The Vatican Buys Europe's Biggest Gay Sauna

Image from Europa Multiclub Webpage

Whether it was a (i) mistake and yet another part of the Vatican's administrative incompetence or (ii) a secret plan to offer a new "retreat" to the closeted members of the Church hierarchy, we will never know, but The Independent is reporting that the Holy See has purchased a €23 million (£21 million) - roughly US$30 million - share of a Rome apartment block that houses Europe’s biggest gay sauna.  Obviously, the news is hysterically funny in my view with the conclave to elect the next pope set to begin tomorrow.  Perhaps the cardinals will mosey on by Europa Multiclub once they are done casting their secret ballots.  Here's a portion of the club president's greeting:

EMC is a place created by males and for males only. Our aim is to let you appreciate the taste and the satisfaction of meeting other persons in a unique and special place... Here you will find: king Turkish bath, Finnish sauna, giant whirlpool, waterfall whirlpool, relaxation rooms with videos, gym with Tecnogym equipments, cinema, aesthetics - solarium - massage, parties - shows - surprises,  .  .  .  .  The "BEAR" area speaks for itself.  Bears, hunters and admirer are welcome in Europa Multiclub!

Here are highlights from The Independent article:

A day ahead of the papal conclave, faces at the scandal-struck Vatican were even redder than usual after it emerged that the Holy See had purchased a €23 million (£21 million) share of a Rome apartment block that houses Europe’s biggest gay sauna.

The senior Vatican figure sweating the most due to the unlikely proximity of the gay Europa Multiclub is probably Cardinal Ivan Dias, the head of the Congregation for Evangelisation of Peoples, who is due to participate in tomorrow’s election at the Sistine Chapel.

This 76-year-old “prince of the church” enjoys a 12-room apartment on the first-floor of the imposing palazzo, at 2 Via Carducci, just yards from the ground floor entrance to the steamy flesh pot. There are 18 other Vatican apartments in the block, many of which house priests.

The Holy See is still reeling from allegations that the previous pontiff, Benedict XVI, had quit in reaction to the presence of a gay cabal in the curia.

And with disgraced Scottish cardinal Keith O’Brien lending new weight to charges of hypocrisy against the Church’s stance on homosexuality, La Repubblica newspaper noted that the presence of “Italy’s best known gay sauna in the premises is an embarrassment”.

Cardinal Dias, who is seen as a social conservative even by the current standards of the church hierarchy, is no doubt horrified to learn of the activities taking place a floor below.

It is not known, however, if the former archbishop of Bombay has popped downstairs to give spitiual guidances to the clients of the Europa Multiclub, given his belief that gays and lesbians can be cured of their “unnatural tendencies” through the “sacrement of penance”.

The sauna’s website promotes one of its special “bear nights”, with a video in which a rotund, hairy man strips down before changing into a priest’s outfit. It says Bruno, “a hairy, overweight pastor of souls, is free to the music of his clergyman, remaining in a thong, because he wants to expose body and soul”.

There was further embarrassment for the Holy See when the press observed that thanks to generous tax breaks it received from the last Berlusconi government, the church will have avoided hefty payments to the Italian state. The properties are recognized as part of the Holy City.

 As the boyfriend likes to say, you can't write stuff this good.  Here's the "Bear" video:
 

Why Did the Pope Really Quit?

As much fun as it is to know that Pope Benedict XVI will soon be off the throne of St. Peter, it's even more fun to watch the various conspiracy theories and whispers of new, as yet unknown scandals.  Obviously, it would be deliciously sweet if there were some new bomb shell scandal.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the swirling speculation.  Here are some excerpts:

Now that the shock of Pope Benedict XVI’s surprise resignation has settled in, conspiracy theorists are having a heyday trying to figure out if there is more to the story than meets the eye. With no papal funeral to prepare for and the pope’s final appearances fairly routine, Vatican watchers and bored reporters have been fleshing out a number of theories on why the pope may have really resigned.

While the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal was obviously a huge weight on the pope’s shoulders, Vatican watchers say it was actually the VatiLeaks butler saga and allegations of impropriety at the Vatican Bank that played more important roles in his resignation. “Benedict may not have quit because of the pedophilia scandals or any other specific controversy,” says Vatican expert John Allen. “But it's hard to believe they didn’t play a role, at least as background.”

 There are also rampant rumors that the pope’s health is far worse than anyone realizes. Whispers of late-night helicopter trips to emergency rooms and hints that he is suffering some terminal illness like leukemia pushed forward by Italian gossip site Dagospia are unconfirmed, but still won’t go away.

