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News & ArtsFriday, November 4, 2011
Homo Catholic Newspaper Concedes That Maybe Gays Aren't Controlled By the Devil, After All
Posted by Cienna Madrid on Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 1:19 PM
After receiving numerous complaints from gay rights groups, a Catholic newspaper called The Boston Pilot has retracted a column (written by a guy who advises Catholic Bishops on how to compassionately hate gays) that argued that science had maybe-kinda-sorta proven that GAYS ARE CONTROLLED BY THE DEVIL (.pdf courtesy of rob!).
Chalk that up as progress! Via Reuters:
The weekly paper, the Boston Pilot, which is run by the Archdiocese of Boston, on Wednesday removed from its website the October 28 article titled "Some fundamental questions on same-sex attraction."
...The essay in the 184-year-old paper had concluded that "scientific evidence of how same-sex attraction most likely may be created provides a credible basis for a spiritual explanation that indicts the devil."
The author's "apology" for the article is limp-dicked bullshit, but what's really interesting is that the newspaper apologized for "having failed to recognize the theological error in the column before publication."
Since we can't read the pulled article (although commenter Kim in Seattle helpfully points us to its highlight reel), and since the paper fails to explain its "theological error," it's only fair that we engage in some good old fashioned rampant speculation here on slog!
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And I thought some of you went to catholic schools as children!
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If he was so much the stud, wouldn't he be conjuring up hotties and what not?
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You can't take people to task for rationally interpreting their stated beliefs while ignoring those beliefs as the root cause. Catholic dogma states that (and correct me if I'm wrong about these): 1) homosexuality is wrong, unnatural, and opposed to God's plan; 2) Satan exists and is the source of evil, and; 3) Supernatural forces have direct, literal agency in the world (the Vatican has an exorcist, right?).
So you take those givens - which you are supposed to do, if you're a Catholic - and this actually makes perfect sense.
The problem here is Catholicism, not any specific "offensive article." The guy's conclusions were only wrong because his premises - which we enshrine as his sovereign right to hold in American, mind you - were medieval bullshit.
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E-mailing it to you now, Cienna.
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Sorry it isn't complete. He also wrote about identical twins and went off on 'genetics', expecting that because identical twins share the same genes that they would automatically share the same sexual orientation. Maybe he intended to say 'biological'?
As to what they are remorseful about, besides chance of lost revenue, maybe the RC is like the church I once attended when I was young where anything topping God was grounds for major knicker twists.
Someone told me his heresy is called Manichaeism.
Manichaeism, Manicheism, Manicheanism
1. the doctrines and practices of the dualistic religious system of Manes, a blending of Gnostic Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and other elements, especially doctrines of a cosmic conflict between forces of light and darkness, the darkness and evilness of matter, and the necessity for a sexual, vegetarian asceticism.
2. any similar dualistic system, considered heretical by orthodox Christian standards. Cf. Gnosticism. — Manichean, n., adj. — Manicheistic, adj.
He should be grateful that he was only fired, and that they no longer tie heretics to a stake and burn them alive with faggots.
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I fill my hard drive with things like that (things of beauty too, for balance) in an effort to understand the world—and sometimes the thought crosses my mind, as it did here, that this is something someone may try to pretend never existed.
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I guess I'll be waiting a wee bit longer to read about an enlightened Catholic church.
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