Pope Francis
In Genesis, it plainly says that “God created man in
his own image.”
In the popular single, “same love,” the
Seattle-based rap artist Macklemore warns of “man-made rewiring of a
predisposition, [of] playing God …” See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1TBgcctcco
.
Macklemore speaks of gay slurs, born of “the same
hate that’s caused wars from religion.”
“When I was
at church,” Macklemore intones, “they taught me something else, if you preach
hate at the services those words aren’t anointed, that holy water that you soak
in has been poisoned.”
Rightly Macklemore concludes, “No law is gonna
change us ..and I can’t change even if I tried.”
One school of genetic science says that gay is
inscribed in our DNA, thus predetermined, and a person who is gay was made that
way, not transformed in some right or wrong alchemic life choice by which one traded
his or her heterosexual nature to become gay.
Thus, as gays are born or made, so must God be gay,
if in truth the scripture has it right that, “God created man in his own
image.”
Of course, nowhere in Genesis is the image of God
characterized as having one or other sexual predisposition meaning, nowhere is
it plainly stated that God is heterosexual as opposed to gay.
Perhaps man’s understanding of God in our image is
where we make our mistake - that we presume to know the mind and nature of God.
Plainly, man and woman are foolish when they discriminate
against anyone based on pejorative presumptions that they have not been made in
“God’s image.”
Pope Francis this past week made some startling and
encouraging declarations about the Roman Catholic Church’s attitude toward
those who are gay.
Pope Francis said, “In Buenos Aires I used to
receive letters from homosexual persons who are ‘socially wounded’ because they
tell me that they feel like the church has always condemned them. But the church does not want to do this. During the return flight from Rio de Janeiro
I said that if a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I
am no one to judge. By saying this, I
said what the catechism says. Religion
has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in
creation has set us free; it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the
life of a person.” (For the full
interview – see http://www.americamagazine.org/pope-interview
)
Pope Francis went further, “A person once asked me,
in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality, I replied with another
question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the
existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human
being. In life, God accompanies persons,
and we must accompany them, starting from their situation. It is necessary to accompany them with
mercy. When that happens, the Holy
Spirit inspires the priest to say the right thing.”
While anyone presumes to understand the image of
God, we may fairly ask whether we understand ourselves.
Pope Francis said, “human self-understanding changes
with time and so also human consciousness deepens.” Put another way, he said, “So human beings in
time change the way they perceive themselves.”
By way of example, he referenced how “when slavery was accepted or the
death penalty was allowed without any problem.” In this manner, Pope Francis says, “So we grow
in the understanding of the truth.”
This is how Pope Francis, the leader of a church of more
than 1 Billion persons, “manifest[s] his conscience.”
It really boils down to that passage in Matthew, judge
not lest you be judged. How we treat
others manifests our conscience – or the failure to have one.
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