Chris Morley's reply to my posting earlier today is so good — powerfully written, clear, and right to the point — that I want to share it with readers in a stand-alone posting. Chris writes,
Francis uttered not a word about the plight of LGBT people in Uganda because, through one of the hierarchy's theological sleights of hand, they've decided we simply don't exist. They've arrogantly decided they accurately know the whole creation script, and that there is only heterosexuality among humankind and gender is always and everywhere only binary and obvious. So we can't (and therefore don't) exist and plainly that means they don't need to make any allowances.
So it is not an oversight of LGBTQ people, but a deliberate wilful institutional blindness to integral aspects of creation.
The catholic church is split into two sections on this, mainly clerics denying the reality of the diversity of human sexuality and gender, for whom we are heterosexuals by default, who are doing our lives all wrong, and the lay majority who are au fait with 21st century scientific realism on matters of sexuality and gender.
It's called 'denial' in psychology and allows people to pretend part of life doesn't exist. It's an essential part of the psychological training the church uses to inculcate priests and believers into institutional misogyny and homophobia. Since we don't exist as LGBTQ people to them, they can carry on behaving in misogynistic and homophobic ways without this much troubling any conscience they might have.
And, of course, this is a big part of what I mean when I speak of how LGBT people are "alone" in the Catholic church. There really is no space of loneliness more intense than the space occupied by people who are treated as if they are not even there.
As the pastoral leaders of the Catholic church do this to LGBT people, many lay Catholics who should and actually do know better remain totally silent about this betrayal of pastoral leadership, because, at some level, they themselves have clearly internalized the message that the Catholic church is a club for heterosexual people, which gives power and privilege above all to heterosexual males (or males who posture as heterosexual males).
I'm weary of this behavior, which seems to me the very antithesis of the gospel proclaimed by Jesus.