Beyond the gossip about why the pope might have really resigned are growing conspiracies that there is a faction of cardinals who don’t think the pope should live inside Vatican City after he retires. Several unnamed cardinals have been quoted in the Italian press saying that it would have been better if he returned to Bavaria in Germany or lived out his days somewhere like Monte Cassino, a hilltop abbey south of Rome. 

But many Vatican experts in Rome have been writing that whether the former pope should stay will actually be up to the new pope. After all, he will have full charge of all the affairs inside Vatican City. Archbishop Rino Fisichella told Corriere della Sera that he thought the pope should “rethink his plans” even before that, saying that having two popes inside Vatican City can only lead to trouble. Citing a potential “cohabitation issue” Fisichella says that he believes the pope will eventually choose to move out.

Whether any of the rumors will prove true is anyone’s guess. But with little happening beyond cardinals lobbying for the pope’s old job from now until the conclave begins sometime after March 15, there is no question that the rumor mill will keep churning.

Anti-Gay Pastor Equates Gays to Child Molesters, Cannibals,and Rapists

There are times that the hideousness and undisguised animus of the self-styled "godly Christian" set is simply numbing and shocks the conscience.  Or at least the consciences of decent moral people.  And it is clear that this animus goes far beyond a mere statement of religious belief.  Indeed, the desire to encourage attacks on and crimes against LGBT citizens is almost palpable.   And like it or not, because of the refusal of what I refer to as the "good Christians" who cower in silence rather than upset the sensibilities of bigots within their denominations, the hate merchants have become the public face of Christianity.  It is no wonder that the younger generations are walking away from institutional Christianity when despicable levels of hate and bigotry seem to be the only visible attributes of the faith.  An anti-gay pastor in Colorado (pictured above left) has once again highlighted what is fast becoming the predominant public face of Christianity in America.  KOAA.com has coverage of the virulent hate being preached from pulpits in El Paso County, Colorado.  Here are highlights:

A local pastor is causing a national stir equating homosexuals to cannibals, child molesters, rapists, and murderers. Pastor David Beuhner of Christ the King Church in northern El Paso County is calling for discrimination against the gay community as state lawmakers revisit marriage equality this session.

"If we embrace homosexuality, we'll destroy society, we'll destroy families, we'll destroy everything. It's not just that God hates homosexuals, there's a reason why he hates it." That's the line causing national outrage from the LGBT community; Pastor David Beuhner took to the airwaves early this month on his radio show 'Generations' in what he says is a last-ditch effort to save our society from falling off the moral cliff.

"If you break natural laws-- you say you don't believe in gravity, you jump off a building, you're gonna die. Homosexuality has consequences and God designed those consequences," Beuhner told News 5's Jacqui Heinrich in an exclusive interview explaining his on-air remarks.

As the Colorado legislature reopens the issue of marriage equality this session, Beuhner is speaking out not just against civil unions, but calling for discrimination against gays, equating them to cannibals, rapists, and child molesters. "The word of god is quite clear. He's destroyed every culture that has embraced homosexuality. The sin is similar to that of cannibalism and child molestation in the sense that it's a sin against society," Beuhner said. "I'm calling for discrimination against adulterers, rapists, murderers, homosexuals. Yes, we must discriminate as a society."

"God's law to the civil magistrate in terms of homosexuality says you should remove the abomination from the land, so that's God's instruction to the people who work up in the capitol who make our laws. That's what they're going to be held accountable for," he said.

Can't you just feel the "love"?  And Beuhner not only proves that he's an asshole and a bigot, but he also shows himself to be an ignorant ass as well when he repeats the Christofascist canard that God has "destroyed every culture that embraced homosexuality."   As this blog has noted before, one of the factors that destroyed the western Roman Empire - most likely the culture Beuhner was referring to -  was Christianity and the Church, not the gays.  And ridiculousness of his claims become even more clear when one considers that the Classical Greek/Roman period lasted five (5) times longer than the period that the United States has existed or the fact that the Persian Empire (before the rise of Islam) lasted over 1,200 years.  And that's just the beginning of the empires that accepted homosexuality.   If one looks at China, which may soon eclipse America, the various dynasties of imperial China lasted over 3,900 years (see the image below) versus America's paltry 237 years of existence.  Not surprisingly, Beuhner's church views the Bible as follows:

We acknowledge the Bible, which includes all sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, to be the infallible and inerrant Word of God, sufficient for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Beuhner is an ignorant, bigoted ass and one wonders how his knuckles are a bloody mess dragging on the ground as they must.  Yet his kind of thinking passes for intelligent discourse in today's GOP.  If Christianity is not going to be fated to ultimately die, the "good Christians" need to directly challenge the Beuhners of the world and stop their hijacking of the faith.

