How is Pope Benedict XVI like an AIDS victim?
December 22, 2011, 1:21 pm
Posted by David Gibson
Did the pope mean to say this? From a “Q&A” during Benedict’s recent visit to a Roman prison:
Q. What can sick and HIV-positive prisoners ask of the Pope?…We are not often mentioned, and then in aggressive terms, as if seeking to eliminate us from society. This makes us feel subhuman.
A. “We have to endure the fact that people speak about us ‘aggressively’. They also speak ‘aggressively’ about the Pope, yet nonetheless we persevere…”
Given that all such encounters are highly-scripted beforehand, it seems to be a genuine expression of how the pope thinks he is treated. And how HIV-positive people are treated.
Hmmm. A beleagured group asks a survival queston. Pope turns it into a groan about his own persecuted status. “It’s really all about me?” A narcissitc lament?
Better to read the entire series of questions and the answers. It becomes clear that the pope is not making it about himself — an aggressive misreading? — but rather the opposite: he is identifying with the prisoners. “The Lord’s self-identification with the imprisoned is an obligation upon us.”
The complete answer to the question in the post is also instructive:
A. “We have to endure the fact that people speak about us ‘aggressively’. They also speak ‘aggressively’ about the Pope, yet nonetheless we persevere. I think it is important to encourage everyone to think positively, to understand your sufferings, to understand the need to help you rise again. I will do my part, inviting everyone to think in the right way, not abusively but humanly, understanding that anyone can fall, but God wants everyone to reach Him. We must cooperate in a spirit of fraternity recognising our own fragility so that people can truly … continue their journey with dignity”.
It could be that Pope Benedict identifies with the group in several ways:
1) Many who suffer from HIV are homosexual. Maybe the pope identifies with homosexuals in ways he is now prepared to open to discussion.
2) The question includes the sick. Maybe the pope is unwell, as some are speculating, and identifies with others whose bodies are deteriorating with age, illness, etc.
3) The question is about prisoners. A pope is a prisoner in a gilded cage. From the day he is elected he is no longer free.
4) Subhuman. A pope is also regarded as something other than human. Not sub- but super-human.
There is a lovely video of the pope’s visit on the Holy See site:
http://player.rv.va/vaticanplayer.asp?language=it&tic=VA_II17QC36
It doesn’t have the neo-realist feel of John 23rd’s visit to the Regina Coeli prison in 1958 –
http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?entry_id=3565 – but it is nevertheless moving. The question about HIV prsioners comes around the 49 minute point. An inmate asks the question and sits down, and Benedict motions to the prisoner to come up to meet him. Then the pope delivers a much longer answer than quoted earlier — he tells the man first that people speak not only negatively about prisoners, but that they also speak well of them, and he recounts conversations that he has had with the sisters and others in his papal household. While the pope no doubt had seen the questions beforehand,he speaks to the prisoners easily and without notes. I found it moving, in Benedict’s low-key way.
The text of the complete Q and A (Italian only, English not yet posted) can be found here:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2011/december/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20111218_rebibbia-risposte_it.html
Here’s the Pope’s entire answer to the question:
“We have to endure the fact that people speak about us ‘aggressively’. They also speak ‘aggressively’ about the Pope, yet nonetheless we persevere. I think it is important to encourage everyone to think positively, to understand your sufferings, to understand the need to help you rise again. I will do my part, inviting everyone to think in the right way, not abusively but humanly, understanding that anyone can fall, but God wants everyone to reach Him. We must cooperate in a spirit of fraternity recognising our own fragility so that people can truly … continue their journey with dignity”.
Maybe it’s the tiniest bit kvetchy, but the main point of the answer seems to be that he’s trying to identify with prisoners with HIV in a human way. It’s easy to jump to conclusions from snippets of conversations. Somebody on a post below accused me of “parading” my “piety,” which is the best laugh I’ve had all week.
Not sure if Cardinal George might have put a foot wrong here, too:
Seems to channel a similar reflex.
