One of my favorite books on Roman Catholic moral theology is “Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven” by German Roman Catholic theologian Uta Ranke Heinemann. This book criticized the sexism in the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy’s historic approach to women, and shows a better way of looking at things.

I’ve decided that so-called “Christians” who are sexist, homophobic and/or transphobic just aren’t really Christians at all, but Christianists. That includes Benedict XVI, James Dobson, Pat Robertson and numerous other religious leaders.

On Benedict’s Christmas mesage to the Roman Curia, the main thrust appears to be against gender fluidity. On the other hand, it has been clear since the year 2000 “sub secretum” document issued to papal nuncios and bishops on the issue of transsexuality (leaked to CNS in 2003) that the hierarchy sees “gender” as immutably fixed on the basis of birth genital shape, ignoring the rest of the human physiology. This is an error.

From my perspective, which is one of experiencing gender as immutable, I have no problem being bound by the immutability rule, as long as it is understood that as a WBT my innate gender has aways been female even if I was misassigned male at birth because my genitals developed along the wolffian system rather than the mullerian.

On the other hand, I don’t see the “immutability” rule as applicable for those who experience their gender as “fluid” or who identify as “bigendered.”

For me, Romans 1 means not acting against one’s own nature as God created one. That is it would be as sinful for a homosexually-oriented man to marry and engage in sex with a woman, as it would be for a heterosexually-oriented man to dabble in sex with a man.

It’s not “against nature” to act in accordance with the way we are created by God. Humanae Vitae works for heteronormative cissexual people, not for those who fall outside that particular norm.

This current statement may be consistent with previous Vatican statements, but as with much of Roman Catholic moral theology as applied to women, gays and trans folks, it is steeped in error, both in matters of scriptural interpreattion and in understanding of “natural law.” It’s just one more “Galileo moment” in Church history.

Oh well. It could be worse, he could be calling for me to be stoned to death . . .

Joann

“Pope Benedict has really taken an opportunity to incite people against trans folks, giving fodder for hatred and prejudice…”

I would disagree that in affirming God’s plan for the deliberateness of people being born either male of female, the Pope was inciting hatred. One must recall the virtue of Christian charity as Pope Pius X stated it: “Catholic doctrine tell us that the primary duty of charity does not lie in the toleration of false ideas, however sincere they may be.”

I appreciate you don’t agree with the Pope, but your disagreement is not grounds for suggesting that the Pope is being hateful or encouraging others to attack persons confused about their sex.

I appreciate the opportunity to comment.

And really? You don’t? What about this post? What about Prop 8? What about the BIGOTRY and SEXISM that we see and hear about EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY that is based on a religion that gets its faith from THE BIBLE?

You don’t know what experiences I’ve had with religion that made me realize what sexist, bigoted bullshit it is? REALLY? Then you’re blind.

I can’t comment further because I am already running late for my bus, but I want to clarify: I find any and all religions BASED ON THE BIBLE and any other sexist book to be inherently sexist and bigoted, because THE BIBLE is inherently sexist and bigoted. PERIOD! To say otherwise is denial.

Notice I said that you can believe in a higher power and not believe in a sexist, bigoted religion, but if your belief is based ON A SEXIST BOOK, then, yes, you are supporting sexism and bigotry.

You’re basically saying that unless you throw out the whole kit & kaboodle — or the baby with the bathwater, if you prefer — then it’s still tainted.

You know, there are plenty of progressive theologians — queer religious scholars, feminist religious scholars, you name it — who would absolutely agree that the Bible is sexist and comes from a sexist time. I’m not sure how you can really claim they’re denying it when they don’t deny it at all, and actually spend their time pointing that out and working to change it, using the very principles that you claim is impossible — picking and choosing, reinterpreting, finding new meanings in the old, and taking what they find valuable while discarding misogynist and homophobic and intolerant beliefs and practices. Nothing you’ve said is really convincing me that this is somehow impossible or automatically denies that the Bible has a lot of sexism in it.

In fact, you know what it seems like to me? The attitude that any religion that uses aspects of the Bible is “inherently and forever tainted by the evil elements of the Bible” smells a lot like religious taboo and purity ritual. It smells a lot like religious intolerance, and I think it’s a little hypocritical at its core. It’s just a reactionary mirror of the same things that you find in the more intolerant forms of religion.

I don’t particularly care for the Bible, but I’m not about to go around making totally spurious claims about the people who work to create better forms of religion using it.

And yes, littleapples — I absolutely do deny that religion is “inherently” sexist and bigoted, because I don’t believe that claim can be substantiated. It’s pretty hard to substantiate ideas about “inherence,” since you’re claiming that nobody could ever create a religion that isn’t bigoted. That seems patently false to me — and not only false, but another form of bigotry that’s offering a false and destructive choice: abandon religion or you’re tainted and evil. I don’t need to be convinced, because I’ve never been religious — but non-religious people like you disgust me.

I don’t know what experiences you’ve had with religion that made you hate it so much, and I fully support your right to speak out about wrongs you’ve experienced or witnessed — this is incredibly important. But when you start going off about how all religion is inherently fucked up, you’ve turned down a very wrong path indeed. You’re trying to make it impossible for anyone to create religious practices that are committed to feminism and social justice. That’s reprehensible and wrong, and you should stop, take a step back, and think about what you’re doing and what you’re really trying to accomplish.

I posted the bigotry from the Pope and my own interpretation of the principles he’s supposedly operating on precisely because I wanted to hear from religious people about how they interpret these things. I am utterly uninterested in hearing you spout off meaninglessly about how all religion is bad, so I’m asking you to stop. If you’re going to be disrespectful enough to ignore that, your posts won’t be allowed on this thread. If you want to sincerely try and engage in constructive discussion, I may allow you to continue.

And this whole PC bullshit of “Ohhhh, but some religions and religious people aren’t bigoted or sexist! We need to be mindful of them!” is why this place disgusts me.

Oh really? Saying that identifying as a Christian doesn’t automatically make one a bigot offends you? Well there’s the door.

I thought maybe the POPE’s words would have changed some minds around here, but I guess not! The POPE is HUGELY influential when it comes to Catholicism and Christianity, and yet you still deny that religion is inherently sexist and bigoted? Really?

Feminists in denial make me sad.

“Progressive” religions are a farce. They are still based on a sexist book written by sexist men during a sexist time. Picking and choosing does nothing at all to change that fact.