Tony Blair Tells the Pope: You're Wrong on Gays

Personally, I am not sure why anyone would currently want to convert to Catholicism given the moral bankruptcy of the Church hierarchy not to mention the 12th century mindset that prevails at the Vatican. I'd feel dirty if I were still a Catholic knowing all that is now known about the chilling indifference that did and still does characterizes the hierarchy's attitude towards the sexual abuse f children and youths. But if people do feel compelled to join the Catholic Church, I hope more of them will publicly challenge the Vatican's hateful approach towards gay Catholics and gay Christians in general. Former UK prime minister Tony Blair is one such convert who has directly scolded Benedict XVI for his anti-gay stance. Only when more members of the laity stop kissing the generally large, fat asses of the bishops and cardinals - and yes the Pope too - and demanding that the "natural law" formulated in the 12th century be updated will the Church really have any chance for change. I'm not optimistic that this will happen anytime soon, but Blair's public stance is a good start. Here are some highlights from the London Times:

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Tony Blair has challenged the “entrenched” attitudes of the Pope on homosexuality, and argued that it is time for him to “rethink” his views. Speaking to the gay magazine Attitude, the former Prime Minister, himself now a Roman Catholic, said that he wanted to urge religious figures everywhere to reinterpret their religious texts to see them as metaphorical, not literal, and suggested that in time this would make all religious groups accept gay people as equals.

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The Pope, who is 82, remains firmly opposed to any relaxation of the Church’s traditional stance on homosexuality, contraception or any other area of human sexuality. He has described homosexuality as a “tendency” towards an “intrinsic moral evil”.

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In the interview Mr Blair spoke of a “quiet revolution in thinking” and implied that he believed the Pope to be out of step with the public. “There are many good and great things the Catholic Church does, and there are many fantastic things this Pope stands for, but I think what is interesting is that if you went into any Catholic Church, particularly a wellattended one, on any Sunday here and did a poll of the congregation, you’d be surprised at how liberal-minded people were.” The faith of ordinary Catholics is rarely found “in those types of entrenched attitudes”, he said.

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He said: “When people quote the passages in Leviticus condemning homosexuality, I say to them — if you read the whole of the Old Testament and took everything that was there in a literal way, as being what God and religion is about, you’d have some pretty tough policies across the whole of the piece.” He continued: “What people often forget about, for example, Jesus or, indeed, the Prophet Muhammad, is that their whole raison d’être was to change the way that people thought traditionally.”

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Conventional wisdom was not necessarily wise, he said. “It can be wrong and it can be just a form of conservatism that hides behind a consensus. If you look back in time, through the suffragette movement, the fight against slavery, it’s amazing how the same arguments in favour of prejudice crop up again and again and again.”