Ratzinger = Benedict XVI
When you study religion at a secular college, you learn to maintain a certain scholarly distance. You learn to avoid making normative claims and judgments. You learn to bracket your own biases and allegiances and interests and faiths in favor of "objectivity". One of my goals for this blog is to practice writing in that balanced but critical voice.
It's taken me a couple days to post anything here about the selection of Cardinal Ratzinger as the new pope. This is both because I'm struggling to live up to those lofty academic ideals, but also because I'm struggling to find anything to say that doesn't come from a meanspirited ugly place within me. All that "love your enemies" stuff is effing difficult.
Today, I could try to be witty or scholarly or objective. Instead I'm going to be honest. This is really bad news. This is bad news for anyone who care about the plight of the poor, for anyone who cares about the status and role of women in society, for anyone who thinks LGBT people deserve to be treated with human dignity. I am filled with anger and despair and I am not even Catholic. In long-term human costs, the election of Ratzinger will probably be far worse a disaster than 9/11.
from Michaelangelo Singorile's Queer In America (via Atrios):
.... Chills ran up and down my spine as I watched the protestors and then looked back at Ratzinger. Soon, anger swelled up inside me: This man was the embodiment of all that had oppressed me, all the horrors I had suffered as a child. It was because of his bigotry that my family, my church -- everyone around me -- had alienated me, and it was because of his bigotry that I was called "faggot" in school. Because of his bigotry I was treated like garbage. He was responsible for the hell I'd endured. He and his kind were the people who forced me to live in shame, in the closet. I became livid...Suddenly, I jumped up on one of the marble platforms and, looking down, I addressed the entire congregation in the loudest voice I could. My voice rang out as if it were amplified. I pointed at Ratzinger and shouted: "He is no man of God!" The shocked faces of the assembled Catholics turned to the back of the room to look at me as I continued: "He is no man of God -- he is the Devil!" (read the full account)
As you know, I have expressed hope for a new pope from Africa or the Third World. A candidate from these parts would have placed on the agenda some burning issues like poverty in this skewed international order that disadvantages the poor. I would have hoped such a candidate (would be concerned with) issues of disease and the HIV/AIDS pandemic.I hope sitting on the papal throne will take off the edges and have an effect on easing his rigidity. A less rigid candidate would have been more likely to lift the ban the Roman Catholic Church has placed on the use of condoms. Everywhere else it is recognised as an effective way to combat the spread of HIV.
National Coalition of American Nuns:
We pray that he will be open to the full partnership and full participation of women in a church that suffers because of the lack of women's creativity and lived experience. We do believe in miracles.
Jurandir Arauj, of the National Conference of Bishops Afro-Brazilian Section:
It seems that he is too conservative. Hopefully the Holy Spirit can help him change!
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I think it is important to bear in mind that Benedict 16th née Ratzinger is, in addition to being very conservative, also very old. I think this is the other side of the coin. I think there is a big part of the church that wants change, and a big part that is afraid; and I think he is their compromise. Built in obsolescence, in a Religious figure-head: welcome to the 21st century.
Also, I want to take issue with "far worse than 9/11 in long-term human costs." I hope you are counting 'Operation Enduring Freedom' and W's re-election as fallout from 9/11? Americans aren't worth more to God just because they think they are, and I'm sorry but three thousand people is kind of a splash in the global bucket. Bullshit is bullshit, but doesn't "A is for abstinance" and its effect on the HIV pandemic owe more to our domestic Evangelical tomfools as to the Pope, since (correct me if I'm wrong) it's not like the Catholic Church used to be exporting tons of condoms and reproductive education, then stopped suddenly by executive decree.
I'm sorry, I don't mean to rant. its just, well... "love your enemy" is very important and good advice. But "know your enemy" - maybe it isn't better advice, but put them together, and what do you get? UNSTOPPABLE.
IMHO.
Rob,
You are probably right about everything. Seriously.
Ummmm.... No. It's not like we weren't killing Iraqis or funding wars in the Middle East before 9/11. Remember how Madeleine Albright was asked on 60 Minutes about the 500,000 dead Iraqi children as a result of the US-backed sanctions in the 90's and agreed with the number? The killing will fluctuate and be redirected as a result of American domestic politics, but it won't substantially change.
The pope, on the other hand, has real control over what the Church does. It's not that it necessarily has to hand out condoms, it just shouldn't actively fight against such government programs in Africa or here in the States. And while it doesn't have to tear down capitalism, it also shouldn't uphold the extreme rich/poor gap that it creates.
Sheesh. The Catholic Church has over a billion followers, and putting a Nazi in charge of those people will have more of an effect on future policy-making than a small retaliation against the US.
"The Catholic Church has over a billion followers, and putting a Nazi in charge of those people will have more of an effect on future policy-making than a small retaliation against the US."
So much for scholarly distance, or a minimal appreciation for historical fact.