Pope Benedict XVI has likened saving humanity from the ravages of gays and transsexuals to saving the rain forests from the ravages of man. “(The Church) should also protect man from the destruction of himself. A sort of ecology of man is needed,” the pontiff said to the Vatican inner council known as the Curia. He believes that the rain forests deserve protection.
The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual acts are sinful, while not calling being homosexual sinful. However, the Church believes that homosexuality is “a deviation, an irregularity, a wound.”
This is actually a far cry from the ancient teachings of the Catholic Church. The Church use to put homosexuals to death if they so much as even looked passionately at someone of the same sex. In one town in Germany, the Catholic Church pursued, castrated, and then stoned to death two gay men back before the Reformation. Being homosexual was not only sinful, it was condemned. Among the victims of the Inquisition were homosexuals. They were tortured and executed along side any witches, Jews, Muslims, and heretics that the Church couldn’t “convert.” Typically, conversion involved dying horribly during torture or buying one’s way out.
This is, of course, a rather simplified account of the Inquisition. Of course, Pope Benedict use to be head of the remnants of the Inquisition.
It should be noted that the Catholic Church’s view of environmentalism was not always so broad either. Until recently, the Catholic Church all but encouraged the rampant decimation of the Earth’s natural resources.
The Catholic Church is returning to its hardline views on various issues in large part because of they feel that the modern world is threatening to them. Again. The Inquisition was a response to attempts to reform the Catholic Church by priests within its ranks. Instead of hearing out the reformers, the Church split. This lead to numerous religious wars as first England, then Germany and other nations broke from the Church to chart their own courses. Ultimately, these wars lead to the creation of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States which protected churches from government intrusion, and government from religious intrusion, and allowed all peoples to pray to which ever deity they chose.
The Catholic Church today is under fire from the Left by changing views in the developed world such as in Europe, the US, and Canada, and from the Right by hard line Evangelicals who are siphoning off believers. Many Latin Americans are drifting towards the Protestant religions because of their views on contraception and birth control, and many in Europe and North America are drifting away from the Church due to more modern views on religion. They are having a hard time recruiting new priests from the Western world due to the restrictions on priests.
However, rather than modernizing, the Catholic Church has decided to dig in their heels and try very, very hard to avoid dying out entirely despite the fact that they are slowly dying out.
The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual acts are sinful, while not calling being homosexual sinful. However, the Church believes that homosexuality is “a deviation, an irregularity, a wound.”
This is actually a far cry from the ancient teachings of the Catholic Church. The Church use to put homosexuals to death if they so much as even looked passionately at someone of the same sex. In one town in Germany, the Catholic Church pursued, castrated, and then stoned to death two gay men back before the Reformation. Being homosexual was not only sinful, it was condemned. Among the victims of the Inquisition were homosexuals. They were tortured and executed along side any witches, Jews, Muslims, and heretics that the Church couldn’t “convert.” Typically, conversion involved dying horribly during torture or buying one’s way out.
This is, of course, a rather simplified account of the Inquisition. Of course, Pope Benedict use to be head of the remnants of the Inquisition.
It should be noted that the Catholic Church’s view of environmentalism was not always so broad either. Until recently, the Catholic Church all but encouraged the rampant decimation of the Earth’s natural resources.
The Catholic Church is returning to its hardline views on various issues in large part because of they feel that the modern world is threatening to them. Again. The Inquisition was a response to attempts to reform the Catholic Church by priests within its ranks. Instead of hearing out the reformers, the Church split. This lead to numerous religious wars as first England, then Germany and other nations broke from the Church to chart their own courses. Ultimately, these wars lead to the creation of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States which protected churches from government intrusion, and government from religious intrusion, and allowed all peoples to pray to which ever deity they chose.
The Catholic Church today is under fire from the Left by changing views in the developed world such as in Europe, the US, and Canada, and from the Right by hard line Evangelicals who are siphoning off believers. Many Latin Americans are drifting towards the Protestant religions because of their views on contraception and birth control, and many in Europe and North America are drifting away from the Church due to more modern views on religion. They are having a hard time recruiting new priests from the Western world due to the restrictions on priests.
However, rather than modernizing, the Catholic Church has decided to dig in their heels and try very, very hard to avoid dying out entirely despite the fact that they are slowly dying out.
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