Many people throughout the world mourned the death of Pope Francis and looked expectantly upon the election of a new leader for the Catholic Church. Their gaze was captured by probably the most famous chimney in the world as they looked for the white smoke symbolizing that the Conclave of voting Cardinals’ work had been completed.
While the world seemed on edge throughout the process, I just can’t get excited about any new Pope, or any of the past ones, for that matter. In fact, I can’t get behind any fundamentalist religious denomination, Abrahamic or otherwise, that rests on a foundation of patriarchal supremacy. It will take so many reforms for these denominations to enter the present century that I can’t wait until that happens to become thrilled.
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Pope Leo says marriage is between a man and a woman
The reaffirmation of core Catholic teaching came ahead of the pope’s formal installation on Sunday.
It seems like they advance about 50 years forward every three centuries. At this rate, they’ll never enter the current times. They’re all organized on a radical patriarchal hierarchy; they deny bodily autonomy; promote sexist, heterosexist, and cis-sexist marginalization and oppression; while the hierarchy sits comfortably within its golden towers, as they often fail to follow through on their professed doctrines of love, support, and equity for the most vulnerable.
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The Vatican’s art treasures are worth more than the economies of probably 20 of the poorest nations combined.
I don’t need an angry and vengeful god to keep me in line and to do good. I have learned the values I need from my relationships with humanists around me. And besides, some of the so-called “Ten Commandments” are simply common sense:
- #5. Honor your father and mother (and I would add, when they deserve it)
- #6. Do not murder. (Duh.)
- #8. Do not steal. (Yeah.)
- #9. Do not lie. (I try not to.)
- #10. Do not covet. (I get this.)
Others appear to have been written by someone who imagined a narcissistic and self-absorbed divinity:
- #1. You shall have no other gods before me. (Forget that.)
- #2. You shall have no graven images. (What’s the big whoop?)
- #3. Do not take the name of the Lord in vain. (I often do and will continue to.)
- #4. You shall celebrate the Sabbath. (Says who and why?)
- #7. You shall not engage in adultery. (Hey, some people often engage in “open” relationships, so it is none of your concern.)
More ultimate questions need to be raised as the world spins around, as individuals and nations since recorded history have attempted to explain the mysteries of life; as spiritual and religious consciousness first developed and carried down through the ages; as people have come to believe their way stood as the right way, the only way, with all others as simple pretenders, which could never achieve the truth, the certainty, the correct and right connection with the deity or deities; and as individuals and entire nations raped, pillaged, enslaved, and exterminated any “others” believing differently.
Someone once told me that, throughout the ages, more people have been killed in “religious wars” than all the people ever to have died from all diseases combined. Though this is probably a stretch at best, it does make a point.
Some people have defined “faith” as belief in things that are true though they cannot be proven empirically. This is a great pitch, especially for those who want to sell you a bridge.
In reality, all religious doctrine stems from uncertainty and conjecture: from multiple gods, hybrid gods and humans, to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, to the burning bush, to the covenant and the parting of the Red Sea, to the immaculate conception and resurrection, to Muhammad’s rising to heaven from the rock, to the golden tablets, all beginning with the human creation of god(s).
What progressive policies will we see from Leo XIV on contentious LGBTQ+ debates and seemingly settled policy initiatives?
Religious scholars and political pundits are asking if (and how far) the new Pope Leo XIV will advance the Church, and whether the Church’s conservative hierarchy and ruling policy bodies will attempt to thwart any forward movement, just as they stepped in the way of former Pope Francis’ progressive initiatives.
1. Will Pope Leo XIV publicly advocate that the Church bless and conduct marriages for same-sex couples within Catholic churches performed by officially ordained Catholic priests? In this regard, will he propose fully inclusive membership and participation of LGBTQIA+ people, sexuality, and gender identities in the Church.
Doing so would necessitate rewriting sections of the Catholic Catechism related to these groups — for example, the following:
Catholic Catechism 2357: “…Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of love [i.e., children]. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.”
Well, it seems that the judge has already ruled in this case of officially sanctioned marriages. Even prior to his formal installation as the new Pope, Leo XIV reaffirmed Catholic doctrine opposing marriage for same-sex couples in his prepared remarks to the Vatican diplomatic corps. He asserted that the family is founded on the “stable union between a man and a woman.”
I wonder if Pope Leo realizes that often this union, or any union between people of different or same-sex partners, is not always stable. I would ask him what makes a “union between a man and a woman” any more or less stable than other unions?
2. Will Leo XIV support women’s and transgender people’s rights to bodily autonomy, including reproductive freedoms of choice (including abortion, IVF, surrogacy) and gender-affirming healthcare?
On the issue of abortion (for people who have uteri), Leo XIV was clear in his declaration to the Vatican diplomatic corps that both the unborn and elderly enjoy “dignity” as God’s creatures.
