Unfinished Letter to the Pope

Dear Ben,

I just wanted to wish you a happy new year, peace on earth, and all that. I know I’m a little late, but after that heart-warming spell of Christmas cheer you spouted on December 23 of last year, I really feel the need for some correspondence.

I was a little sad to read that you considered it important to highlight blurring gender roles as a danger to the existence of humankind. Not only was it a dubious slice of timing for someone calling themselves a Christian – its message was also wholly inappropriate.

Throughout history blurred gender roles have been a part of the human ecology, and while their visibility has seen its ups and downs, over the centuries and across the planet, they’ve never actually threatened to become a majority to endanger the sustaining of humanity.

Are you perhaps suggesting there is some sort of lobby underway to convince men to stop fornicating with women, and vice versa? I’ll keep an eye out for it if you like, but I don’t think that’s something humanity should be losing any sleep over. It’ll never catch on.

What worries me is that in so many places in the world your words carry power. I feel bad for the boy that will be beaten up because some ignorant angry young man finds justification for his actions in the things that you say. I take it you’re not losing any sleep over that one?

My guess is what’s keeping you up at night is that people don’t hide their peculiar deviations enough for your liking, and it’s all getting in your face a bit much. After all we now have gay cowboys in the cinema, and the most popular girls in pop music sing about kissing girls and liking it, or wonder what it would be like to be a boy. But come on Ben, you cannot have your cake and eat it. Surely someone with a penchant for Prada and residential opulence such as yourself can find at least some common ground if he’s willing to look?

You tell Catholics they should not turn their backs on the homosexual, but pity him and guide him towards a path less astray. But allow me to pity the sexually frustrated believers, may their faith carry them through their dark and lonely nights.

There are actually plenty of healthy heterosexuals in your congregation who are comfortable with homosexuals, and it is your labelling part of the human populace as a threat that is causing those fellow believers to turn their backs on the church you represent. It’s time to drop that personal obsession, and focus on the things that really matter.

Pope Benedict XVI spreading the Christmas cheer

Your own personal fears aside, wouldn’t you agree that humanity is facing more urgent matters at this point in the 21^st Century? 40 million people worldwide are infected with HIV. 25 million have already died of its effects. Any relief project for the sick, funded by your church, is still just mopping while the water’s running. Instead of warning the world for what you perceive to be a threat, you could have actually done something towards protecting God’s creation, by abolishing the Catholic Church’s ban on condoms for the prevention of STDs. Wouldn’t that be a more reasonable use of the power invested in you?

For we of blurred gender are simply individuals finding our own identity and pursuing happiness. We have no common goal beyond visibility and acceptance. There is a wonderful world out there with man, woman and all that comes between. And there are far greater threats to family life than human diversity.

Now, it seems to me that you and I have different perspectives on what sustaining humanity is all about, but do me one favour, if it pleases you. Listen to the voice from above if it gets you through the night, but don’t be deaf to the voice of reason either.

Happy New Year

“There are so many issues crying out for concern and application by the church of its resources, and here we are, I mean, with this kind of extraordinary obsession.” – Archbishop Desmond Tutu

“Churches say that the expression of love in a heterosexual monogamous relationship includes the physical, the touching, embracing, kissing, the genital act – the totality of our love makes each of us grow to become increasingly godlike and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual?” - Archbishop Desmond Tutu