Francis, Frankness and 'Faggotry'. In Praise of frank speaking. Ashenden Scripted.

About this sermon

The fallout from Pope Francis’ remarks to the Italian bishops has continued since he made them. This is in part because why he should have spoken as he did has defeated both progressives and conservatives, as they try to understand why the pope should have used the language he did to make the point he made. Perhaps we are served better by reflecting on what we can know instead of what we can’t? What has become more evident in the wake of them is the merciless fury of the rainbow lobby for those who transgress. As the Catholic blogger and commentator Mario Andinolfi has observed, “Whoever touches that bare wire [that topic] electrocutes himself... Always.” This raises the wider question of what the Catholic Church has been dealing with as it set out from the beginnings of the Second Vatican Council to build a bridge of better mutual understanding across the chasm of modernity. As the project always doomed because of the unfolding nature of secularism? Throughout the whole of his pontificate until this last week, Pope Francis has been given a platform of admiration by the media, and recognised as being much more ‘one of them’ than any previous pontiff. “Who am I to judge” became his catch phrase in the public square. But to the shock of the media, is sits uneasily with the assertion that there is too much “frociaggine” – ( “faggotry”) in seminaries and that homosexual men should not be ordained. Except of course for the context. How might the context help us to square a problematic circle? It was originally simply an off the cuff remark to journalists on the plane. But the phrase has passed into contemporary political and cultural consciousness developing a life of its own, with such impact that the conversation that gave birth to it is often forgotten or ignored. It was in fact a response to a scandal that had emerged following rumours about the private life of scandalously active Catholic priest. The man at the centre of the scandal was Monsignor Ricca who had had a relationship with another man – the "intimacy" of which was "so open as to scandalize numerous bishops, priests, and laity" of Uruguay, where he served in the nunciature from 1999 to 2004. His private and sexual life was so publicly provocative that it caused outrage, first in Uruguay and then in Rome after he moved there. The facts had been documented by a journalist, Sandro Magister in L’Espresso. The details of the scandal demonstrate why the matter should have produced such notoriety. John Daniel Davidson, has written a prescient book called the new paganism the fall of America He is yet another voice warning us that that the old gods have returned The new paganism can be summed up by the saying nothing is true everything is permissible Rainbow sexuality would endorse than – fully. We have interpreted the disordered Ness of same-sex un boundaried appetite as a low standard of Christianity that is required by our aspiration for virtue and her holiness And it is that But given the completely opposed anthropology of pagan , and the role at sex plays in defining human dignity and appetite, it’s just as possible for same sex attracted self definition to be the bridgehead to a dark and paganism, which might explain it’s a variant hatred of the church, Christian ethics and Christian continence. This is not our lapsed friend This is our long term enemy/ back in the Ring. If Pope Francis’ frank phraseology has thrown any light on the situation the church faces, it may be to demonstrate the task of converting a decaying secular culture is a more radical one than we knew. AM9UGNTE7XOZJDMX

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