CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman thinks he’s more Catholic than the pope. But he’s also a raging homophobe, so he loves it when right-wing Catholic clerics hate gays as much as he does. So when Pope Francis reportedly refused to condemn a gay man, Chapman was on it.
Chapman complained in a May 21 CNS blog post:
Juan Carlos Cruz, who as a boy was sexually abused by the Chilean priest — abuse that reportedly was covered up by the bishops of Chile — said that in a recent meeting with Pope Francis, the Holy Father told him that God made made him gay and “loves you like this.” The Pope apparently did not say that Cruz should seek to avoid homosexual behavior, which is “intrinsically disordered” and a serious sin, according to the 2,000-year-old teaching of the Catholic Church.
The Church also teaches that sodomy — homosexual behavior, not the inclination — is one of the four sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance.
[…]Apparently, the Pope did not advise Cruz to try to avoid homosexual behavior and seek therapy that could help him to live a celibate life or be healed from his affliction.
The next day, Chapman complained that “several LGBT activists have praised the pontiff” for his reported remarks, huffing that “The Catholic Church does not teach that God made certain people homosexual.” He also quoted a right-wing cardinal ranting that homosexuality “defiles everything, stains everything, pollutes everything. And as for itself, it permits nothing pure, nothing clean, nothing other than filth.…”
On May 23, Chapman had another follow-up quoting Cardinal Timothy Dolan calling for a “clarification” of what the pope said, adding that he does not think the Pope “would feel competent to speak” on whether one is born a homosexual. Chapman wrote that “It is the teaching of the Catholic Church that persons with same-sex attractions must be treated with the same dignity and respect accorded to all people” — then quoted St. Bernardine of Siena calling homosexuality a sin that “has always been detested by all those who live according to God” that reduces people to “vile and useless and putrid things.” He then quoted another saint calling sodomy “disgustingly foul.”
Chapman didn’t explain how these statements mesh with that whole “dignity and respect” thing.