http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/id274.htm
No love lost for John Paul
Tommi Avicolli Mecca
Sunday, April 3, 2005
The media is holding a love feast for Pope John Paul II.
Without even a pretense at objective reporting, the stories in the
mainstream media paint a picture of this pope as "a man of the people."
Some mention his more controversial actions in passing, such as his
crushing of the Liberation Theology movement in Latin America and his
lifelong promotion of anti-gay bigotry, as if they were insignificant
moments in a sterling life of sacrifice and compassion.
John Paul II was not a man of the people. Unless you remove queers from the
definition of people. John Paul II considered queers as immoral and
"innately sinful." Under his watch, his church continued instilling young
people with homophobia and young queers with self hatred. How well I
remember that homophobia and self hatred from my 12 years in Catholic school.
John Paul II was staunchly anti-gay. In his 1986 Vatican letter to bishops,
"The Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons" the pope condemned Catholics who
would give even the hint of support to organizations that supported queer
sex. The letter also implied that homosexuality was a mental illness, and
that queers were responsible for the AIDS epidemic. That's why he later did
a photo op right here in San Francisco not with a gay man with AIDS but
with a four-year-old who contracted the disease through a blood
transfusion. In 1992, the Vatican made no bones about telling bishops they
had to oppose gay rights legislation, without any exceptions. He never
recanted those positions.
In the final months of his life, he spoke out frequently against gay
marriage and its alleged threat to the heterosexual institution of the
family. In his newly published Memory and Identity, he described queer
coupledom in language befitting a fundamentalist preacher: "It is
legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this is not perhaps part of a
new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to
pit human rights against the family and against man." Gay marriage may be
part of a desire to assimilate to heterosexual standards, but hardly an
"ideology of evil!"
John Paul II came to the papal throne 26 years ago from a tumultuous time
and an equally tumultuous place. His country was over run by the Nazis, and
later by the Russians. About the time he ascended the papal throne, the
Solidarity movement ignited a new battle against Communist domination.
Coming from that country, John Paul II should've brought a lot of
understanding about human oppression to his position as the world's most
powerful religious leader. He talked a good show about human rights, that's
for sure.
But those human rights didn't extend to everyone.
He could've done what his own church's spiritual leader had done: embraced
the outcast with compassion.
It is said that Jesus refused to judge the prostitute. According to the
church's own teachings, he preached a gospel of love and forgiveness. John
Paul II didn't. He spent his life condemning homos and other sexual
outlaws, as well as denying women the right to abortion and Catholics any
sexual -- expression outside of procreative sex.
When all is said and done, he was just another in a long line of religious
leaders in a church that is responsible for some of the history's most
well-known human rights violations, including the Children's Crusade that
saw the slaughter or sale into slavery and prostitution of thousands of
young people; the Inquisition which drove Jews and other "heretics" out of
Spain; the witch burnings, which took the lives of countless numbers of
women and homos who were used as kindling for the fires, hence the term
"faggot;" and the slaughter of so many indigenous peoples here in the new
world, an act of genocide done in the name of Holy Mother Church. Then
there was Pius XII's inaction against the Nazis.
The history of Catholicism is not a pretty tale.
John Paul II could've made a difference. He could've brought his church
into the 21st century. He could've brought some light into its long dark
history. Instead, as far as queers are concerned, it was business as usual.
Don't ask me to celebrate that shameful legacy.
Tommi Avicolli Mecca is a southern Italian ex-Roman Catholic turned atheist
who believes that the Vatican's vast collection of art and treasures could
feed and house every starving person in the world. Email Tommi Avicolli
Mecca at
meccacarta@aol.com.
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