The latest Vatican scandal revolves around a word, faggot, that the
Argentine Pope uttered in front of the cardinals gathered in the
assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference. The phrase, as it was
filtered, would be: "there is too much fagotism in the church". That
this really happened and is not fake news is demonstrated by the
apologies in the official press release from the Vatican itself,
addressed to those who would have been offended by the use of that word
(presumably homosexuals). Beyond the charitable journalists who have
insinuated that Bergoglio has a problem with his use of Italian, it
would be relatively easy to consider this episode as another example of
the church's homophobia, an attitude that already needs no
demonstration, if it weren't the Pope himself to have indicated several
times, against the ankylosed structure of the Vatican, that he does not
pretend to set himself up as a judge of homosexuals ("Who am I to
judge", he said upon returning from Brazil in 2013), showing an
"openness" that is completely missing in the previous and contemporary
with his papacy.
To avoid any misunderstanding, Bergoglio continues to distinguish the
sinner from the sin, for which he claims to welcome man without
accepting his sexual desires and practices, as indicated in the official
Catechism in points 2357 to 2359, where it is clearly stated that "the
homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered, contrary to natural law",
however any "unjust discrimination" towards these people must be
avoided, who can also be Christians but in chastity, as if the essence
of the person could be separated from their actions, a " viscount
halved", as Calvino would say. It would be a mistake to consider this
position as equivalent to the prevailing homophobia, à la Vannacci, so
to speak. In the logic brought into play between being and existence,
transgressive action is external to the true essence of man and, for
this reason, sin can be forgiven and desire sublimated. A legitimate
question therefore arises: does Bergoglio's scandalous phrase refer to
the identities of the "seminarians" (the essence), to their "effeminate"
moves (the appearances) or to acts carried out secretly (the practices)?
It may not be that in the clash between the traditionalists and the
so-called progressives within the church, the field of struggle has
become deeper, more structural, involving not only theology and liturgy,
but also the sexual identities of the ecclesiastical army scattered
throughout the world , whose power is concentrated in Rome? In short,
when at the end of May the Pope refers to the future seminarians who
will occupy the already emptied seminaries, could he not also be
referring to the seminarians of the not so distant past, now priests,
bishops, cardinals and even popes?
To understand what lies behind these events we could certainly refer to
the function that Christian convents have historically had as a refuge
for different sexual groups or to the imposition of chastity on priests
by the Council of Trent. However, there is an easier way to understand
what has been happening in the Vatican since the Argentine Jesuit was
elected pope. Let's limit ourselves to the twenty century: during the
first half of this century, Catholic seminaries multiplied in Italy and
in the rest of the Catholic world, particularly in Latin America,
historically poor regions, while the repression continued, in gestures,
words, laws and social practices, of different sexual groups, especially
men. In this context, the "hope" of poor Christian families to have a
son who is a priest, to have access to studies and escape poverty, is
well recorded. Less studied is a parallel phenomenon: the attraction of
boys with doubts about gender identity, mistreated in everyday life and
without prospects of social acceptance, for an institution of men, in
which it was not necessary to continuously demonstrate desires and
attractions towards women, and which worked by co-optation. Literature
and cinema have given abundant descriptions of these stories: small,
very cohesive groups, protected by a priest or bishop, with the promise
of climbing the ecclesial pyramid. As Frédéric Martel writes, in this
double process a "sociological selection" is combined, followed by an
"episcopal selection": archpriests, bishops and cardinals, who belong to
the "parish" (homosexual networks), favor identified seminarians and
priests of their same condition.
