But, maybe as a positive note among negative notes: it seems that, at least, Pope Benedict XVI did not want to hold on to big power at all costs. I hope that other heads of state and prime ministers who have done much wrong will follow his example and resign.
One should hope that Ratzinger‘s successor will correct what went wrong under Benedict XVI. But I don’t have a crystal ball. So, I cannot predict the future.
“Instead of a message of peace and love, the Pope chooses Christmas time for a frontal attack on gay men and women”, says COC President Tanja Ineke. “I find that amazing and unloving. It is hurtful to LGBTQ people in general, wounds Catholic LGBTQ people in their very souls, and alienates many heterosexual Catholics from their church.”
Ineke calls the “obsession” of the Vatican with homosexuality ‘remarkable’. “While wars rage and people are dying of hunger, the Vatican chooses to condemn people who love each other. About Uganda, where the most horrible religion-based anti-gay legislation is likely to be introduced, the Vatican is silent.”
Ever since 1985 Dutch growers donate every year at Easter flowers to the Pope. But why should someone who routinely condemns homosexuality and LGBTQ people be given flowers?
In his Christmas speech the Pope said that homosexuals destroy “the essence of humankind”. Families, according to him are “threatened to the core” by opening marriage to LGBTQ couples. Previously he called gay marriages a threat to world peace.
Pope Benedict XVI is getting into the festive spirit by taking his opposition to gay relationships to new heights.
The Catholic leader made his latest homophobic attack on Friday in his annual Christmas speech to the Vatican – one of his most important speeches of the year and one in which he dedicated to opposing equal marriage. …
In January, the Pope warned that introducing equal marriage would risk the future of humanity itself.
So, Pope Ratzinger does not link Christmas to love. Rather, he links it to hatred of people who love each other enough to want to marry.
Accusing gay people of threatening world peace is a grave accusation indeed. People threatening world peace might start World War III, with the most horrible (nuclear) bloodshed ever.
While criticizing the Vatican and popes, I should also give them credit where credit is due. The present pope’s predecessor condemned the Iraq war; so did Pope Ratzinger, though less strongly so than John Paul II.
However, Pope Ratzinger granted Tony Blair a private audience. Many pious and peace-loving Roman Catholics lay people can only dream about ever getting a private audience with the pope. While Archbishop Tutu does not want to be on the same stage with war criminal Blair.
So, Pope Ratzinger does not treat Blair like he treats gay people. He did not treat anti-Semitic Holocaust denier Richard Williamson like he treats gay people. Quite the contrary. Williamson had been expelled from the Roman Catholic church. By re-admitting Williamson, the pope not only recognized Williamson as a Roman Catholic; but also as a Roman Catholic bishop in good standing.
What is the source of Pope Ratzinger’s homophobia? Not Jesus Christ’s tradition. Rather the near-universal homophobia of the mid-twentieth century, when Ratzinger was young. Homophobia which killed British anti-nazi code breaker and computer inventor Alan Turing. Homophobia climaxing in nazi Germany which murdered many people in concentration camps for being gay. As a member of the Hitler Youth, young Ratzinger may very well have been indoctrinated in homophobia.
A former Dutch bishop committed sexual abuse as a young priest. Bishop Van Luyn of Rotterdam has known of the offence since 2008, but has kept quiet about it.
According to Roman Catholic Church documents in the possession of Radio Netherlands Worldwide and Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, Jan ter Schure – Bishop of Den Bosch until 1998 – was one of seven priests who abused a boarding school pupil.
The victim, who wishes to remain anonymous, received financial compensation of €16,000 from religious order the Salesian Fathers of Don Bosco. As a boy, he suffered serious sexual abuse at the hands of seven Salesian priests at the Don Rua monastery in Ugchelen between 1948 and 1953.
One of the perpetrators was Jan ter Schure, who went on to become Bishop of Den Bosch.
In 2003, a settlement was reached in which the Salesian Fathers paid the victim financial compensation for “emotional damages”. This took place six months after the death of Jan ter Schure, who served as Bishop from 1985 to 1998.
“Dark secret”
The Don Rua monastery relocated to the town of ’s-Heerenberg at the end of the 1950s. Since February 2010, revelations of widespread sexual abuse at this location have prompted a wave of publicity about sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands.
The body “became convinced of this due not only to the manner in which the complainant recounted his story and the details he provided, but because it also became apparent that the complainant had been burdened by a dark secret, with the corresponding impact on his life thereafter.”
In its findings, Hulp en Recht also writes that “the Salesian Fathers at that time are to be blamed for the lack of adequate protection and help for a minor entrusted to the care of the order”.
