in the 1992 catechism to be a particularly evil act. Apart from such references, the church documents included in the book are curiously silent on the subject of child abuse by clergy and indeed on homosexuality among the ordained.

The church dances around gay-bashing. On the one hand, it condemns such "irrational and violent" behaviour. On the other, it finds it "understandable" that people respond violently to demands for gay rights. So the church seems to pat gay-bashers on the shoulder, saying "we understand."

Instructions are directed to politicians in particular: "when legislation in favour of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed …, the Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition…." In a "Doctrinal Note on … the Participation of Catholics in Political Life," Sir Thomas More is held up as the patron saint of politicians. The note does not recall that, as chancellor under Henry VIII, he approved the execution by burning of people whom he found guilty of owning a copy of the Bible in English.

Another important issue is Ratzinger's attitude to Islam, the subject of a lecture at the University of Regensburg, where he quoted a Byzantine emperor on the "evil and inhuman" things spread by Muhammad. In the ensuing storm, the pope could truthfully say that he was giving the views of another person, not his own. Well and good, but Ratzinger merely described the emperor's manner as "brusque" and "heavy-handed," i.e. he was far from dissociating himself from the essential content. According to The Pope is Not Gay! the speech was not a gaffe but a considered declaration of papal thinking. This is more than plausible.

I found that I was often drawn to the implications rather than the literal meaning of the church texts. I don't think this is because I was in a paranoid state when reading them: I think they are carefully crafted to have implications - to suggest things which, when required, the church can truthfully deny are actually stated.

I recently watched again the London IQ2 debate on the thesis "That the Catholic Church is a force for good in the world," with Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry arguing the negative. The first speaker for the affirmative, His Grace Cardinal Archbishop of Abuja, John Onaiyekan, urged the need to read what the Vatican actually said, rather than what it was reported to have said. I have now done that (assuming that the transcripts in The Pope is Not Gay! are accurate). I suppose I could have read the Vatican documents on its website, but I hadn't. Now I have read a selection, and found them appalling.

The book has an Italian focus but references are explained by helpful notes, so that the discussion is perfectly accessible. Occasionally it slips into a doctrinaire left position - "the nuclear family is the offspring of a capitalism that tells us to produce, consume and die" - but this is hardly a concern (I found the nuclear family alive and well in communist Poland when I lived there). The text is marred by problems with spelling but, as it celebrates the rise of gay pride from Rome to "Sidney," this can be forgiven.

In sum, this is a very revealing and disturbing book. It would be dreadful indeed if people with influence in our country, like politicians, felt pressure to follow the Ratzinger line.

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The Pope is Not Gay! by Angelo Quattrocchi, translated by Romy Clark Giuliani, Verso, 2010 (www.versobooks.com). The author, who has worked as a journalist for Italian newspapers, is described as "anarchist and poet." The book has a charming pink cover and striking colour photographs of the subject.



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About the Author

Ralph Seccombe is a former public servant (Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the United Nations).

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