Cardinal Francis George Warns That Chicago Gay Pride Parade Might ‘Morph Into Ku Klux Klan’
As I have consistently maintained, the Catholic Church, in a very real sense, does not recognize the right of gay people to exist, and in many cases, it acts like the enemy of gay people.
I should add that it is a reasonable concern to worry about a big, noisy parade passing a small church when services are being held. But that is not the point the Cardinal seemed to be making. At least he didn’t resort to hate speech the way some of the Latin American Cardinals have.
Christmas wishes:
-may we all extend outr hands to the poor, not just now but throughout the year.
-may we erase any hint of homophobia in our thoughts, words and actions
-may we understand better in the light of recen tevents the horrors of sexual abuse and violemnce not only against children but adults,especialy women, as well and may we have especial care for victims of our clergya nd their overseers who have a special trust to maintain;
may we always turn outward to others as Christ would have us do and care more about the sufferings of others than what we endure.
Jusy my Christmas prayer .
Every day and in every way, going further away becomes easier and easier and easier.
It looks like the Holy See Press Office has unfortunately created a controversy with its agressive summarizing of the Pope’s comments. Thanks to James Englert for the link to the complete transcript. Below is the full version of that particular Q&A; it’s obviously much longer than the brief extract in the VIS report. You can run it through Google Translate or whatever. Yes, HIV is mentioned, but I don’t think the question is focused on that. The answer certainly isn’t. Both really some to address how to deal with the world’s scorn against you.
If I understand correctly, the questioner seems to be saying that it is the pope and the Catholic Church that through teachings and acts makes the HIV-positive prisoners feel sub-human. The pope totally ignores this point and trys instead to paint himself (and the church?) as co-victim. Yuck :(
Crystal, your reaction is based on the report of the Vatican Information Service. As I said, the Holy See Press Office has created this controversy by abridging this Q&A far too much. Here’s my exceedingly-free paraphrase of the question based on the Google Translate translation. It’s not a rigorous translation because it’s been a very long time since I last studied Italian. What I really want to do is give an idea of the spirit of the actual question asked and show that it is very different from the abridgment in the news account (needless to say, so is the Pope’s answer).
William,
Thanks – that’a much more complete tramslation and it does give it a different meaning.
The Vatican disinformation service at work.
Mr. Logan,
Many thanks for providing the full context of the exchange between Federico and Benedetto.
I would only point out that the Pope begins by thanking him for his “truly memorable words,” then adds: “siamo caduti, ma siamo qui per rialzarci. ” “We have fallen, but we are here to rise up again.”
This is not the “royal we!”
“…the Catholic Church, in a very real sense, does not recognize the right of gay people to exist…”
Feelings such as this betray so much pain that it’s hard to know the appropriate response, except perhaps prayer and fasting.
I know that intelligent people can have some ridiculous ideas, but C. Georg’s likening of Gay pride parades and Klan parades is just sick. Having gone to school in Mississippi he should know better.
George is already a 32nd degree cleric and his chances of hitting the papal jackpot are probably slim to none. So it’s not that he’s pandering to his Boys Club electorate, so it must mean that he actually believes this nonsense. And he’s supposed to be one of the most intelligent of the US episcopacy?
It is said that all analogies limp, but even seeing the full text above I think this one lists quite precariously.
On the plus side, by drawing a comparison between the Pope and prisoners with AIDS in that both suffer those who speak aggressively against them (understood to mean, say they should be eliminated or should not exist), you could say that Pope Benedict is dignifying the plight of the prisoners by identifying with it. He probably does feel rather keenly wounded that the papal office is felt to be an anachronism or an obstacle by at least some of more vocal critics. (His recent trip to Germany could have brought that home to him, who knows.)
On the minus side however (and this is where the analogy fails miserably), the papal office brings along with it a great deal of power and prestige–not only of a religious kind but even of the worldly variety–while none of this, none at all, is enjoyed by the people who suffer AIDS and are imprisoned to boot. The Pope is the head of a huge religious community, many of whom revere him personally as well as respect his high office. He is a head of state, for that matter. He is respected by members of other religions. The Pope can influence the world for peace, and the statements he makes are taken seriously by all sorts of people. He does in fact, because of his office, influence the course of world events. The difficulty of persevering against harsh speech under circumstances such as these is really ridiculously small.
