don't forgive them; they know what they're doing
(just for starters)
Relativism be now damned! Absolutism has now triumphed! "Dictator" would be nice, but "pope" will do just fine. Besides, it amounts to the same thing, and the costumes are great. The man who would be baby Jesus's vicar on earth knows the certainty of objective truth and he's not going to be shy about reminding us.
Benedict XVI has a lot to answer for, but for starters I'll point to a trespass which has weighed heavily on queers for almost two decades, whether or not they are aware of it. Seven years ago Peter Tatchell warned the world about the sour man who was appointed pope today, Joseph Ratzinger, "arguably the most homophobic of all Vatican leaders":
In 1986, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote the infamous Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons. Ratzinger wrote that a homosexual orientation, even if the person is totally celibate, is a "tendency" toward an "intrinsic moral evil". Moreover, a homosexual inclination is both an "objective disorder" and a "moral disorder", which is "contrary to the creative wisdom of God".
. . .
Most shocking of all, [a 1992 Vatican proclamation written by Ratzinger and authorized by John Paul II states] that when lesbians and gay men demand civil rights, "neither the Church nor society should be surprised when ... irrational and violent reactions increase".
This implies that by asking for human rights, lesbians and gay men encourage homophobic prejudice and violence: we bring hatred upon ourselves, and are responsible for our own suffering. The Catholic Church, it seems, blames the victims of homophobia, not the perpetrators.
This ugly stuff is in the public record, and every cardinal had to read it, but today 115 old men* decided to appoint the man responsible for it as their cult's latest absolute monarch.
I can't imagine good people wanting to have anything to do with this crew, but millions around the world continue to enable the evil they do.
* This is a board whose members almost to a man were selected with the counsel of, and in the mold of, the cardinal whom they chose as pope today. Borrowing some of Ratzinger's own, notorious phrasing: When entrenched reaction demands conformity, "neither the Church nor society should be surprised when ... [it gets it]." I expected a conservative successor to a conservative pope, but I didn't expect the choice would be so obvious; the current college of crimson-robed cyphers has no imagination whatsoever.
[image by Kathryn Gaitens from nowtoronto]