Pope likens saving gays to saving the rainforest

Joe Xuereb (London UK)

Jan 9th 2009, 11:35

cont./ In any case, getting to grips with the here and now means that one, as a sentient being, can attain transcendence. Getting to grips with reality, brushing away millenial cobwebs that obscure all vision and suddenly, transcendence. Exactly. Homosexuality becomes a non-issue. Because that is what it is, a non-issue. And society, whether individually or collectively, if genuinely confident in itself, will not feel threatened by others' differentness (ie. why would anyone happy in their solid marriage not want others divorcing. It does not make sense Of course one could write volumes on these serious, complex, multi-layered matters. But time and space is limited here.,

Joe Xuereb (London UK)

Jan 9th 2009, 11:21

In view of what I said about 'a man's congress with woman' does not usually end up with the introduction of a new human being, And in view of the planet's 'people' saturation, it is obvious people are voting with their feet and using condoms etc. Tellingly, and in spite of the situation, the Church persists in condemning condom use. Out of touch or out of touch?! I think that Jesus (he who lectured the sages in the temple at twelve years old) would have had no difficulty understanding my logic. And would be outraged how the spirit of his teachings have been distorted and hijacked. He would be appalled.
In view of all this - what a panorama this morning!! - how is homosexuality an issue? Could it not be that Nature, maybe concerned with balance after all, created homosexuality in order to defuse an over-population problem, a kind of safety-valve? Men still need comforting when the wife is busy making babies. So why shouldn't men see other men in a different light and reach out, not necessarily sexually. Maybe unlikely but at least as plausible as any Holy Book spouting. cont./

Joe X uereb (London UK)

Jan 8th 2009, 09:27

Reproduction is necessary to fill anything to a required fullness, be it a jug of water, a squirrel's store of nuts, the planet. When the store, of anything, becomes depleted, it is replenished to make it function again. Just because the mechanism that creates/replenishes is still available, it makes to sense to keep using it simply because it is there, available. There is such a thing as saturation. Continuing to continue stoking an adequately stoked wood-burning oven simply because there is a new delivery of chopped up tree trunks is just wasting fuel. The planet, after thousands and millions of years is more than amply stocked with people. Of course it can take more. Given all this, it is surely not difficult to grasp that whether a person makes children or not is hardly an issue. It should not be. My concern is more about people siring children that they can not adequately care for. The only positive in all this that the majority of man with woman congress situation does NOT result in the siring of a new person. Thank goodness for small mercies.

Angele Fenech

Dec 28th 2008, 12:31

To Igalea.... not that there's an issue with populating the world... but the answer to your question is YES they can... look around you and smell the coffee. All you need to populate the world are the biological elements of a male and a female.... and all you need to bring up a child is love love love.. regardless whether you're male or female.

Aldo Gatt

Dec 24th 2008, 13:38

Mr L Galea, can celibate priesthood do?

Daniel Bartolo

Dec 24th 2008, 13:17

@I Galea
No, they cannot. Now some questions on my part:
1. Does this make them less worthy than heterosexual relationships?
2. Do you believe that a man loving a woman loves his woman more or less than a man loving another man?
3. Do you believe that those who have sex and then have children are able to love children more or less than people who have sex and do not have children? Infertile couples included.
4. And another question: what would happen to our overcrowded world, if all human beings were to reproduce? (I believe controlling reproduction is an essential part of human civilised behaviour).
5. And the last big one: is there ANY problem with perpetuating the human race in 2008???? (We are already more than 6 billion humans on this planet, and everyday hundreds of species become extinct, while we continue to increase exponentially in number!)

lgalea

Dec 24th 2008, 09:27

All I ask is,
Can homosexual and lesbian relationships perpetuate the human race?

Joe Galea

Dec 24th 2008, 07:58

Call 911!! The Pope is delirious!!! This is the joke of the year!! I can't stop laughing in disgust to the Pope!! This is the head of the Christian/Catholic community. He should represent God and Jesus, who are supposed to be all love without looking at faces and sexual orientation. The Pope is just a NAZI racist!!
Can the Pope tell us who creates gays, lesbos, trans, etc, if we are going to be believers? So as Catholic Religion says that God (who is perfect) creates human beings, then taking the Pope's reasoning about gays, then it boils down that God is not perfect and makes mistakes.........Come on Pope...pull my other one!!!!
God loves all of us......ALL!!!!

Philip Gauci

Dec 24th 2008, 03:17

My God, The God I grew up with can only create pure and image of Himself..therefore since I am God's creation and gay, I can only be pure and image of God.
And I thought gay bashing was history in this day and age..not if it is coming from the top it wont be.