Finally, the pope presumably has the comfort of the beatitudes to fall back on, because he suffers insults for the sake of Jesus (at least in theory). Whereas these people are talking about having their dignity stripped from them, along with their freedom and their relationships, and paying the price for crimes they’ve committed. It’s just not analogous.
Even if the Pope didn’t need serious security everywhere he goes, he doesn’t have time to leave the Vatican much, so he really is a sort of prisoner of his job. And I don’t doubt he would rather be home reading and writing theology. But, granted, his incarceration, so to speak, was chosen freely, which I would imagine makes all the difference.
Still, he does seem to have a great deal of empathy with suffering people when he meets them one-on-one. But, oddly, man in the abstract doesn’t always seem to touch him.
Ann writes: “he does seem to have a great deal of empathy with suffering people when he meets them one-on-one. But, oddly, man in the abstract doesn’t always seem to touch him.”
Sort of turns Ivan Karamazov upside down. Thankfully.
Apropos what Rita said above about papal power:
“How often we wish that God would show himself stronger, that he would strike decisively, defeating evil and creating a better world. All ideologies of power justify themselves in exactly this way, they justify the destruction of whatever would stand in the way of progress and the liberation of humanity. We suffer on account of God’s patience. And yet, we need his patience. God, who became a lamb, tells us that the world is saved by the Crucified One, not by those who crucified him. The world is redeemed by the patience of God. It is destroyed by the impatience of man.”
–Pope Benedict XVI, Installation Homily, April 24, 2005
Christmas, 2011.
The Front page of our local paper notes the presentation of a special silver cross to the Abp. in the Cathedral by Rabbi Helman who attends Midnigh tMass each year.
Peace on earth.
Tha article goes on to talk about the various churches in central santa Fe working together and celebrating together at the holidays while respecting their various traditions.
Seems a long way from Cardinal Geoge’s Chicago -another priest sex abuse matter yesterday at Midway.
I continue to think of BXVI as a sad figure tilting at the widmills of enlightment and secularism as he struggles with modernity.
I thought about him liast nigh twhen talking to my grandniece, home for a couple of weeks from her UN assignment in Austria; she said how much the old guard hangs on to the old patriarcha; paternalism and how they are looked at askance by the young professionals coming along.
I see that in the Church in Europe declining and also in the drift problem here.
Benedict may be the kindly father figure (grandfather figure?) but is he trapped in the old man”s curial club that is moving further away from the educated young?
Peace on earth -how nice to have Churches both celebrating each other while enjoying their own traditions.
Doesn’t sound like a big “distinctive” push to me.
Merry Christmas to all!
http://www.ontopmag.com/article.aspx?id=10453&MediaType=1&Category=26
Not that he will.
Re: the Gay Pride parade in Chicago and Cardinal George: I think his meaning is clear enough, and has been misconstrued by various commenters here. He is fearful that parishioners will be subject to abuse by attendees of the Gay Pride parade. That’s not far-fetched. The parade draws tens of thousands of viewers. The organizers of the parade seem pretty sensible, savvy and together, but they don’t control who comes to watch it.
David N.: I don’t know how well-versed you are in the details of the Gay Pride Parade in Chicago. It has some pretty bacchanalian content. I wouldn’t want to subject my children, or any children, to those things upon leaving church. Istm that a person can support every single bullet on the Gay Political Agenda (if there is such a thing) and still find plenty to object to in the Gay Pride Parade. Having lived in that neighborhood as a young adult myself, I feel pretty confident in saying that, by and large, parishioners of the parish in question are pretty sympathetic to gay rights. At one time, it had a pretty substantial gay population of parishioners – probably it still does.
