I am a man who considers faith to be of extreme value to those who appreciate it. I grew up Baptist, continue in the Christian faith, even served as a pastor of a church for a few years. While I am a protestant by definition, I have family and friends who are Catholic. I respect them for their faith in Christ, their commitment to their institution, and their adherence to the core principles of Hope, Peach, and Charity. While I have been persecuted by those who practice their beliefs of faith for being an out gay man, I accept that they do not believe as I do, but pray and have faith that one day God, through the Spirit, will provide the revelation required to free them from their thinking and reveal God Truth that brings us closer.
The iconic Catholic Church, a successful institution, has had many controversies over the years. And, while I love some of the adherents of its faith, enjoy the music it has provided to the world, I have not enjoyed the impacts on those it failed, those it warred against, those it persecuted, and those it continues to subjugate and persecute today. Even today, the Catholic Church sugjugates women and denies them leadership roles based on their interpretation of scripture and tradition, combined. They persecute and work to deny equal treatment of the LGBT Community on the same basis.
This outright discrimination, based on interpretation and defended by tradition, frustrates me and hurts those injured by the stance of the Catholic Church, its leaders, and its continued monolithic belief in its understanding of God, its patriarchal structure, and its blind spots inherent in that structure. While I enjoy the rich music that speaks of God, a picture of the Pope speeds me to thoughts of injustice. The amazing and beautiful properties it owns, the art, and its historical role in the world are things to revel in, yet, when I see a Catholic Charity, I remember the Catholic's attempt to keep birth control from women. It has served communities for a millenia, established peace in areas, reached youth, cherished the sick, and cared for the old, yet, I am reminded of Child Molestation Scandals year after year. See, while I appreciate the good, I also understand its darkness, it history of manipulation, its secrecy, its pursuit of politics for position, its traditons, and its judgments against those who threaten it.
I admire the historic relevance of the Catholic Church. I admire the service it provides to those less fortunate. I admire the nuns in their volunteer service to the poor. I cherish the discussions I have had with members of the Church, priests, and nuns in their pursuits for peace. I believe that confession is good for the soul. I simply differ in that I can go to the Throne of God directly through prayer without a priest having to intercede on my behalf. Further, I would like to see a man or woman deny me entrance to heaven, when Christ holds the keys. Symbolically, Christ gave the keys of heaven to St. Peter. But, frankly, the Holy Spirit is that key, not the Pope.
While a friend reminds me regularly that consistency if the hobgoblin of small minds, I will register anew my frustration and disappointment in the Catholic Church, its antiquated beliefs that undermine God's value of women, the value inherent in human life despite gender, and the clear opposition to God on the God's appreciation of diversity and the human condition. Perhaps, my frustration and disappointment stem from a faith more consistent, more active, more merciful, more engaged in faith, and more loving that the faith of the person Catholics trust as infallible since the First Vatican Council. The Pope has been considered, by catholic religious dogma of the Church to be infallible since the First Vatican Council of 1869–1870. The latest two Popes went so far as to toy with that concept by suggesting that since they avoid speaking infallibly, they could not be called anything less than infallible. This includes such beliefs as the Assumption of Mary while most Protestants do not acknowledge this belief. In fact, most would find it laughable. Yet, their personal statements, and the support of this ancient, secretive, and antiquated organization allows it to continue concepts modern day people consider sexist and homophobic. Their sexist and homophobic stance continues to disprove the Pope's infallibility, calling into question whether the Church could ever speak for God.
Truly, I deplore any leader who preaches separateness, incivility, or suggests that my equality, my faith, my access to God is less than their own. At times, the only things that separates me from the Pope is that I have not been celebate, though many of the cardinals clearly haven't either, and that I don't wear a dress/robe. (It used to be that I also didn't wear Pradas, but I purchased some two years ago, after the Devil wears Prada movie.) Jesus hosted tax collectors and prostitues, yet urged to see them again, not deny them the Kingdom. Would that the Pope would do the same.
This Pope is no better, nor worse, than a Jimmy Swaggart, motivating followers to submission to controlling beliefs while encouraging less than clear Biblical concepts, at the peril of those who would be imperilled by such beliefs. With such a rich history of this consequence, the Catholic Church and its adherents have been chief culprits in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, Croatia's Serbs genocide prior to the Holocaust, Pope Pius V's regicide endorsements, and homicides. It has a Church sanctioned history of persecution of scientists, inquisitions and deaths of Jews, waging holy wars against Muslims and other faith believers, and recent revelations identify protecting child predators within their ranks while allowing extensive child molestations by peers of the Pope himself. So, really, the Pope becomes slightly more than a Jimmy and a prostitute, historically. And, not in a good way.
It is truly with great sadness that I find myself in the belief that Pope Francis is unable to have any profound leadership for Christians, much less infallability, when he is unwilling to acknowledge the equality of women in speaking as leaders of faith. He is an antiquated mouthpiece unable to bring leadership when he endorses the second class station of those, speaking their God revealed truth and identifying as gay or lesbian, by refusing those in the LGBT Community from achieving their religiously focused values of marriage to another. Yet, the Pope rearely dissuaded communities from dowry programs (much of the first two millenia), gold for the gates of heaven (in Brazil for centuries), or the belief of marriage as a sacred institution, when it was for millenia a business transaction, where women and domesticated animals were exchanged, at the convenience of family and politics.
God requires our own individual faith walk, our own individual exploration of his Word, and our own personal discovery of belief. It is our responsibility to work out our own faith. Take direction from a man in white at your own risk. The Word itself suggests that many will be decieved by those who speak in God's name. While I do not suggest that the Pope in the anti-christ, certainly, as many of those stuck in traditionalism, like the pharisees and sadducees of old, it took Christ himself to address the zealous focus on money, position and function to direct an entire new way of believing and pursuing God's plan. Perhaps the Pope should share that were it not for women and their funding of St. Paul, there may not have been a Vatican in the first place. Truth creates an amazing perspective that the Cardinals and the Pope should consider and reflect on their current opposition of inclusion of the LGBT Community in their institutions of marriage.
Gay is not fashionable, trust me. While I am seemingly momentary, my hope, my faith, my exercise in mercy and love, my commitment to fairness, my concern for widows and orphans, the needs of the LGBT Community, and to God's Love will be impactful in the long run. Let the Pope admit that God does not see us by gender, as it states in the Old and New Testament. Let him lead the charge for equality for women and the LGBT Community. Let him invite us to join together rather than divide us by history.
I continue to pray for this Pope. That he will lead the Catholic Church to the inclusive ideal Christ set for his Kingdom. I pray that he confess the sins of the Priesthood, its violence toward others, especially children. I pray that they turn from their wicked ways of denying those God created from the institution of marriage.
I pray that he will work for the protection of the LGBT Community across the world rather than stand silently by as African nations create laws to kill these children created by God.
I pray that Pope Francis will begin to act more like Jesus rather than the usual Popes. You know the ones I mean, the ones under the column who rule out of fear. The ones who judge from their windows. The one who judged Christ, himself, Pontius Pilot.
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