Young men sipping tea and having sex. Individual panel from a hand scroll on homosexual themes, paint on silk; China, Qing Dynasty (eighteenth to nineteenth centuries); Kinsey Institute, Bloomington, Indiana, United States

Rick Santorum’s Church and Opus Dei

Having been raised Catholic, including serving as an altar boy for a decade and proceeding up the ranks to a 4th Degree Knight of Columbus, I know all about of the cult like aspects traditional Catholicism . But even among many "traditional Catholics" Opus Dei is regarded as more than a little scary. As Andrew Sullivan (who was also raised Catholic) recently noted about Opus Dei:

I was recruited by Opus Dei at Harvard. Why not? I was a very bright young Catholic, very motivated by and interested in the church. I even went on an Opus Dei retreat. . . . But it was not for me. The sex segregation was creepy; the cult of the Founder was creepier; the practices of self-mortification - the cilice, self-whipping - I found psychologically troubling.

It is within the broad spectrum of Catholic tradition; but the all-male sexual repression seemed all too close to pathology for my part, especially given what we were discovering about sex abuse from the heirarchy on down. So I resisted. There was something dark in there; and I preferred the light.

Unlike Sullivan, Santorum chose the darkness and his home church affiliation underscores his bizarre link to Opus Dei and how he is inflicting this strain of extremist Catholicism on his children. Knowing only too well the Church's obsession with all things sexual (and that all sex is deemed dirty) and the psychological and emotional that this obsession has the potential of causing - look no farther than the multitude of predator priests - I tremble at the thought of what Santorum's children are experiencing. An article in The New Republic looks at Santorum's church in Northern Virginia and its eerie ties to Opus Dei. Here are some excerpts:

Rick Santorum’s Catholic faith is an obvious centerpiece of his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, and it is rare for him to speak without referencing his religious beliefs. It is also rare, however, to hear him speak about his particular church, St. Catherine of Siena, which he and his family have belonged to for at least a decade.

St. Catherine is a modern, low-slung brick building that sits in the affluent and hilly Washington suburb of Great Falls, Virginia. It is a notably conservative congregation—its neat grounds include a “garden for the unborn,” and the schedule offers a Latin Mass each Sunday featuring Gregorian chant sung by a professional choir.

Mostly, the church is home to families with school-aged children—“big families, seven-, eight- or nine-children families,” as one parishioner told me. (None of the half-a-dozen parishioners I interviewed would agree to be quoted by name, and the parish office declined interview requests.)

Before the GOP race began, members of the church say, Santorum attended Mass with his family nearly every day. Even with his wife, Karen, now joining him on the campaign trail, several parishioners told me that the Santorums ensure that their children attend Mass almost daily by having other congregants drive them to St. Catherine.

St. Catherine also has ties to Opus Dei, an extremely conservative organization that encourages members to knit their Catholic faith with policy-making. Many members of St. Catherine belong to Opus Dei, McAfee told the Times, and Opus Dei priests still regularly hear confession at St. Catherine. For his part, McAfee was an Opus Dei cooperator—a formal title that identifies someone who does not belong to Opus Dei but assists its mission.

Santorum has said he is not a member of Opus Dei, just an admirer, but he has numerous connections to the group. In 2002, he travelled to Rome with high-profile American members for the 100th birthday of Opus Dei’s founder, Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer. (The five-day event is where Santorum first criticized John F. Kennedy’s “separation of church and state” speech, speaking to a reporter.) He has also sent two of his sons to the Heights School, a Washington, D.C. school with ties to Opus Dei.

St. Catherine is one of only about 10 sites in Virginia that offers “evenings of recollection.” These are monthly, hour-and-a-half long talks by lay people and priests belonging to Opus Dei. They are segregated by sex—St. Catherine men who attend these do so at the Reston Study Center, one town over, while women attend them at St. Catherine.

At St. Catherine, Santorum is never mentioned from the pulpit, members told me. “Not even a, ‘How about our boy,’” one stressed. But many said they planned to vote for him. . . . . And almost all of the parishioners I spoke to were familiar with the sight of Santorum attending the daily 9 a.m. Mass, young children in tow. “Their faith,” one congregant told me about the Santorums, “is totally who they are.”

