Roman Catholics in Louisiana and elsewhere should not be fooled by the Pope’s decision to conditionally approve priestly blessings of same-sex couples (“Pope Says Priests Can Bless Same-Sex Couples”). Actually, the recent announcement is insulting.
It’s nothing more than a PR stunt aimed at convincing Catholics that the church is becoming more loving and tolerant. It’s not.
I cannot imagine any same-sex couple celebrating the fact that their union is now officially sanctioned in the same way Louisiana priests routinely officiate at blessings of sick dogs and shrimp boats.
Catholics have long been brainwashed into thinking that heterosexual marriages are somehow superior to same-sex unions because the man and woman will “go forth and multiply.”
What about the untold number of Catholic couples who are allowed to celebrate swanky cathedral weddings each year, yet never admit to the priest they actually don’t intend to have children? Why are they placed on the Vatican pedestal?
Meanwhile, thousands of same-sex couples who adopt and foster children no one else wants are told they are unworthy of being married within the church because their same-sex attraction is sinful and “objectively disordered.”
The recent headline about priestly blessings is the latest infuriating reminder of how Pope Francis and his allies mimic the American South of the 1950s. They want us to believe in a “separate but equal” classification for LGBTQ Catholics.
Sorry, but what they’re selling, I ain’t buying. Any Catholic man or woman who happens to be born with a same-sex orientation deserves nothing less than full equality, the end of centuries of discrimination and the same religious and civil marriage rights as everyone else.
ROBERT BRENNAN
New Orleans