In an interview with a Jesuit magazine, the Pope stated that he thinks the church needs to focus on the main message that Christianity is trying to get across, and not just on condemning gays and those who take part in abortion. He wants people to spread the love of Jesus and heal the wounds of followers and those who have drifted from Christianity. He expressed this by saying the following: "'It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars,' he said. 'You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else.'" So in this, he means, a person must be a true Christian first, and then you can talk to them about the "bad" decisions they have made so far in their life. For some reason, this sits with me the wrong way.
The Pope wants to expand the population of the Church and seems to be reaching out to the gays, and people who use contraception and abortion, but in the religion on a whole, these groups are not accepted. He makes it seem as though after they are "Christian" they can be cured. Well, there are priests - crazy priests - who molest young children. Just recently a story came out about a pastor who molested 8 boys, claiming "he was curing teenage boys of their homosexuality by praying while he was having sex with them." I think instead of worrying about the "problems" of the people outside the church, they should be worrying about how messed up some of the leaders in the church are. Cleansing the church from the inside out would be what would bring more of a population to the church, not by just telling gays that they will be accepted, and then trying to change them once they are "Christian."
sources: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24166434
http://sourcefednews.com/pastor-sex-teens-cure-homosexuality/
In searching for an contrasting article for this post, for the cultural analysis assignment, you might consider looking at very short blogged comments on this announcement written from the perspective of the LGBTQ community:
ReplyDeletehttp://queerlandia.com/2013/09/19/pope-francis-on-homosexuality/#comment-14244
You might also look at this NYT opinion article: http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/30/pope-francis-in-context/?_r=0
As a catholic, I really like the article. It's nice to hear that our new pope is not as conservative as the previous. It is 2013 and I feel like times are changing and our churches have to keep up.
ReplyDelete-Sabrina