In April, shortly after this conclusion was announced, the most senior representative of the Salesian Fathers in the Netherlands and Flanders, Jos Claes, apologised to the victim on behalf of his order.
Van Luyn ignored appeal
The victim turned to Hulp en Recht after appealing in vain to Bishop Van Luyn of Rotterdam. Van Luyn had been a classmate in Ugchelen and became head of the Salesian Fathers in the Netherlands during the 1970s.
In 2008, the victim wrote several letters to the bishop because, five years after the settlement, he was still anguished by the abuse he had suffered. Bishop Van Luyn did not respond to his repeated requests to publicly denounce the abuses in the order.
Six months after the victim’s first letter, a member of Bishop Van Luyn’s staff sent a reply: “The bishop has taken due notice of the matter on which you have written to him. However, he does not recognise the course of events or the facts you outline with regard to what you claim has been done to you.”
The diocese responds
In response to the present report, the Diocese of Rotterdam states that Bishop Van Luyn referred the victim to the Salesians Fathers of Don Bosco. “The content of the letters (…) relates to the order of the Salesian Fathers over which Monsignor Van Luyn had no administrative authority in 2008.”
The Diocese goes on to say that Bishop Van Luyn personally asked the order to contact the victim. “As a diocesan bishop, Monsignor Van Luyn can unfortunately play no part in matters that concern orders or congregations.”
Herman Spronck, Father Superior of the Salesians in the Netherlands has declined to comment.
A group on Facebook, Queer Kissing Flashmob, which managed to get 12,000 users to agree to go along on November 7 and display their love in public, has been shut down by Facebook, claim the organisers.
This has added more fuel to the fire, and one of the organisers, Marylène Carole, expressed her ‘disbelief’ that a couple kissing in public could be considered ‘outrageous’ in this day and age.
“It’s difficult to understand how the noble and loving act of kissing your partner can still be defined as ‘revolutionary’ in the 21st century,” she commented.
“It appears to be a form of censorship – and yet it was only started by a group of friends who have no connections to any political group or any kind of gay association.”
Those who intend to go to Barcelona on November 7 say they will make a point of kissing their other halves in the Cathedral square just as Pope Benedict XVI walks out of the door.
USA: Every time the Obama administration stands up and defends an offensive and bigoted law, it conveys a message that being gay is a weakness, a problem and a reason to be treated with less respect than everybody else: here.
USA: Newly released documents show Catholic Diocese in San Diego covered up for pedophile priests: here.
COC Netherlands also relies on scientific research that would indicate that there is no reason to believe that homosexual priests pose a greater risk of sexual abuse than heterosexual priests.
Catholic Church in England and Wales criticises Vatican over homosexuality comments: here.
Vatican Enters ‘Full-Fledged Damage Control Mode’ Over Abuse: here.
Multiple cases of sexual abuse within the ranks of the Catholic Church have been covered up and suppressed by those in the very highest offices, including the Pope himself: here.
US Senate Passes Feingold Resolution Condemning Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill and Similar Efforts Worldwide: here.
Jewish leaders and community groups criticised Pope Benedict XVI strongly yesterday after the head of the Roman Catholic Church formally removed restrictions on celebrating an old form of the Latin mass which includes prayers calling for the Jews to ‘be delivered from their darkness’ and converted to Catholicism.
In a highly controversial concession to traditionalist Catholics, Pope Benedict said that he had decided to allow parish priests to celebrate the Latin Tridentine mass if a ‘stable group of faithful’ request it – though he stressed that he was in no way undoing the reforms of the Sixties Second Vatican Council which allowed the mass to be said in vernacular languages for the first time.
The sixteenth century Tridentine mass speaks about ‘faithless Jews’. One should never talk like that; certainly not in a text, elevated by church authority to being a ‘sacred’ text.
The editorial there has as its title “Unnecessary provocation”.
In it, the NRC‘s editorial board states:
On the eve of a visit to Turkey, to go back to a historically charged time with a quotation prone to be read out of context, is an unnecessary provocation.
Veteran columnist Jan Blokker writes: “Would the Holy Father, with his unbelievable erudition, not very easily have been able to produce one hundred quotations on his pious theme [of the abuse of religion for violence], without the need to include even one mention of Muslims?”
Peter Raedts, professor in medieval history of the Roman Catholic university of Nijmegen, writes that in the relationship between faith and reason, in which the pope‘s speech favourably contrasts Christianity to Islam, the pope’s speech is historically wrong.
M.D. Koster writes: “Why put the blame solely on the supposed evil of the Other”?
