It is interesting that he uses the term “she” to describe the Catholic Church, an institution that is governed exclusively by old men and abhors women’s rights. It’s to be expected I suppose, historically some of the worst women haters adored their mothers and looked up to, even feared them.
The pope goes on to say that the use of condoms by male prostitutes for example could be "a first step towards moralization", “but the "sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalisation of sexuality" where sexuality is no longer an expression of love, "but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves.”
The pope talks about how condom use, by killing what he believes are children, prevents a potential Mozart or other genius, from being born, "How many children are killed who might one day have been geniuses, who could have given humanity something new, who could have given us a new Mozart or some new technical discovery?" he asks.
I find it fascinating that someone who has never had an intimate relationship with another person or sex with another human being, and, I assume, never with themselves which is also a sin, can expect their opinion about human sexuality and love to have any validity to it. I could also argue that by remaining celibate, assuming one does, priests are not exactly helping grow the Catholic Church.
Most Catholics would not come close when it comes to obeying the church’s teaching on sexuality. Any normal human being knows that sex is very pleasurable at it’s best; it feels good. It feels especially good when the two people involved in it respect and care for each other; want to please each other. And who knows what the pontiff means by love? A woman’s subservience to a man perhaps?
These teachings are all to convince us how bad we are. We are born sinners; this is the goal of this philosophy. I remember when I was young and we used to say this prayer, I think it was called the De Profundis, or I confess, something like that. In it we say three times as we beat our chests, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. We’re doomed from the start and our bodies and the pleasure we can find in them are dirty sin repositories. Pleasure is a sin. We have to think this way otherwise there’d be no need for the church.
As for moralization, the official church and its leaders could do with a little self-examination on that subject. The history of this church is not so impressive when it comes to morals. It couldn’t find the time to excommunicate Hitler but had no problem excommunicating women who dared practice mass. Its role in Latin America from the early conquests to the present has been horrendous. And there is no doubt that the assassination of Latin American priests of the Liberation Theology movement by right wing death squads was made much easier by the Vatican’s passive acceptance of it to put it mildly. All the religious institutions of the world with their billions of adherents and as many billions of dollars have not stopped exploitation, poverty and slaughter. It seems that the pope cares more about a tablespoon of fluid than it does living children.
This is not to say there aren’t individuals who belong to these institutions that are good decent people, most are. I have been involved in political activity with many of them. I was once active in the shutting down of an incinerator that was spewing toxins in to the air in a poor, working class community and some of the most militant young activists belonged to a Catholic group.
But the pope of Rome talking about morality and lecturing us on sexuality and what it means reeks of hypocrisy if you ask me.
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