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News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyJuly 27th, 2012
Pope Benedict the Evil holds you in contempt.
Really, that’s the only explanation. When someone take a step to insult you, exclude you, and show you just how little they value you, it must be out of contempt.
San Francisco is known world wide as a city that is not only disproportionately gay in population but also deeply supportive of gay rights. A Pope with a sense of respect for Catholics in the City would have appointed an Archbishop that had a history of compassion for gay people and who could be perceived if not as an ally, at least as being non-antagonistic.
This Pope took a different approach. He appointed the single most anti-gay Catholic in the Country, Father Salvatore Cordileone, the author of Proposition 8. Truly a bigger insult to San Francisco’s Catholics could not be imagined.
While no doubt anti-gays within the church rejoiced, they may want to note that their rejoicing is echoing louder in increasingly empty cathedrals around the world.
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Lindoro Almaviva
July 27th, 2012
With that gay face? I would not be surprised if he is not dancing in tge halls to Voge and Call me maybe
Mark F.
July 27th, 2012
It’s not just conservative churches that have empty pews. The West is becoming increasingly secular and unreligious. Only about 20% of people are regular weekly church attenders in the U.S., and this falls to less than 10% in Europe. (Polls overstate church attendence as it turns out many people lie.)
To think that the pews are going to fill up if churches liberalize does not fit with reality. Ask any Unitarian or liberal church member.
Hunter
July 27th, 2012
I don’t see it as insulting so much as blindly arrogant. I suspect that Benedict really thinks that appointing Cordileone to the bishopric of San Francisco is just what the city needs to whip it into line.
tristram
July 27th, 2012
“The Pope holds you in contempt”
It all starts when he looks in the mirror.
Chuck
July 27th, 2012
Your post ends ” I wonder if the cathedral in San Francisco”
You wonder if the cathedral in San Francisco… what exactly?
Just pointing this out so it can be fixed, unless I am just failing at using this site and there is a link to the full article somewhere I’m not seeing.
Timothy Kincaid
July 27th, 2012
I wonder what I was wondering. Whatever it was, I stopped wondering so I removed that sentence fragment
Soren456
July 27th, 2012
@Hunter: I agree.
Arrogance, and I’d add: incomprehensible stupidity. Does the Pope have even one advisor who knows real life and real people, and can steer him away from this comedy?
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot (again). I know this church is crumbling, but I had no idea that it would become suicide.
Tor
July 27th, 2012
I think you were about to say, “the cathedral in San Francisco is ready to be transformed into the transit terminal it was designed to be.”
mikeksf
July 28th, 2012
or, “the cathedral in San Francisco is ready to be transformed into the laundromat it was designed to be.”
Donny D.
July 28th, 2012
Okay, so it’s an insult.
But I actually live in this town, which isn’t all that big, and in many ways is surprisingly close-knit, so I’m wondering this: how is the new Archbishop going to get along day to day? This has always been a fairly Catholic town, with a lot of gay Catholics and a lot of straight Catholics who are sympathetic to us. And it seems to me that our recent archbishops have shown an ability to get along to a significant degree with San Francisco’s gay community.
The Catholic Archbishop is an important person to this town. He will not simply be ignored.
I think the new Archbishop is in for some grief. And how long he lasts in the post I think will depend on his ability to convince San Franciscans that though he authored the vile Proposition 8, he has some ability to get along with its TBLG citizens.
Jay
July 28th, 2012
I am glad for this appointment. It will further marginalize the RC hierarchy. Good people in the Catholic Church will pay no attention to this evil man’s pronouncements.
jpeckjr
July 28th, 2012
@Donny D. How long he lasts in the post is not a function of how well-received he is by Catholics in the archdiocese. Unlike some other churches in which a bishop is chosen by the members, in the Roman Catholic church a bishop is chosen by the Pope. Someone in the RC system has noted the RC church is not a democracy. Pissing off the parishioners is not considered a problem. If the parishioners are pissed, it’s because the parishioners are being insufficiently submissive to the archbishop.
Jim Burroway
July 28th, 2012
I disagree. How long he lasts will depend entirely on Pope Benedict XVI and his successor(s).
F Young
July 28th, 2012
@Donny D.
“The Catholic Archbishop is an important person to this town. He will not simply be ignored.”
If LGBTs and their allies get to work, to be simply ignored might become his fondest wish.
tristram
July 28th, 2012
The coverage of this appointment seems to be missing the forest for the trees. I don’t think San Fran is being singled out for special treatment. After thirty-plus years of the Wojtyla and Ratzinger, the entire hierarchy of the RCC worldwide has been turned over to the radical fundamentalists and their small-spirited, repressive, exclusionary, punitive concept of god.
New York got Dolan, who’s being posited as a future pope. Listen to him talk about contraception and gay people as ‘part of the culture of death.’ Look at the bishops in Maine and Minnesota putting the full weight and resources of the church behind ugly, mendacious attacks on gay people in their effort to stop marriage equality. Look at the purge the Vatican is waging against the American nuns. The RCC has been remade in the image of Ratzinger; Cordileone is just San Fran’s update on this reality.
Jimmy Mac
July 28th, 2012
The new pastor at Most Holy Redeemer in the Castro has been there about a month. He’s a very decent man. But, as of October 5, his will most likely be THE MOST DIFFICUT job in the entire Archdiocese of SF.
He will undoubtedly have many “dark nights of the soul” within the next 2 years as Crocodileone will most assuredly find something to use to hammer MHR as much as he can. And he has legions of orthotoxic tighty-righties who will be his eyes and ears when it comes to MHR.
TomTallis
July 28th, 2012
This new Archbishop will be installed in October. MHR in the Castro will be closed by May. Count on it.
Ben in Oakland
July 28th, 2012
If that’s true, Tom, I can only hope the parishioners finally leave the church, and let mr. H8 and anyone else they can know the reason why. Not t he’ll care.
Lucrece
July 29th, 2012
I’ve always called him Pope Maledict.
Ben in Oakland
July 29th, 2012
Mt preference has always been for Benny the Rat. I know it’s not nice, but then, I don’t think he is, either.
Donny D.
July 30th, 2012
F Young wrote,
That’s basically what I mean.
If he can’t stand to be there one more day, it won’t matter that he can’t officially be ousted by his congregants in the Archdiocese.
Donny D.
July 31st, 2012
My first post may have made it sound like I disagreed with Timothy’s article in some way. I don’t. I think he’s right in just about everthing he wrote. I would only quibble with his statement that Cordileone is the most anti-gay Catholic in the country. Cordileone is up against stiff competition with regard to Archbishop Dolan of New York or the loathsome Bill Donohue of the Catholic League. But the important thing is that Salvatore Cordileone is a particularly inflammatory presence for the LGBT community here in California. It’s hard to imagine a worse pick for any Archdiocese in this state containing a strong concentration of LGBT people.
Given that the Catholic Church is a very political organization, Timothy is correct that this is an intentional insult to LGBT people here in San Francisco and generally.
tavdy79
August 30th, 2012
It would appear that the Pope wishes to remind us that all too often evil wears a pretty face.
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