If Benedict XVI is truly concerned with the sufferings and moral dilemma of millions of seropositive Catholics, then it is time to reform the teaching that it is illicit “under all circumstances” to use a condon during sexual intercourse. For a seropositive husband to use a condom (or double condom) to protest his spouse from the transmission of a disease while expressing his love for her though conjugal acts, must be balanced against the teaching that every marital act must have a procreative meaning. The Church’s answer to the sufferings of seriodiscordant couples is to practice celibacy. This teaching not only threatens their marriage but is considered by reasonable people to be stoic insensiiblity.
Where is the love and mercy of Christ in this doctrinal judgment? The hierarchy of values seems to be turned upside down.
Perhaps it is a way to encourage us to think for ourselves. Otherwise, such inhuman doctrinal judgment deserves to be ignored. It is logic pushed until it becomes absurd. Every rule, if applied with no exceptions whatsoever, is bound to lead to absurdities in the extreme. Obsession with rules, and the inability to show flexibility in their application, signal mental problems.
But I do not think that creating a special case with a carefully circumscribed list of exceptions will resolve those issues. The list will never be complete, and there will be exceptional problems with the exceptions themselves. The quest for a sound and complete list of rules is doomed (in fact, that is not an opinion but a mathematical certainty).
I think that, instead, we need to trust our ability to figure out to what extent rigid rules are to be taken at face value.
Not far-fetched, Jim? Cardinal George made an irresponsible and reckless comparison, and now he defends it as “obvious.” Apparently it does not occur to him that the KKK didn’t just have it out for black people, didn’t just persecute Catholics, but also went after gay people. Yes, the organizers of the gay-pride parade are so obviously ready to persecute Catholics (in Chicago? Please. How weak does the cardinal think his flock is, anyway?) that they moved the start time of the parade to accomodate this one pastor’s complaint. I’m sorry. Our Lady of Mt. Carmel is not a small parish. It takes up nearly a whole city block. I’m sure parishioners could get to Mass through a door behind the church on Broadway. It would be interesting to know how many of them would mind all that much.
Here is an email I received from the office of Cardinal George after I signed the petition asking for his resignation:
“The Chicago Gay Pride Parade has been organized and attended for many years without interfering with the worship of God in a Catholic church. When the 2012 Parade organizers announced a time and route change this year, it was apparent that the Parade would interfere with divine worship in a Catholic parish on the new route. When the pastor’s request for reconsideration of the plans was ignored, the organizers invited an obvious comparison to other groups who have historically attempted to stifle the religious freedom of the Catholic Church. One such organization is the Ku Klux Klan which, well into the 1940′s, paraded through American cities not only to interfere with Catholic worship but also to demonstrate that Catholics stand outside of the American consensus. It is not a precedent anyone should want to emulate.
It is terribly wrong and sinful that gays and lesbians have been harassed and subjected to psychological and even physical harm. These tragedies can be addressed, however, without disturbing the organized and orderly public worship of God in a country that claims to be free. I am grateful that all parties concerned resolved this problem by moving the Parade’s start time so as not to conflict with the celebration of Mass that Sunday.”
I am waiting to hear more about his plans to address the tragedies of gays and lesbians being subjected to psychological and physical harm. Is he going to start a P.R. campaign “respect gays and lesbians”? Encourage parishes to have support groups? Visit Catholic schools to teach children how sinful it is to bully homosexuals?
The theology of the magisterium often minimizes the theology of reception. The magisterium is the authority on faith and morals and the papal encyclical has been the source of doctrine and teachings since Vatican I. If teachings pronounced as a moral absolute are in tenson with human experience and also philosophically and theologically challenged, then “thinking for ourselves” or “ignoring the teaching” will not resolve the problem either.
Complex problems never have an easy solution. However, one step in the process is for theologians on both ends of the debate over sexual ethics must start a sincere conversation over the Gordian knot issues that preclude any realistic theological consensus on issues like contraception. Such as discussion should include the many “exceptions” or “absurd answers” to complex ethical cases. However, it must also provide ontological, theological, philosophical and anthropological arguments.
