Depending on this last week's quotes, God has
some tough choices to decide on who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.
Pope Francis I:
"If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will,
who am I to judge?" Francis told reporters, speaking in Italian but using the
English word "gay."
"I would refuse to go to a
homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the
other place."
He added, "I would not worship a God who is homophobic and
that is how deeply I feel about this."
(Twitter) "Tutu
to God: 'Rather go to hell than worship 'homophobic' God.' God to Tutu: 'That
can be arranged.'"
"We are a people who love and yet now your love is going
to put you in jail because the people who are going to Hell feel their
lifestyle, think, "Well, we want to be affirmed.'"
So Francis won't judge priests (or anyone else) for being gay, Tutu won't go to
a homophobic Heaven, Bryan Fischer (as usual), hates people who accept gays and
Pat Robertson thinks Christians will be jailed for excoriating gays (in the
name of love, of course). So what's new?
Francis, of course. Considering the skeptics (including this writer) who
thought he might become a puppet of Benedict, Francis has begun to prove
himself to be an open-minded, social justice kind of pontiff: his simple,
laid-back style (devoid of pomp and circumstance - and static doctrine) has
begun to irk conservatives in the Catholic Church and beyond. He has America's
Christian Right keeping a respectful distance, effectively severing any ties
that Benedict might have nurtured.
Andrew
Sullivan:
"What's so striking to me is not what he said, but how he
said it: the gentleness, the humor, the transparency. I find myself with tears
in my eyes as I watch him. I've lived a long time to hear a Pope speak like that
-- with gentleness and openness, reasserting established dogma with sudden,
sweeping exceptions that aren't quite exceptions -- except they sure sound like
them."
Surely Francis is going to hell if he keeps this up.
As for Archbishop Tutu, his comments about gay acceptance have simply
solidified the enmity many right-wing Christians have hinted at for years: to
be placed in the ranks of Tutu has been regarded as a slur (just ask Bishop
John Shelby Spong who appreciated the comparison). Bryan Fischer may just have
been a bit more vulgar in his depiction of Tutu as a horrific apostate in
bishop's garb, but he wasn't acknowledging any new feelings about Tutu: the
whole of the Christian Right thinks Tutu is going to hell.
Also going to hell will be all those infuriating gays "demanding"
acceptance - at least according to Pat Robertson. And while some may think that
Robertson recently redeemed himself by saying that transsexuality was "no
sin," it might just prove Robertson's rambling senility: his donor
base is confused and reeling. Big supporters like Tony Perkins of Family
Research Council won't touch the comment, for fear that it might mean further
proclamations of acceptance coming from America's foremost conservative
televangelist. It's also totally in contradiction to the demonization of
transsexuals so beloved by Perkins' people.
Bryan Fischer might have something to say about it as well.
But does God ever listen to the likes of Bryan Fischer? Or Pat Robertson?
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