During my years in the closet I too attended daily mass - for many years in fact - as I tried to "pray away the gay" and be what I was not. Those were very tortured years even though I did my best to keep my internal turmoil hidden. The effort to "change" obviously did not work, and part of me cannot help but wonder what demons Santorum is trying to flee by his daily mass attendance and extreme religiosity. It's Santorum's extremism of devotion and antiquated sexual mores that I suspect drives away many Catholics who sense something strange as well. Not to mention, of course, their displeasure with Santorum's efforts to destroy the political acceptance of Catholics pioneered by JFK. Sadly, Santorum seems only too willing to make Catholics look bizarre and subservient to Rome. In contrast, JFK clearly stated that he would not be a tool of Rome. In more ways than one Santorum is trying to drag us backward in time by 50 years or more. We certainly do NOT need him as a serious contender for the presidency.

Ireland Closes Its Vatican Embassy

In other positive Catholic Church news, Ireland has closed its embassy at the Vatican in yet another indication of the well deserved free fall the Church is experiencing in Ireland. Would that more nations would do so and eliminate the farce that Vatican City is a nation. Once the Catholic Church cannot hide behind this ridiculous myth and the associated claim of sovereign immunity, it would be far easier to hold high clerics - such as Benedict XVI - legally liable for their misdeeds and horrific malfeasance. Not surprisingly, the Vatican and the hierarchy in Ireland - including Cardinal Brady at right - have their panties in a major wad and are whining that the Irish government is ignoring the Church's deep history in that country. Of course, they leave the history that includes the work houses, the Madeline laundries and the rampant sexual abuse of children and youths. Here are highlights from The Guardian on the Church's hissy fit:

The leader of Ireland's Catholics has criticised the republic's government for closing its embassy to Vatican City.

Cardinal Sean Brady expressed his "profound disappointment" over the move, which comes after diplomatic clashes this year between the Fine Gael-Labour coalition and the Holy See over the Vatican's handling of the clerical child sex abuse scandals in Ireland.

"This decision seems to show little regard for the important role played by the Holy See in international relations and of the historic ties between the Irish people and the Holy See over many centuries," the cardinal said on Friday.

The Irish foreign minister and deputy prime minister, Eamon Gilmore, said the decision followed a review of overseas missions which gave "particular attention to the economic return from bilateral missions".

He said that while the embassy to the Holy See was one of Ireland's oldest missions, it yielded no economic return, and that Ireland's interests could be sufficiently represented by a non-resident ambassador.

The prestigious Villa Spada is the most valuable property owned by the diplomatic service. The Vatican was among the first states with which the newly independent Irish Free State established full diplomatic relations in the 1920s.

European Adventure – Day 5 – Rome

After an inauspicious beginning in Rome with the 110 Stop& Go Bus – e.g., extremely rude personnel, a bus breakdown and then stopping and not moving for 15 minutes with no explanation – we ended up having a very nice day on our own self-guided tour of parts of the city. We were dropped off by the ship in front of St. Peter’s Square and hence the photo at the end of this post of what I view as the center of a foul source of evil in the world a/k/a the Roman Catholic Church as personified by the Nazi Pope and his morally bankrupt hierarchy.

Given my love of history and classical Greece and Rome, we focused much of the day on the ruins of Imperial Rome including the Coliseum - which was known in its heyday as the Flavian Amphitheater – the Palatine and forum. The Coliseum is far larger than it often appears in photos and brought home the building genius of the ancient Romans. After that we had lunch at a restaurant called “The Glass” at the Hotel Cosmopolita where the food was great and the wait staff was almost without exception “male beauty” quality. Then we proceeded to the Trevi fountain and the Pantheon which is amazing given it’s almost 2,000 years of age.

Tomorrow we pull into Naples and we are going to Pompeii – again to satisfy the history buff in me. Friday will be a welcome day at sea where we can just be and relax followed by a day and a night in Barcelona before flying back to the USA.

There have been a number of ongoing minor irritations with the ship – Internet access being the worse - but overall we are having a wonderful time. Tonight we went to the ice show – the ship has an on board rink – which was very good even though the rink is far smaller than standard. The cast which was from around the world were talented and the male skaters very cute – a definite added bonus.