A. Muscat

Dec 23rd 2008, 23:07

‘The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are.’
The above quote reminded me of something happened with me couple of years.
Once I asked a priest friend few questions:How come and why there are many incompatible bibles? Which of these bibles represent god’s words? Why the bible of the Catholic Church is full of contradiction? Is the bible the creator’s word? Is the bible divine or human?
My priest friend chose to answer only the last question by saying: The bible is divine yet human-I asked him to elaborate, he said, where the bible goes in harmony with both historical and scientific facts...etc this is divine, and where its not its human(Can any body enlighten me what does this mean please? )

I told my priest friend, the Bible claims Earth is flat, and also has four ends and four corners…. Can this be a creator words? My priest friend looked at the clock on hanging on the wall and politely excused himself for could not staying longer with me!!!

Three or four years later, I have met with same friend but he is no longer a priest

Happy Xmas to all

Victor Galea

Dec 23rd 2008, 17:24

The pope is entitled to his opinion, as is anyone who thinks their religious belief bans homosexual behaviour. However, I am also free to see such claimed beliefs for what they are; pure bigotry. The only "religious" excuse ever given for this prejudice is a brief passage in Leviticus and the supposed "language of creation". What is that supposed to mean? We are all part of creation, our acts all speak equally in the language of creation. Or does the pope think he has some insight into biology that was missed by Darwin and all biologists since? If the inability to procreate disqualifies a couple from marriage, why doesn't that also include those who are sterile or women who are post menopausal?
There is no excuse for bigotry, and those who harbor it should be honest wit h themselves and society that they are bigots. Their religion entitles them to be bigots, but society has the responsibility to protect their victims from that bigotry. That is our moral responsibility, to protect humanity from the church. It does seem to defeat the purpose of the church.

Joe Tabone-Adami

Dec 23rd 2008, 16:36

The Pope's address (currently in Italian and German on the Vatican's website) mentions some of the activities and celebrations of the Catholic Church during 2008. Among these were the World Youth Day, whose theme was the Holy Spirit, and the Synod of Bishops dealing with the Word of God in Holy Scripture. In the context of the latter, the Pope referred to man's relationship both with the Creator and with creation itself and also explained how these two themes were inter-connected.

Coming from a theologian of the highest calibre, this address - as with so many others - deserves deep and respectful study to enable one to grasp the scope of the Church's teaching on these subjects. I would encourage one to read the address accordingly.

It is an utter pity - not to say sheer negligence - on the part of any supposedly self-respecting journalist to extract parts of the address from the proper context of the Pope's speech and create an unintelligible collage totally alien to the substance of the address itself.

Joe Xuereb (London UK)

Dec 23rd 2008, 13:53

Jean Azzopardi. Spot on. Thank you. I got all excited looking at the headlines (as if I care). Then reading the piece, any joy (or rather, incredulity) as I felt was quickly dashed. That should teach me! Have a nice Christmas.

carmen caruana

Dec 23rd 2008, 13:07

He compared behaviour beyond traditional heterosexual relations as "a destruction of God's work" ===========> i would like to tell your dear pope that god create me as a gay and not as a heterosexual and I never choose to be gay. And if there's a found in our society certainly it's not gays, lesbians etc.... there are people dying with hunger and a war in Iraq, that's what i call wounds in our society.
I don't think that the pope have the right to give bad impression about different people just because he's the pope. I never go around saying bad things about heterosexual people just because i'm gay, and i never go around saying bad things about black people just because i'm white !!!!!
Get a life!!!

Sandro Mangion

Dec 23rd 2008, 12:58

I wonder what it is in gay "behaviour" that the monarch at the helm of the Vatican City-State finds so irritating as to go on making declarations that could only lead to further emargination, harassment and violence against LGBT people.

Being emotionally and sexually attracted to another person - be it of the opposite sex or of the same sex - is an inherent part of who a person is. It's on the same level as being a man or a woman, short or tall, blue-eyed or brown-eyed, and right-handed or left-handed.

It seems that the Church of Rome is always in need of some scapegoat in order to consolidate its earthly power. If it's not persecuting Galileo for "contradicting the Scriptures" by declaring that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice-versa, it's burning the witches at the stake. If it's not burning the witches, it's massacring those damned Muslims in the Holy Land or cursing those "Christ-killer" Jews. Or slaying the Protestant Huguenots, or torturing the heretics. Or demonising left-handed people, tying their hands to their back to force them to become right-handed. Or blaming it all on gays.

Jean Azzopardi

Dec 23rd 2008, 10:52

I do not intend to comment on this piece of news itself, but why the heck is ToM using such a misleading headline??

It should be : Pope likens saving humanity from gays to saving the rainforest.. The headline used now is contradictory.