What has been lacking, for understandable reasons, is the voice of the non-clergy, non-theologian laity in this debate, which has divided the Church since 1968. Blog comments help, but do not move the conversation forward because the hierarchy has close the debate. The only forum for continued dialogue and debate in in the theological community. To enter such a debate requires a degree of effort and education that few Catholics are willing, for good reasons, to make. Nevertheless, if we as the laity expect or want the Church to consider “our collective or individual voices” then we must continue to raise these thorny exceptions and complex cases until one-by-one the bishops will carrying this voice forward into action. This may sound naive, but a Church divided cannot stand, nor can a teaching not recieved last.
Claire —
Rules are commands, and as such logic has nothing at all to do with them — logic concerns only propositions. But logic can help expose what the people who make the rules are have presupposed, and logic can show how those presuppositions lead eventually to absurd behaviors and consequences. So logic, that great tool for human-correction, is the friend of those who are victimized by dumb rules.
We use logic too little, not too much. (Not surprising, because none of us likes to criticize ourselves
:-)
“Is he going to start a P.R. campaign “respect gays and lesbians”? Encourage parishes to have support groups? Visit Catholic schools to teach children how sinful it is to bully homosexuals?”
I think in fact the Church has done all these things, as She should.
I can understand the Cardinal’s objecting to a boisterous, insulting parade passing a church at Mass Time. What I can’t understand is his likening the parade to a Klan parade. The Klan was a hate-filled group that didn’t have a moral leg to stand on. He lived in the Sougth an must know that. Not so the Gay Pride people, no matter how boisterous and insulting.
Further, the black people learned that the only way to change the U. S. is by non-violent protest which does disrupt the ordinary flow of things. Sorry, but that is the was it really, really was.
Here is the parish’s statement regarding the gay pride parade. http://www.mt-carmel.org/index.php?page=william-ferris-chorale
The archdiocese’s outreach ministry to gay and lesbians is based at the parish in question. http://www.aglochicago.org/
I am surprised and delighted to see the page on the archdiocese’s outreach ministry to gay and lesbians. At the diocesan level there is nothing remotely like that in my diocese nor in other dioceses that I visit, as far as I know.
Since Cardinal George has just shown his insensitivity, I would be tempted to believe that that’s a remnant of Cardinal Bernardin’s humane influence. But even if that’s the case, Cardinal George has not suppressed it. I am pleasantly surprised.
Today’s local paper has a small sidebar that Cardinal George reaffirms his statement.
Today’s NYT has a piece on the Ilinois bishops and their closing down Catholic Charities adoption services because they won’t support gay parents adopting.
I think the consensus here , except for the (usual) supporters of the Cardinal, was that his comment was out of line. I think he suffers from the Episcopal disease of the day to never be grown up enough to say he was wrong!
But the larger picture of how the credibility of Bishops will be seen by many of our young continues to be damaged by “rights” assertions by the hierarchy in the name of protecting their message.
So it goes….
Hi, Claire, my view is that he doesn’t harbor antipathy to gays and lesbians; that he said something that was a little idiosyncratic (to say the least – I’m not sure where the KKK comparison came from, maybe it popped into his head because he’s been reading a history book, but who knows); and I wouldn’t have advised him to double down on the comparison. I hope he may yet retract it and apologize.
I believe the the parish’s statement hits a lot of the right notes.
When the issue of the parade’s new route was first raised, a month or two ago, by the parish’s pastor, there were some eyebrows raised by the parade’s organizers, but they did go ahead and revise their schedule to accommodate the parish, which I thought was pretty good of them – probably above and beyond, for the sake of good community relations.
At this point, it’s pretty much a public relations debacle. I’d like the Cardinal to do well, and I think there’s an opportunity for him to say and/or do something bold that will change perceptions, and maybe even build some bridges.
I neglected to mention Michael O’Loughlin’s thread at America’s “In All Things” titled “Congress and the catholic Church.”
It certainly highlights the cardinal George foo faraw.
If the Cardinal would like to do well, maybe he should retire in January instead of saying how he wants to continue on.
The parish in question is in the “Boys Town” section of Chicago – their version of San Francisco’s Castro District.
Mark P said: “Is he going to start a P.R. campaign “respect gays and lesbians”? Encourage parishes to have support groups? Visit Catholic schools to teach children how sinful it is to bully homosexuals?”
