11/01/2023
“I pray former Pope Benedict rests in the arms of our loving and forgiving God”. So says Father Bernard Lynch, writing for both gay newswire Pink News, and the network “We are Church Ireland”, an organisation which works to uphold the progressive and humanitarian values within the Roman Catholic church worldwide. The former Pope, who BBC Radio 4 notes became the first Pontiff in six hundred years to resign, back in 2013, caused much damage to LGBTQIA Catholics and progressive Catholics everywhere, remarked Father Lynch. He wrote also of “his irresponsible way of dealing with the sexual abuse crisis ravaging the Church and his blind refusal to consider the ordinations of women or married priests.” Father Lynch says “In his misleadingly titled letter published in October 1986 on “The Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons”, he labelled us disordered in our nature and evil in our Love. This letter, published with the blessing of John Paul II, became for young dying men the most lethal opportunistic infection of an already ignominious death sentence. This long suffering and hated minority were blamed by the Church for their disease. In despair many ‘good Catholics’ took their own lives. This was a new low in the long and troubled journey of the Catholic institutional Church. Never, to my knowledge, have a sick and dying community been blamed anywhere or anytime for their disease.”. Father Lynch goes on “To add insult to injury, those of us advocating for legal protection in jobs and housing for our dying brothers and sisters were told, that it was understandable that efforts to secure civil rights for LGBTQIA+ people would be met with violence. What this in fact did, by excusing such behaviour, was expose us to violent attacks on the streets of our towns and cities and in the courts. It also justified the rejection by many Christian families of their dying gay sons.”
