Catholic Support for Queer Equality: No Surprise!

At Religion Dispatches, Paul Gorrell says nobody should be surprised that Catholics collectively favour LGBT equality. He writes about the recent study by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), which shows that Catholics do so in greater numbers than the population at large, and are increasing that support, and observes that

..on every LGBT rights question, including DADT and job discrimination, a high percentage of the Catholic population supports the move toward full participation of LGBT individuals and the necessary legal protections to create the environment for that participation.

Perhaps most surprising, 70% of Catholics surveyed believe that the words of their priests in sermons can contribute to the suicides of LGBT teenagers. In other words, Catholics understand that orthodoxy from the pulpit has consequences and they’re concerned with both the means and the ends when it comes to LGBT rights.

The Catholic support for equality is more in keeping with Catholic tradition and orthodoxy than the prejudice that so scandalously contributes to youth suicides. Gorrell lists 5 reasons why this support should not come as a surprise:

1. Catholics have an underlying commitment to social justice built upon a prominent liberal notion that we are meant to serve each other and pay attention to those who suffer most within our society.
2. Catholics love ritual.
3. Catholics believe in both individuality and community.
4. Catholics are highly skeptical of the sexual teaching of their Church.
5. The pedophilia crisis undermines any teaching which denies LGBT rights.

Read the full post at Religion Dispatches  

Pope Benedict, on "Homosexuals".

When I wrote earlier about Benedict and gay priests, I was responding to some commentary by Andrew Brown, without access to the complete book from which he was quoting. Now that I have my own copy, I have found that my post inappropriately combined two independent responses by the pope to two different questions by his interviewer: one question on homosexuality, and one on gay priests.
I now revisit my original post to disentangle them into the two separate issues that they are, and expand on my original thoughts.
(The complete question and answer I reproduce at the end of this post. Later, I will revisit the section specifically on gay priests).

On homosexuality, Seewald's question referred to the Catechism statement on "compassion, respect and sensitivity", and its counterpart on "grave depravity" and "intrinsically disordered". Seewald asked if these statements were contradictory.

I responded yesterday to Brown's extracts from the pope's response, noting in particular his complete misrepresentation of evolution as ordered to heterosexuality, and his entirely mistaken belief that "deep-seated homosexual inclinations" are a trial. I will say no more on these. Instead, I want to pick up on some other themes, identified in the French Jonathan & David press release:

Proclaiming himself the interpreter of God, he claims that homosexuality "is opposed to the essence of what God originally intended," without knowing whether it is innate or acquired (p. 200). If by any chance, homosexuality was innate, how could God create some of his creatures in a condition so contrary to his will?

Indeed. It's time for Benedict and his advisors to leave their theological ivory towers and enter the real world of human experience.