An open letter.
Dear Pope Benedict,
I left the Church quite some time before it chose to make you its head. In fact, my initial departure stemmed from a very specific incident caused by your predecessor, one that you actually had the decency and dignity to openly and publicly apologize for (the encouragement of African bishops to spread the false information that condoms caused AIDs, just for the record, an action I will openly and actively call genocide, as it helped to encourage an atmosphere of ignorance and mistrust of doctors that has created much of the AIDs crisis in Africa). Still, I have long remained a supporter of the Church overall, largely due to the Jesuits who raised me and the sisters who have influenced much of my life. I have never been one to sit idly by while a friend of mine indulged in prejudice and misinformation about the Church, something which you may not realize is extremely active in Protestant America (did you know that anything stupid any Christian Church in the US does is automatically attributed to the Catholics? You may not quite realize how ignorant most people are of what is or is not within the realm of the Church, and the sort of ridiculous ideas they have that stem from a long history of what is, to be blunt, anti-Catholic bigotry that people don't even know they're spouting). When you were first placed into power, I threw fits at the people who called you a Nazi, because you had, in your record, the rather significant action of going AWOL as soon as you were drafted to serve, and I don't see any value of labeling a person based on something they were forced into as a child, and forced into as an adult, but actively avoided to the degree that they went AWOL and became a POW rather than actually serve the regime. So please, do understand that, while I am no longer a follower of the Church, I do still have your best interests at heart, because I genuinely believe in both religious freedom and the value that religion can have for some people's lives.
All that out in the open, allow me to be a succinct as possible: Please, for the love of God and all that is Holy, remove your most revered head from your most revered ass and stop allowing your bigotry, misogyny, and arrogance to drag the Church into what is one of the worst possible places it's actually been in 2000 years of history (hell, you're even making inroads into the places people think it's been, which you and I both know are mostly propaganda and falsehood perpetuated by the rest of modern Christianity).
I'd remind you that the doctrines of Vatican II were all passed unanimously, and that the Church actually has an incredible history of making the first strides in most movements for freedoms and dignity--take, for example, the two times in history that a pope has ever spoken infallibly, both to advance the cause of women--but then, I know that you already know all about those things. You have made a career out of studying and knowing the history of doctrine and dogma within the Church, and yet, somehow, you manage to never show it. You are the sort of Catholic that makes me ashamed to have been raised one, and that isn't even something I ever had control of.
Thank God the rumors aren't really true, and not every piece of idiocy that comes out of your mouth is something the Church believes to be the infallible Word of God. Because, really, no matter how much suffering exists in the world, and no matter how much the problem of Theodicy really is a problem, I still have trouble believing in a god who could be half the Ass that you are currently choosing to be. Please, just stop.
Thank you,
Lisa
I left the Church quite some time before it chose to make you its head. In fact, my initial departure stemmed from a very specific incident caused by your predecessor, one that you actually had the decency and dignity to openly and publicly apologize for (the encouragement of African bishops to spread the false information that condoms caused AIDs, just for the record, an action I will openly and actively call genocide, as it helped to encourage an atmosphere of ignorance and mistrust of doctors that has created much of the AIDs crisis in Africa). Still, I have long remained a supporter of the Church overall, largely due to the Jesuits who raised me and the sisters who have influenced much of my life. I have never been one to sit idly by while a friend of mine indulged in prejudice and misinformation about the Church, something which you may not realize is extremely active in Protestant America (did you know that anything stupid any Christian Church in the US does is automatically attributed to the Catholics? You may not quite realize how ignorant most people are of what is or is not within the realm of the Church, and the sort of ridiculous ideas they have that stem from a long history of what is, to be blunt, anti-Catholic bigotry that people don't even know they're spouting). When you were first placed into power, I threw fits at the people who called you a Nazi, because you had, in your record, the rather significant action of going AWOL as soon as you were drafted to serve, and I don't see any value of labeling a person based on something they were forced into as a child, and forced into as an adult, but actively avoided to the degree that they went AWOL and became a POW rather than actually serve the regime. So please, do understand that, while I am no longer a follower of the Church, I do still have your best interests at heart, because I genuinely believe in both religious freedom and the value that religion can have for some people's lives.
All that out in the open, allow me to be a succinct as possible: Please, for the love of God and all that is Holy, remove your most revered head from your most revered ass and stop allowing your bigotry, misogyny, and arrogance to drag the Church into what is one of the worst possible places it's actually been in 2000 years of history (hell, you're even making inroads into the places people think it's been, which you and I both know are mostly propaganda and falsehood perpetuated by the rest of modern Christianity).
I'd remind you that the doctrines of Vatican II were all passed unanimously, and that the Church actually has an incredible history of making the first strides in most movements for freedoms and dignity--take, for example, the two times in history that a pope has ever spoken infallibly, both to advance the cause of women--but then, I know that you already know all about those things. You have made a career out of studying and knowing the history of doctrine and dogma within the Church, and yet, somehow, you manage to never show it. You are the sort of Catholic that makes me ashamed to have been raised one, and that isn't even something I ever had control of.
Thank God the rumors aren't really true, and not every piece of idiocy that comes out of your mouth is something the Church believes to be the infallible Word of God. Because, really, no matter how much suffering exists in the world, and no matter how much the problem of Theodicy really is a problem, I still have trouble believing in a god who could be half the Ass that you are currently choosing to be. Please, just stop.
Thank you,
Lisa