We do not know how extensive this process of co-optation was in the 60s,
70s and 80s, those of the seminary studies of ecclesiastics who today
are between forty and eighty years old, but it must have been very
extensive and active, also in reproducing the system of co-optation in
the following years, if the current data on the presence of homosexuals
in the church is so high that it leads Martel to deduce that in the
Vatican eighty percent of the prelates, of all categories, are closed
homosexuals, including some of the latest popes... And this situation is
reproduced in episcopal structures scattered around the world, which
explains both the scandals of recent years and the discovery of
episcopal protection networks that cross continents, from the United
States to Australia. The aforementioned author has collected data in
various continents over the last ten years and, particularly in Rome,
publishing the results of his research in 2019 in a book entitled
Sodoma, published in Italy by Feltrinelli, in which the majority of the
sources are cited by name and surname, as well as the ecclesiastical
figures described. The suspicion of the existence of many homosexuals in
the Vatican is not new, considering the many scandals that have occurred
in the Italian capital, so much so that various dossiers arrived on the
table of Pope Ratzinger, with few reactions, judging the phenomenon as
of little importance, a question of " black sheep" or "rotten apples";
and it couldn't be otherwise given that his secretary was part of the
"parish", as they say in the Vatican, and even the Pope's resignation
aroused some suspicion in this sense, as had already happened to his
brother in Germany.
When the same data arrived on Bergoglio's table, once elected pope, he
was already aware that it was not a question of "infiltrators" or
"minorities" or even of a lobby, but of a structure stratified over the
years, a system of power and control internal that the arrival of the
new pope splits into two parts, especially after the synods of 2014 and
2015, when there was discussion within the church about what to do with
homosexuals, with women and with divorced people who get married again.
Almost ten years later, the war continues in the Vatican and it is not
simply a conflict between factions, right and left, and of money
(control of money is very important here), but of a real struggle
between factions of ecclesiastics strongly homophobic and ecclesiastics
who tend to be gay-friendly, supported by the Pope. The drama, soon to
turn into comedy, is that the homophobic clergy are also homosexuals,
encrusted in their "closets" and showing off their feathers in every
official ceremony. People who don't want anything to change, for fear
that others will discover... what everyone already knows. I'm not
re-evaluating Bergoglio, with his Argentine ambiguities, but I certainly
have to side against Vannacci, Salvini and their dark right, even if
this may sometimes imply strange traveling companions!
Emanuele Amodio
https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Argentine Pope uttered in front of the cardinals gathered in the
assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference. The phrase, as it was
filtered, would be: "there is too much fagotism in the church". That
this really happened and is not fake news is demonstrated by the
apologies in the official press release from the Vatican itself,
addressed to those who would have been offended by the use of that word
(presumably homosexuals). Beyond the charitable journalists who have
insinuated that Bergoglio has a problem with his use of Italian, it
would be relatively easy to consider this episode as another example of
the church's homophobia, an attitude that already needs no
demonstration, if it weren't the Pope himself to have indicated several
times, against the ankylosed structure of the Vatican, that he does not
pretend to set himself up as a judge of homosexuals ("Who am I to
judge", he said upon returning from Brazil in 2013), showing an
"openness" that is completely missing in the previous and contemporary
with his papacy.
To avoid any misunderstanding, Bergoglio continues to distinguish the
sinner from the sin, for which he claims to welcome man without
accepting his sexual desires and practices, as indicated in the official
Catechism in points 2357 to 2359, where it is clearly stated that "the
homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered, contrary to natural law",
however any "unjust discrimination" towards these people must be
avoided, who can also be Christians but in chastity, as if the essence
of the person could be separated from their actions, a " viscount
halved", as Calvino would say. It would be a mistake to consider this
position as equivalent to the prevailing homophobia, à la Vannacci, so
to speak. In the logic brought into play between being and existence,
transgressive action is external to the true essence of man and, for
this reason, sin can be forgiven and desire sublimated. A legitimate
question therefore arises: does Bergoglio's scandalous phrase refer to
the identities of the "seminarians" (the essence), to their "effeminate"
moves (the appearances) or to acts carried out secretly (the practices)?
It may not be that in the clash between the traditionalists and the
so-called progressives within the church, the field of struggle has
become deeper, more structural, involving not only theology and liturgy,
but also the sexual identities of the ecclesiastical army scattered
throughout the world , whose power is concentrated in Rome? In short,
when at the end of May the Pope refers to the future seminarians who
will occupy the already emptied seminaries, could he not also be
referring to the seminarians of the not so distant past, now priests,
bishops, cardinals and even popes?