Lady Gaga Calls for Equality at EuroPride

Lady Gaga has her detractors, but few in the LGBT community can deny that she never hesitates to take up the cause of LGBT equality over and over again knowing full well that her statements will get plenty of media coverage. Now, at EuroPride she's done it again and called for equality while performing before a crowd of a million attendees. The mind set of the younger generations is shifting in our favor and I applaud Gag's willingness to use her celebrity status to get the message out to more and more of her so-called little monsters. Would that more celebrities used their star power in such a responsible manner. Here are highlights from The Advocate:
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Lady Gaga called for equality for same-sex couples around the world during a speech Saturday at EuroPride in Rome. Agence France-Presse reports that Gaga addressed a crowd estimated at one million in the ancient Circus Maximus.
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“The US pop diva criticised governments in Eastern Europe and the Middle East for condemning young people to a life of isolation and discrimination and told the EuroPride rally: ‘We're all from the same DNA. We were just born this way,’” she said. She continued, "I stand here as a woman of the world and I ask governments, with you, worldwide to facilitate our dream of equality,"
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Organizers in Rome, who hosted the rotating EuroPride this year, wanted to send a message to the Vatican and to the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. While members of the administration including Berlusconi have made antigay remarks, the Vatican lobbies to prevent LGBT rights legislation. Italy has no protections against homophobic violence and offers no kind of same-sex relationship recognition, reports AFP.

The Lucrative Business of Sainthood

For most of organized religion - regardless of the faith - the three pillars of the faith business come down to power, control and not least money. And few institutional religious focus on these three pillars more than the Roman Catholic Church, especially in terms of money and control. All power flows from Rome in a model not too different from that of the Roman Empire upon which the Church's power structure came to be modeled. And as for money, as in the days that led up to the Reformation, the Vatican is all about money and ways to generate money - including making saints as a lure for pilgrims to come to Rome where they can be separated from some of their hard earned cash. And the master of utilizing sainthood to benefit the Church's bottom line (and by ripple effect the merchants and hoteliers of the City of Rome) was John Paul II who has now been beatified himself. I'm on the record against the raising up of a man who knowingly allowed and/or sought to cover up the molestation of countless thousands of children and youths. Such is anything but saintly behavior. A piece in New York Review looks at the monetary side of John Paul II's sainthood factory if you will. Here are some highlights:
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Do Romans really feel the way [Mayor] Alemanno thinks they should about fasttracking John Paul II for sainthood? Roman merchants, at least, are keeping all their bases covered. Newsstands offer 2012 calendars with “Saint Giovanni Paolo II,” John Paul biographies, John Paul key chains, John Paul refrigerator magnets
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It was, after all, John Paul himself who discovered how lucrative the mass encouragement of sainthood can be, both for the city and for the Church. Over his two-and-a-half-decade papacy, he beatified 1,340 people and canonized 483—more than his predecessors had done in four centuries, attracting millions of Catholic pilgrims to the Vatican in the process. His Vicar for Rome, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, supervised the creation of a bus tour called “Christian Rome” modeled on the city-run Archeobus, which led from the Forum down the Appian Way; now the yellow open-top buses of Roma Cristiana are a huge business . . . .
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The way Rome’s residents actually feel about the late pope depends on their own experience. For Eastern Europeans, he symbolizes the great change in their own lives. Romanians now make up the largest foreign community in Italy, having exchanged the Soviet bloc for the European Union. Their ranks in Italy include a large population of Romas, many of whom, desperately poor, live in makeshift shanty towns underneath viaducts, amid the rushes in the flood plain of the Tiber, in the bushes of the city’s parks. . . . For these people, John Paul is a powerful symbol. Italians and native Romans, many of whom saw the late pope in person, run the gamut from faithful Catholics to rabid anticlericalists; opinions show the same range among most of the foreign communities in Rome outside the former Eastern bloc.