3. Will Leo XIV push for the full inclusion of women and LGBTQIA+ people into the Church hierarchy, serving as priests and in policy-making and -enforcing bodies?
4. Will Leo XIV advocate for the marriage and sexual expression of priests and nuns?
5. Will Leo XIV propose the liquidation of the Catholic Church’s vast and exorbitant art collection and establish a philanthropic foundation to assist in reducing worldwide poverty, homelessness, and hunger?
6. Will Leo XIV commit to immediately and publicly reporting members of his Church hierarchy (including priests) who have been credibly charged with harassing, molesting, or sexually attacking minors and adults?
7. Will Leo XIV continue the practice of Francis, John Paul II, and Pope Paul XXIII of reaching out and repairing relations between the Catholic Church and other religious denominations, Christians, and others?
An honest reckoning could help modernize the Catholic Church
It strikes me, as I pen these questions, that the very act of formulating them presupposes that the Church has been locked in a deep and dark cavern of another time, centuries behind where we are today.
The very fact of having to ask whether women, LGBTQIA+, and nonbinary people will ever be accorded all the support, rights, and privileges to control over their bodies, their sexualities, and their gender identities as welcomed full members in the Catholic Church … it gives me pause.
Any religious denomination that represents people who engage in same-sex sexuality as “intrinsically disordered,” any religious denomination that refuses to admit women and LGBTQIA+ people to seminaries and ultimately into the denomination’s upper echelon — while talking a good line on the divine humanity of each human being and our collective obligation to provide a hand to those in need, while the Church sits on a literal fortune in art treasures as desperate beggars hold handout cups and hats for meager donations of visitors passing by the Vatican — this all brings me to the point that possibly this is truly the time for the Church to change and let go of its outdated dogma.
We will not accept the Catholic Church’s framing themselves as the victims of “religious bigotry” when we challenge their Medieval, hateful, fear-inspiring, cruel, and yes, oppressive interpretations of our lives.
We must teach the hard histories of all religions, and in this case, of the Catholic Church: from placing blame for the death of Jesus onto the Jews, rather than onto the Roman leaders and soldiers who actually decided his fate.
We must teach about the horrific murderous rampage of the Christian crusaders, to the catastrophic genocides inspired and perpetuated under the Inquisitions in such countries as Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, and Italy, and in the Spanish colonial territories within the Americas.
We must teach about the Medieval papal bulls (pronouncements) comprising the Catholic Church’s “Doctrine of Discovery,” granting Catholic explorers and colonizers the rights to occupy, take over, and claim sovereignty over Indigenous populations on lands not previously claimed by Catholics.
The Catholic Church can pray, but don’t prey on us
No matter what the Catholic Church and any other religious denomination decides to do, I won’t let a patriarchal religious or social power structure tell me whom I may love, what I may do with my body, what precepts I must follow, which written “truths” (a.k.a. textual mythology) to embrace.
I believe the prime influence keeping certain forms of oppression locked firmly in place and enacted throughout our society — on the personal/interpersonal, institutional, and societal levels — are the destructive doctrines and judgments radiating from primarily orthodox and fundamentalist religious communities.
When religious leaders preach their damaging interpretations of their sacred texts on issues of women’s and trans people’s bodily autonomy, same-sex relationships or identities and gender identities, for example — within and outside their respective houses of worship — they must be held accountable and responsible for aiding and abetting those who target and harass, bully, physically assault, and murder people perceived as contradicting their precepts!
In addition, they must be held accountable as accomplices in the suicides of those who are the targets of these abusive actions!
A central tenet of liberation is that people have the freedom to self-define and maintain their subjectivity and agency throughout their lives. With our loving allies within progressive religious communities (as well as those unaffiliated with religious denominations), we are taking back the discourse and demanding that religious institutions curb their offensive dogma and take their interpretations of scripture off our bodies.
Furthermore, we will not accept the Catholic Church’s framing themselves as the victims of “religious bigotry” when we challenge their Medieval, hateful, fear-inspiring, cruel, and yes, oppressive interpretations of our lives, interpretations meant to perpetuate their domination and control.
Their time for bullying has come to an end! We are no longer intimidated. We are standing up, joining together as allies, as upstanders, to put an end to their hatred and violence, to their hijacking of scripture to serve their need for control, and to (once and for all) end the deaths that have taken so many beautiful and gentle spirits.
In the final analysis, our challenge remains in no way as “religious intolerance” or “religious bigotry,” but rather, it amounts to our standing up to correct a devastating social injustice. It is not “religious prejudice” to challenge offensive, demeaning, degrading, marginalizing, persecution-resulting, violence-provoking, suicide-inducing characterizations.
I refuse to debate my existence on religious grounds ever again with anyone, since there is no “debate,” for to quote René Descartes, “I think, therefore I am” — period. The end.
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