Feminists and Gays on the Wrong Path Sayeth the Pope

Derrick Jackson suggests that Ratzinger's medieval views have "the potential to irritate and inflame religious and cultural tensions around the world."

Like Bush needs some help.

Jackson lays out a few of the new Pope's extreme views:

In 2003, Ratzinger issued a proclamation condemning government recognition of same-sex unions saying that instead it was the government's responsibility to ''avoid exposing young people to erroneous ideas about sexuality and marriage." Calling civil unions the ''legalization of evil," Ratzinger said politicians who vote for them are ''gravely immoral."

Ratzinger went on to condemn adoption by gay parents, saying, ''Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to the children." This is the same Vatican that had barely a thing to say about the American clergy child sex-abuse scandal. And when it did, Ratzinger downplayed it.

During the emerging news on the scandals in December 2002, Ratzinger said, ''I am personally convinced that the constant presence in the press of the sins of Catholic priests, especially in the United States, is a planned campaign, as the percentage of these offenses among priests is not higher than in other categories and perhaps it is even lower. Less than 1 percent of (American) priests are guilty of acts of this type . . . Therefore, one comes to the conclusion that it is intentional, manipulated, that there is a desire to discredit the church."

In 1997, Ratzinger and the Vatican reaffirmed its ban on women priests. In 1998, John Paul wrote a papal letter rejecting liberalism in the church, including the ordination of women. Last year Ratzinger led the Vatican's attack on ''radical feminism," blaming assertive women for calling into question the ''natural two-parent structure of mother and father and to make homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent."


More on the Radical Pope from the New York Times:

He has been a leading voice in the church for enforcing traditional doctrine on homosexuality, extramarital sex and artificial birth control, writing a letter to American bishops in 1988, for example, criticizing their acceptance of condoms to stop the spread of AIDS, saying the American view supported "the classical principle of tolerance of the lesser evil."

He has condemned efforts to legalize same-sex marriage as "destructive for the family and for society" and as a dangerous separation of sexuality and fertility. A church statement in July 2003 in which he was listed as principal author said: "There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law."

Echidne of the Snakes has more on the disturbing views of Ratzinger (in a post from last year).