The Old "Gays Caused the Fall of Rome" Canard

True to form, Rep. Ronald Stephens (at left), a far right politician in Illinois - parroting the tired and false bullshit disseminated by the Christian Right - has claimed that the adoption of same sex civil unions has placed the State of Illinois and the nation as a whole on the road to collapse. The last time I looked at this issue was over a year and half ago when local loon, Pat Robertson spewed the same batshitery. Here's the statement by Stephens who obviously is out to further prove that he's an ignorant moron (Stephens was arrested on DUI earlier this year and nearly lost his pharmacist license):
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"If you look at the sociological history of societies that have failed," said Stephens (R-Greenville), "what are some of the commonalities- One of those is that open homosexuality becomes accepted."
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Never mind that the statement is utterly untrue from the prospective of all legitimate historians. Usually, the main stream media itself merely parrots the lies and untruths, but this time, Neil Steinberg, in a column in the Chicago Sun-Times has called Stephens out and, indeed, made a mockery of his bigotry and ignorance. Would that more in the MSN would do the same, but unfortunately, too many "TV journalist" are hired for their looks as opposed to whether or not they have a brain in their head or not. Here are highlights from Stienberg's column:
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Ignorance is the great engine of human misery, the fertile field where its fruit, hatred, grows in all its awful forms, from the first human, crouching on a dark savannah, screeching terrified defiance at a shape silhouetted on the horizon, to Rep. Ronald Stephens, rising to his feet in the Illinois House, blaming "open homosexuality" for the fall of Rome.
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Let us consult Edward Gibbon, whose classic The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire isn't read in high schools, at least not Downstate, apparently, the way it once was.
Gibbon puts the blame -- and this really is too delicious -- not on homosexuality, but on Christianity, which he says made the Roman population more worried about their place in heaven than about barbarians at the gate.
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None of this, of course, will matter to Stephens, or his constituents who let him run unopposed in the past two elections. For them, the glory of Rome is not a historical event studied by the great minds of Western civilization for the past 1500 years, but another talking point, and that, in invoking the fall as a cautionary tale relevant today, he is wrong in every particular won't influence him any more than the fact that he is wrong about the supposed pernicious influence of gay unions, or gays in the military, or any of the other alleged faults pinned on gays by an ever-shrinking band of zealots desperate to project their fear onto somebody.
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This inversion -- where gays are found culpable for something actually the fault of their oppressors -- is par for the course. Look at gay adoption, long opposed by the faithful on the premise that gays shouldn't be allowed around children, even their own.
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That Stephens, a pharmacist, would present the culture of Virgil, Ovid and Seneca solely as less strident gay bashers than ourselves who, thus weakened, fell to the barbarians, is sad but not extraordinary.
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For those interested in REAL HISTORY, here's a summary of some of the principal cause of Rome'sfall:
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Antagonism between the Senate and the Emperor
Political Corruption and the Praetorian Guard
Fast expansion of the Empire
Constant Wars and Heavy Military Spending
Barbarian Knowledge of Roman Military Tactics
Failing Economy
Unemployment of the Working Classes (The Plebs)
The 'Mob' and the cost of the 'Games'
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Note: No mention of homosexuality whatsoever. Indeed, if the USA should learn anything from Rome's fall, it ought to be the costs of military over extension, declining economy and the destruction of the middle class - all things that are principally caused by the GOP in this country. Perhaps Rep. Stephens needs to look in the mirror.

The Real History of Christmas

I am not one to trash the concept of Christmas insofar as it celebrates family togetherness and good cheer and generosity. I do, however, take offense with those who would rewrite the real history of the holiday and try to ignore the real and opportunistic genesis behind it. As we move into the holiday shopping season, without a doubt we will hear the Christianists whining of the need to "keep Christ in Christmas" even though the real history of the winter celebration clearly underscores that its origins were pagan. Yep, the Catholic Church - always opportunistic - deliberately co-opted the season to push its own religious activities just as the Christian resurrection story was a recycling of a theme (a topic for a future post) that had long existed before the first century A.D. Here are some tidbits from History.com:
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The middle of winter has long been a time of celebration around the world. Centuries before the arrival of the man called Jesus, early Europeans celebrated light and birth in the darkest days of winter.
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Beginning in the week leading up to the winter solstice and continuing for a full month, Saturnalia was a hedonistic time, when food and drink were plentiful and the normal Roman social order was turned upside down. For a month, slaves would become masters. Peasants were in command of the city. Business and schools were closed so that everyone could join in the fun.
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Also around the time of the winter solstice, Romans observed Juvenalia, a feast honoring the children of Rome. In addition, members of the upper classes often celebrated the birthday of Mithra, the god of the unconquerable sun, on December 25. It was believed that Mithra, an infant god, was born of a rock. For some Romans, Mithra's birthday was the most sacred day of the year.
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In the early years of Christianity, Easter was the main holiday; the birth of Jesus was not celebrated. In the fourth century, church officials decided to institute the birth of Jesus as a holiday. Unfortunately, the Bible does not mention date for his birth (a fact Puritans later pointed out in order to deny the legitimacy of the celebration). . . . Pope Julius I chose December 25. It is commonly believed that the church chose this date in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival.
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By holding Christmas at the same time as traditional winter solstice festivals, church leaders increased the chances that Christmas would be popularly embraced, but gave up the ability to dictate how it was celebrated. By the Middle Ages, Christianity had, for the most part, replaced pagan religion.
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After the American Revolution, English customs fell out of favor, including Christmas. In fact, Congress was in session on December 25, 1789, the first Christmas under America's new constitution. Christmas wasn't declared a federal holiday until June 26, 1870.
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It wasn't until the 19th century that Americans began to embrace Christmas. Americans re-invented Christmas, and changed it from a raucous carnival holiday into a family-centered day of peace and nostalgia.

