Why is homosexual marriage and the homosexual act itself so important to this pope? Why does he seem to want to base a whole new magisterium of the Church on this one hitherto proscribed act?
At first it seems incredible that he would want to do so. Isn't the sin of Sodom one of the four sins that cry to heaven for vengeance? Doesn't the Catechism of the Catholic Church unambiguously condemn homosexuality, saying that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered," and that they are "contrary to the natural law"?
But perhaps the very fact that these acts are contra naturam is what recommends them to this pope.
How can natural law exist in an environment in which everything must change, everything must progress, everything must conform to the modernist, in this particular case the LGBTQ spirit of the times?
As he was quoted in La Civilta Cattolica in May of this year, "One must change...[E]ven the dogma of the Christian religion progresses...The danger today is indietrismo, the reaction against the modern." In August he was even more precise: "These days, homosexuality is the burning issue, and our attitude towards it is changing as historical circumstances change."
How can natural law exist in an environment in which everything must change, everything must progress, everything must conform to the modernist, in this particular case the LGBTQ spirit of the times? The homosexual act is a challenge to natural law, to the natural order of things: it isn't called contra naturam for nothing! The act itself is a protest against indietrismo, against what Francis sees as the Church's historical obsession with "sins of the flesh," a glorious protest, the pope might call it; and its inclusion into the sacrament of matrimony would represent the definitive defeat of indietrismo.
Will any part of the Order of Celebrating Matrimony be changed to make it more inclusive and to accommodate that love that formerly dared not speak its name? If so, perhaps the pope will take as a model the vows that the beat poet Allen Ginsberg and his companion Peter Orlovsky made to each other at their mock marriage in 1955, as recounted by the latter:
"We made a vow to each other that he could own me, my mind and everything I knew, and my body, and I could own him and all he knew and all his body; and that we would give each other ourselves, so that we possessed each other as property, to do everything we wanted to, sexually or intellectually, and in a sense explore each other until we reached the mystical âXâ together, emerging two merged souls."
Ginsberg's and Orlovsky's vows would seem to fit in with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' "Seven Attitudes for Walking the Synodal Path": Innovative Outlook, Inclusivity, Open-Mindedness, Listening, Accompaniment, Co-Responsibility, and Dialogue. Perhaps their mock marriage could be given posthumous sacramental recognition by Francis.
The pope could also introduce a new devotion, "The Stations of Reading Gaol," which have already been realized as part of the Oscar Wilde Temple exhibit and is theoretically ready to be installed in churches everywhere.
It is tragically emblematic of this pope's tenure and of the changes effected by the Second Vatican Council that the Roman Canon, which begins with a petition to God the Father that he be pleased to grant the Church peace, to guard, unite and govern her throughout the whole world, is rarely said today if at all, outside of traditional masses.
Wilde himself seems to have been conflicted about his homosexuality. "What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a malady, or a madness, or both," he stated in De Profundis. But after his release from prison, he wrote to Robert Ross, who as a teenager had introduced Wilde to homosexual practices, "a poet in prison for loving boys loves boys. To have altered my life would have been to have admitted that Uranian love is ignoble. I hold it to be noble--more noble than other forms." Yet on his deathbed he desired to be and was received into the Roman Catholic Church, was given the last rites and received the sacrament.
He had quoted Psalm 50 in his Ballad of Reading Gaol:
"And a broken and a contrite heart
The Lord will not despise."
Does the pope agree with Wilde that Uranian love is more noble than other forms, and is that why he seems intent on changing the Church from a Christian into a Uranian church? Conservative commentators ask for more clarity from the pope; but really he has been as clear as he can be at this stage of the ecclesial metamorphosis. They can hardly expect him to start reciting Ginsberg's "Sweet Boy..." on World Youth Day.
The homosexual compulsion--Tennessee Williams compared it to the addict's jabbing of a hypodermic needle--has a tendency to take over one's life, to become indeed a burning and ultimately irresolvable issue that drives out all other concerns and considerations before it. With his indulgence and promotion of this obsession, Francis is recklessly gambling with the unity of the Church.
It is tragically emblematic of this pope's tenure and of the changes effected by the Second Vatican Council that the Roman Canon, which begins with a petition to God the Father that he be pleased to grant the Church peace, to guard, unite and govern her throughout the whole world, is rarely said today if at all, outside of traditional masses.
Pope Francis has other things on his mind.