Moral Clarity
By Erick Posted in Culture — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
We get so use to politicians dancing around issues, it is nice to see one world leader discuss difficult issues with moral clarity, whether or not we agree with him.
In one section about the role of lawmakers, the Pope [in his new book] takes another swipe at gay marriages when he refers to "pressures" on the European Parliament to allow them."It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man," he writes.
. . . .
In following paragraphs he says that legally elected parliaments in formerly totalitarian countries were today allowing what he called new forms of evil and new exterminations."There is still, however a legal extermination of human beings who have been conceived but not yet born," he writes.
"And this time we are talking about an extermination which has been allowed by nothing less than democratically elected parliaments where one normally hears appeals for the civil progress of society and all humanity," he writes.
To my knowledge, President Bush is the only other world leader of late to toss out the word evil, but he only uses it against Islamofascists. It is rare, extremely rare, for a leader on the world stage to label what is called with increasing frequency a "human right" evil. This will not go over well with many inside the church or out. Andrew Sullivan will not be amused.
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The Pope and I agree on relatively few things, religiously. However, on this, we see eye to eye. Except perhaps the Pope has aimed a little too low in comparing abortion to the holocaust. Maybe the "great awakening" is a better comparison - still too low, but a good start.
While the Pope and Catholic Church clearly oppose both and consider them both to be sins, the actual content of the article (what little there was of it) suggests that it is abortion that the Pope is referring to as evil.
Note that the sole reference to "gay marriage" was in a separate paragraph from the reference to "evil" and that the majority of the article is about the Pope's (rightful IMO) opposition to "legal extermination." At no place in the article, except for the inflammatory headline, does the Pope refer to "gay marriage" and "evil" in the same context.
I think Reuter's mischaracterized what the Pope wrote either because (a) the author was incapable of understanding the distinction or (b) this was an attempt to take a swipe at proponents of traditional marriage.
Seemed pretty clear to me... while he did mention gay marriage, what he called "evil" was "the legal extermination of human beings who have been conceived but not yet born.
But if the Reuters article is accurate, the Pope did suggest that legally-recognized gay marriage forms part of an "ideology of evil." The relevant quote is this one:
In one section about the role of lawmakers, the Pope takes another swipe at gay marriages when he refers to "pressures" on the European Parliament to allow them.
"It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man," he writes.
The mainstream press seems to be salivating over the prospect of the Pope dying. Everytime he gets a headache it seems to be the top news item. Do they simply see him as a celebrity who will draw ratings from the religious crowd or do they secretly wish he would die and the Church elect a more liberal, soft-spoken pope who wouldn't say politically-incorrect things like homosexuality is immoral and abortion is the new Holocaust. A bit of both is my guess. The NYT still hasn't forgiven John Paul II for helping Reagan and Thatcher to bring down the USSR.
Is scheduled for his next post-Catholic snit any day now. This might just move things up a wee.