Christmas Holiday Retrospective

The boyfriend and I returned from visiting my mother and my sister's family in Charlottesville Sunday afternoon. Over all, the long weekend was a good one and it kicked off with us joining family dinners of friends/clients of the boyfriend on Wednesday evening and again on Christmas Eve. We also took out the boyfriend's 80+ year old parents and one of their friends out for a Christmas Eve lunch - something that was both enjoyable and entertaining. Christmas morning, we dropped gifts at other friends' homes on our way to Charlottesville which still had nearly two feet of snow on the ground when we arrived. We had Christmas dinner at my sister's home and stayed the rest of the weekend at my mother's home.

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For the first time in my life that I recall, I did not go to church for Christmas. After dinner on Christmas Eve we simply decided to go home, spend some decompressing and to not go to church as previously planned. Candidly, I did not miss it. Even though I realize that not all Christians are anti-gay bigots, I also know all too well that in the USA the principal persecutors of LGBT citizens are self-described Christians. It makes it very difficult at times to even want to be reminded about religion or Christianity. Moreover, the present day date for Christmas was hijacked by the early Catholic Church from previous pagan celebrations. As the History Channel notes, December 25th had been the date that the birth of Mithras had been celebrated, so truth be told, no one knows the real date of Christ's birth. Here's a bit on the precursors to the celebration of Christmas:

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In Rome, where winters were not as harsh as those in the far north, Saturnalia—a holiday in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture—was celebrated. Beginning in the week leading up to the winter solstice and continuing for a full month, Saturnalia was a hedonistic time, when food and drink were plentiful and the normal Roman social order was turned upside down.

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Also around the time of the winter solstice, Romans observed Juvenalia, a feast honoring the children of Rome. In addition, members of the upper classes often celebrated the birthday of Mithra, the god of the unconquerable sun, on December 25. It was believed that Mithra, an infant god, was born of a rock. For some Romans, Mithra's birthday was the most sacred day of the year.

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In the early years of Christianity, Easter was the main holiday; the birth of Jesus was not celebrated. In the fourth century, church officials decided to institute the birth of Jesus as a holiday. . . . It is commonly believed that the church chose this date in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival. First called the Feast of the Nativity, the custom spread to Egypt by 432 and to England by the end of the sixth century. By the end of the eighth century, the celebration of Christmas had spread all the way to Scandinavia.

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It wasn't until the 19th century that Americans began to embrace Christmas. Americans re-invented Christmas, and changed it from a raucous carnival holiday into a family-centered day of peace and nostalgia.

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One positive development for me on Christmas Eve was that I received a call from my daughter who has not spoken to me since May. Whether or not it will lead to a full reconciliation, only time will tell. That same evening a friend whose son has had nothing to do with him for 18 years called him and the two are planning on getting together some time in the near future. The moral would seem to be that one never knows when children or family will come around and be accepting and/or leave past hurts in the past.

Pat Robertson Proves He's an Ignorant Ass Yet Again

Local embarrassment and Christo-fascist Pat Robertson proves once again that he's a total bigoted ass and that he apparently needs to take some history classes so that he can stop telling the popular Christianist lie that gays have destroyed previous nations. He's likely referring to the fall of Rome and interestingly enough some historians cite the rise of Christianity as one reason Rome fell - along with political instability due to a lack of a succession plan for emperors, too high of tax burden and the Roman army becoming too dependent on mercenaries. Here's his quote via Towleroad:

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"A month to celebrate gay, lesbian, transgender pride month? Somebody's proud of being transgendered? It's a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of our population. One to two percent has this particular orientation, yet they dominate the news. It's just smiply amazing. Any country that openly embraces homosexuality throughout the history of mankind has gone down into ruin. Thats history. Thats the historical record. Whatever nation embraces this so-called lifestyle, it ends up in the garbage heap of history. So, lets watch what happens."

