OMG. Did someone say head-turners? (Yes, I'm between popcorn runs, and very glad I bought in a big new supply of popcorn today, because it looks like the telenovela is only going to get, well, more hilarious and dramatic, steamier and more engrossing in the build-up to the Synod on the Family.)

 

I'm between two commitments today and have had a moment to read your thread of welcome comments to my last posting, and am now learning about the Polish (Polish!) theologian Monsignor Krzysztof Charamsa who got sacked after holding a public coming-out press conference and introducing his attractive Spanish partner to the world. A theologian with the conservative Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, no less!

 

The same Vatican congregation over which Pope John Paul II placed as his right-wing, right-hand theological watchdog Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI (and who is still pope — EPope, as Colleen has tagged him. We really need a little guide to the cast of characters for this engrossing telenovela; it's getting hard to keep them all sorted out) . . . .

 

The same Vatican congregation that, under Ratzinger, produced the horrendous "pastoral" letter for Halloween 1986 (did someone say telenovela?) that defined homosexual human beings as intrinsically disordered . . . . 

 

And Msgr. Charamsa is challenging other gays in the Vatican — he suspects there may be one or two —  to come out, come out, wherever you are before the Synod on the Family tries to pretend you don't exist, since, as he says, the Catholic church is harsh and inhumane to homosexual human beings, and needs to open its eyes to the fact that we exist and are children of God, too.

 

Talk about a head-turner (in every sense of that word)! I am thanking my lucky stars I have laid in that new supply of popcorn. This is getting downright interesting.

 

And downright funny. 

 

Thank you all for the comments in response to what I posted earlier today — to Chris and wild hair for the information about Msgr. Charamsa, in particular. Thank you, Colleen, for pointing out the obvious: what was the pope just saying several days ago about the right to conscientious objection? And you're right, in contrast to Ms. Kim Davis, Msgr. Charamsa had the decency and courage to say he knew he'd pay a price for following his conscience and coming out, but has chosen to do so on behalf of gay folks around the world, who are being harmed by his church.

 

And because, as he says, the church really does need to open its eyes and look at the world around it.

 

The screenshot is from a video at the Irish Times' report on Msgr. Charamsa's coming out and being sacked. Thanks to Chris for pointing us to this video. I don't see a specific photographer's or videographer's name given in the article or on the video. I do highly recommend that you click and see the video.