To understand what lies behind these events we could certainly refer to
the function that Christian convents have historically had as a refuge
for different sexual groups or to the imposition of chastity on priests
by the Council of Trent. However, there is an easier way to understand
what has been happening in the Vatican since the Argentine Jesuit was
elected pope. Let's limit ourselves to the twenty century: during the
first half of this century, Catholic seminaries multiplied in Italy and
in the rest of the Catholic world, particularly in Latin America,
historically poor regions, while the repression continued, in gestures,
words, laws and social practices, of different sexual groups, especially
men. In this context, the "hope" of poor Christian families to have a
son who is a priest, to have access to studies and escape poverty, is
well recorded. Less studied is a parallel phenomenon: the attraction of
boys with doubts about gender identity, mistreated in everyday life and
without prospects of social acceptance, for an institution of men, in
which it was not necessary to continuously demonstrate desires and
attractions towards women, and which worked by co-optation. Literature
and cinema have given abundant descriptions of these stories: small,
very cohesive groups, protected by a priest or bishop, with the promise
of climbing the ecclesial pyramid. As Frédéric Martel writes, in this
double process a "sociological selection" is combined, followed by an
"episcopal selection": archpriests, bishops and cardinals, who belong to
the "parish" (homosexual networks), favor identified seminarians and
priests of their same condition.
We do not know how extensive this process of co-optation was in the 60s,
70s and 80s, those of the seminary studies of ecclesiastics who today
are between forty and eighty years old, but it must have been very
extensive and active, also in reproducing the system of co-optation in
the following years, if the current data on the presence of homosexuals
in the church is so high that it leads Martel to deduce that in the
Vatican eighty percent of the prelates, of all categories, are closed
homosexuals, including some of the latest popes... And this situation is
reproduced in episcopal structures scattered around the world, which
explains both the scandals of recent years and the discovery of
episcopal protection networks that cross continents, from the United
States to Australia. The aforementioned author has collected data in
various continents over the last ten years and, particularly in Rome,
publishing the results of his research in 2019 in a book entitled
Sodoma, published in Italy by Feltrinelli, in which the majority of the
sources are cited by name and surname, as well as the ecclesiastical
figures described. The suspicion of the existence of many homosexuals in
the Vatican is not new, considering the many scandals that have occurred
in the Italian capital, so much so that various dossiers arrived on the
table of Pope Ratzinger, with few reactions, judging the phenomenon as
of little importance, a question of " black sheep" or "rotten apples";
and it couldn't be otherwise given that his secretary was part of the
"parish", as they say in the Vatican, and even the Pope's resignation
aroused some suspicion in this sense, as had already happened to his
brother in Germany.
When the same data arrived on Bergoglio's table, once elected pope, he
was already aware that it was not a question of "infiltrators" or
"minorities" or even of a lobby, but of a structure stratified over the
years, a system of power and control internal that the arrival of the
new pope splits into two parts, especially after the synods of 2014 and
2015, when there was discussion within the church about what to do with
homosexuals, with women and with divorced people who get married again.
Almost ten years later, the war continues in the Vatican and it is not
simply a conflict between factions, right and left, and of money
(control of money is very important here), but of a real struggle
between factions of ecclesiastics strongly homophobic and ecclesiastics
who tend to be gay-friendly, supported by the Pope. The drama, soon to
turn into comedy, is that the homophobic clergy are also homosexuals,
encrusted in their "closets" and showing off their feathers in every
official ceremony. People who don't want anything to change, for fear
that others will discover... what everyone already knows. I'm not
re-evaluating Bergoglio, with his Argentine ambiguities, but I certainly
have to side against Vannacci, Salvini and their dark right, even if
this may sometimes imply strange traveling companions!
Emanuele Amodio
https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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