I think in fact the Church has done all these things, as She should.
I think that there is a large degree of naivete here. SOME parishes MAY have LGBT support groups. There is very little evidence of results from a campaign to “respect gays and lesbians” in evidence throughout this country, and the wing nut blogsites are shocking examples of just the opposite. Ditto for many (arch)diocesan newspaper letters columns and editorial sections.
Bully is as much of an issue at Catholic schools as elsewhere.
The Catholic church cannot put a check mark by the items Mark mentioned above and with any sense of pride say, “been there, done that.”
Jimmy Mac –
If you were a bishop, specifically what would you do to change things?
Is this issue not a moot point? While only about 30% of Catholics attend weekly Mass, those that do fall into various catagories: divorsed and remarried, married and in child bearing years, single, post menopausal women, seniors. Most of the divorsed and remarried group ignore the Church’s teaching about the requirements of Eucharistic reception and the habitual sin of either adultery or pre-marital sex, they are told they commit. For the 97% of female married women that practice contraception, they are told they commit a grave intrinsically evil sin. The reality is that they all stand in line each week and receive the Eucharist.
The other reality is that most who are gay and lesbian, divorsed and remarried and those that practice contraception, do not attend Mass. They feel estranged from the Church. Many suffer hardship and moral dilemma, especially those married individuals who are seropositive.
It is true that some parishes have outreach programs tha welcome those who are gay and lesbian. We also have the fact that most priests rarely, if ever, refuse to give the Eucharist to parishioners who they know practice contraception, or are divorsed and remarried. Bishops look the other way on those parishes that welcome those that are gay and lesbian, so do priests that distribute the Eurcharist to everyone that stands in line each week who practice contraception or who are divorsed and remarried.
We indeed have a dysfunctional and divided Church. The question is: how do we raise our individual and collective voices to the hierarchy? For some Catholics tying to move the conversation forward is important. To others, it is a moot point.
Jimmy Mac, re: your comment of 12/30, 2:55 pm – I agree completely. There is a huge opportunity for the church to do more than it does.
Just speaking as a parent, I can attest that bullying is omnipresent in all schools, at least the ones around here, both Catholic and public. I do think school administrators and teachers are more aware of it than they were when I was in school, but I don’t see that it will ever be possible to stamp it out completely. Its roots are not in the schools themselves but in the attitudes that thug students (of both sexes) bring into the schools.
Ann: if I were bishop (very fat chance of that EVER happening) I would accept the fact that I need to take actions that most likely would ruin my chances for promotion.
I would insure that Catholic schools and Catholic parishes made concerted and regular efforts to educate the vast majority of pew potatoes who only get their education in a 10 minute homily on a regular basis. Education needs to be taken to instruct people that, church proscriptions on same-sex relations and marriages, LGBT people are ENTITLED to be treated with the same degree of concern and care as any other human being. This would include stopping very open Catholic efforts to prevent LGBT civil rights in areas that result in secular benefits and protections, i.e., secular marriage, rights to housing, employment, etc. But the major area of education that needs a long-term effort is in the schools by proactively and actively STOPPING any and all types of bullying, starting in the earliest years of schooling.
Catholic bishops also need to recognize the obvious: all Catholics have children, siblings, parents, relatives and friends who are members of LGBT communities. Rather than demonize the abstract, preach understanding and acceptance of the known. Acceptance does not necessary imploy approval, but Catholics accept “failings” on the part of those they know on a wide spectrum of actions and activities.
As I said, any bishop who is this brave will end up like Thomas Gumbleton, Pat Power, Geoffrey Robinson, etc.: always a bridesmaid and rarely a bride.
Jim P: I spent 3 years in a minor seminary in the middle 1950s and any “thuggish” behavior that we immature students brought to the process was quickly and noticeably stamped out. In this day and age I’m afraid that some of the techniques used to change behavior would probably be considered illegal or at least not in keeping with parental expectations of how little Hepzibah or Murgatroyd should be treated.
Ann: that should have read: ” — , church proscriptions on same-sex relations and marriages ASIDE, —”