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Here's Queerity's take on this idiotic statement:

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Listening to Pat Robertson talk about the role of gays in America sounds like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking about, well, gays in America: They're the reason we're in such despair!

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Robertson says that "any country that openly embraces homosexuality through the history of mankind has gone down into ruin. That's the historical record." Surely he must mean ancient Egypt, and the Romans and the Greeks, which all "embraced" same-sex relationships to some degree? And by that logic, any country that embraced, say, agriculture, technology, and art all went down in ruin, so PLEASE KNOCK THAT OFF, America.

Students stage new anti-Catholic protest in Rome

I must admit that I take some degree of pleasure seeing the Catholic Church continue to take a beating in Rome. Like the protests earlier in the week that caused Benedict XVI to cancel his speech at Rome's La Sapienza University, the students are raising Hell about the Church's continued attempts to meddle in civil law matters. Unlike Benedict XVI, many Italians do not want to go back to the 14th century. I hope the trend continues and that some folks will wake up in this country and start making more noise about the Christianists' meddling in civil law matters. Here are some highlights from Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL173516320080117):

ROME (Reuters) - Students at Italy's top public university protested against the Roman Catholic Church on Thursday after forcing Pope Benedict to cancel a visit. Riot police stood guard near the loud but peaceful march at Rome's La Sapienza university, which was founded by a pope more than 700 years ago and is now at the centre of a national debate about the role of religion in secular society.

Students marched in the rain with banners reading "Freedom for the University", after decrying what they view as Church meddling in Italian affairs through its public stance on issues like abortion, gay rights and euthanasia. The German Pontiff decision not to attend Thursday's ceremony followed protests by a small but vociferous group of students and faculty members. Some occupied part of the campus to demand he stay away.

Much of the controversy centered on a speech the Pope made in 1990, when the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger quoted an Austrian philosopher as saying the Church's heresy trial against Galileo in the 17th century was "rational and just". By arguing the Earth revolved around the sun, Galileo had clashed with the Bible, which read: "God fixed the earth upon its foundation, not to be moved forever."

Another quote the Pope used in 2006 upset Muslims around the world. In a speech at a university in his native Germany, he quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor as saying Islam had only brought evil to the world and that it was spread by the sword.

A Distortion of History

Spokesmen of the Christian Right, including Robert Knight who I referenced in a prior post, like to parrot as one of their anti-gay talking points that “every society that has embraced homosexuality has fallen.” Without specifically naming Classical Greece and Rome, obviously these societies are among the societies the Christianists have in mind. Of course the reality, when one actually knows history, is far different. Classical Greece fell to the superior military power of Alexander the Great of Macedon, who adopted Greek culture and whose empire went on to be the basis for Hellenistic culture that survived for centuries. In the case of Rome, the fall had nothing to do with homosexuality. Here’s a brief overview of why Rome really fell:

Fall of Western Roman Empire: Too disorganized to stop invasions; City of Rome's population dropped from 1 million to 20,000; 455 AD - Gaiseric led Vandals, sacked Rome; Germans fought each other for territory; Visigoths controlled Spain; Vandals controlled North Africa; Ostrogoths controlled Italy; Saxons controlled Britannia; Romulus Augustus - last emperor; 14 years old; deposed in 476 by German General Odoacer, signaling the fall of Western Empire

Byzantine (Eastern) Empire - flourished while Western Empire Fell: The
Eastern empire ruled from Constantinople; saw selves as heirs to Augustus' power; preserved Greek/Roman culture until 1453 fall to the Ottoman Empire

Causes of fall of the Western Empire:
**Political - no longer an honor to be emperor, military interferences in politics, civil war and unrest, division of empire, capital moved to Byzantine

**Social - lack of political interest, low confidence in empire, lack of patriotism, contrast between rich/poor
**Economic - poor harvests, trade disruption, no war plunder, less gold/silver, inflation, tax burden, widening gap between rich/poor
**Military - threat from N European tries, low defense funds, non-romans being recruited into the army, lack of patriotism; pressure from Huns, German/Hun invasion, sack of Rome, conquest by the invaders.

Thus, the Greek and Roman culture prevailed from Classical Greece, beginning in about 500 B.C. to the fall of Byzantium in 1453 A. D. Meanwhile, the USA has existed for a mere 231 years. Just another example of how lack of education and a knowledge of history are the Christianists' best allies.