Even the Holy See is hard up for tourism dollars. While Pope Benedict XVI doesn’t have an official tourism bureau, at least one of his minions is acting as the default travel cheerleader for the Vatican. And he’d love to show you around the place, so long as you only have intercourse with the opposite sex.
As you would expect, visiting Vatican City is often the priority of Catholic pilgrimages. But the layperson is welcome too. Well, laypersons of a certain persuasion.
The Vatican’s Bishop Janusz Kaleta (he holds the title of Apostolic Administrator of Atyrau, Kazakhstan) says he’s a big fan of religious pilgrimages — because “they are mostly connected not with the most rich of society; most are of average to the lower incomes” — but if you’re looking to cruise at a discotheque, go elsewhere.
“The church teachings are from the Bible,” he says. “If we change this teaching, we will not be the Catholic Church. Don’t expect the Catholic church to change these issues, because it is our identity. … I consider if someone is homosexual, it is a provocation and an abuse of this place. Try to go to a mosque if you are not Muslim. It is abuse of our buildings and our religion because the church interprets our religion that it is not ethical. We expect respect of our church as we expect to respect that a person does not have to belong to the Catholic Church. If you have different ideas, go to a different location.”
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Fine, but might the future hold a place when the gays will be welcome? “Such demonstrations are just not ethical.”
So much for Holy Pride.
(Thanks, Andrew!)
Andrew
” If you have different ideas, go to a different location.”
Thanks Bishop. I’m changing my travel plans from Rome to Athens.
Peter
Apparently celibate priests are no longer part of their identity; but a declining membership and therefor, income, is not desirable either. Income has always been “ethical”. So now Married Anglican Priests are welcome. Interesting situation.
cheesus
It always tickles me to see pedophile abuse managers talk about ethics.
romeo
I’ve schlepped through the Vatican from one end to the other. Seen all that eye-popping architectural grandeur. Gaped in awe at the super human grandeur of St. Peter’s and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Virtually all of it created by queers. Where do these guys get their fucking nerve.
LOL, toward the end of one of the tours you go into this hall with a lot of Roman artifacts (Church has more Greek and Roman stuff than anybody). Prominently displayed was one of the statues the emperor Hadrian had made of his lover, Antinuous (sic). Jesus, talk about timelessly HOT !!! You wonder how long that bunch of marys there are going to be able to keep this shit up.
RJ
Err…
Catholicism, despite being anti-gay marriage and rights, happens to be, for the most part, friendly to homosexuals. Where is this sentiment coming from? “You’re not welcome here if you’re gay” so happens to be exactly what churches throughout the world have avoided teaching, recognizing the acceptance of homosexual persons while disagreeing with the sin they engage in, which is given the same credence as any other sexual sin.
The way this bishop words it is that Roman Catholics who are gay are no longer Roman Catholics, despite sexual sin never being grounds for excommunication.
In the near future, I plan a trip to Europe. I plan to go to Rome. I plan to tour the Vatican and experience the magnitude of history enveloped within.
Or will I have to walk through a gaydar scanner before I enter? Oh… I’ll bring my boyfriend and might be perfectly willing to kiss him on the lips; something, if I’m not mistaken, is perfectly acceptable in Roman Catholic faith, for it is the act of lust and sodomy that is forbidden and requires participation in the sacrament of reconciliation.
Gives new meaning to the term “Forgive us, father, for we are gay.”
RJ
Also, why is it that when heterosexuals go here, they are on a holy pilgrimage, but when homosexuals go here, they are holding a demonstration?
Are we significantly different enough where a straight man and a gay man standing side by side admiring the wonder of the basilica have two different intentions?
The hypocrisy and hubris in his statements are dated and insulting… I mean… who would cruise at the Vatican? That’s like a straight man trying to find sex in a convent… just… not going to happen (well, not always, at least).
romeo
RJ: the Church has lost all it’s good thinkers. They all got boyfriends and moved on. All the Church as left is these doofus’s from the outlands. Not a pretty thing in the long run.
Several years back a bishop in Southern California banned a prominent, wealthy Catholic man from being buried in a Catholic cemetery because he was gay, even though he’d been a major contributor to Catholic charities. There is, apparently, no limit to the dumbfuckery of the modern Catholic Church.
dfrw
As if.
liverboy
@Romeo
“All the Church as left is these doofus’s from the outlands.”
OMG too funny and true!
staciegirlie
The position of the Popehood is probably the antichrist. Ooops, scratch probably.
1EqualityUSA
Idolatry, pope worship. Loser! Christ will set them “straight”.
Ken A.
Who cares, go where you want to go. People mistake the Pope as the eyes and ears of heaven which he is not. He is just a man. If you want to go to Roman go to Rome, pay no attention.
Mike L.
Will there ever be an openly gay Pope?
romeo
@ Liverboy: You just know they monitor these sites to see what we’re saying about them. LOL Also to sneak a peek at “The Morning Goods.” I can just see them scratching their heads and muttering “ch’e questo “doofus” ? LMAO
Chip
Remark. I’m not muslim but have been welcomed in mosques many times when I go with my friend.
Blake
“Try to go to a mosque if you are not Muslim.”
Nice try, father. This non-Muslim had no problem visiting mosques in Instanbul. Or Hindu temples in India. Nobody asked for my membership card in Israel, either. Don’t throw other religions (good or bad) under the bus as a defense to your horrible policies.
rudy
LGBT people should not be spending their hard-earned dollars to prop up these gay-bashing peodophiles anyway.
It just gives them more money to fund ballot initiatives to take away our rights.
OhHim
He did me once. Not very good.
Richard
Who cares what this damaged person thinks. He’s sad and I’m not interested in the materialism of his church anyway.
Jon from Maine
What about all the gay priests? Can they never go home..(Homo)
terrwill
Hey Fr.Fuckface………don’t you think it may be a good idea to kinda cool it with the Homos? Ya know a lot of your Dioceses are going bankrupt because of a few “incidents” where little boys pee pees fell into strange places where they kinda shouldn’t have been……….Ya know the old story about people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones?? The best religious story I read today where the new Episcopal Bishop installed on Long Island made a great point that “some religions refuse to acknowledge they have Gay Clergy”……All of you who can guess which religion he was refering to get a piece of leftover Haloweener candy!!
Josh
Isn’t “religion” over yet? Hurry up.
jarvisbearcub
1 in 2 catholic priests is gay. 1 in 2.
B
I wouldn’t read to much into the bishop’s statements – if you check the original article, his English is very fractured, so it is not clear if he actually understood the question, and might have thought that he was being asked about sexual activity on the premises. It is just hard to tell – in the original article the interviewer seemed to think he might have been confused and tried to repeat the question and explain that, but you can’t tell if any of it sank in.
Jason NH
Jesus Christ “B” do you work for the Vatican? Your comment defies even the tiniest bit of logic. Excuses. Excuses.
Go put your alter-boy costume back on and do what you’re told.
Bertie
is the Pope’s longtime BF “Gorgeous George” aware of this stance?
http://www.bestweekever.tv/2006-12-22/crush-of-the-day-monsignor-georg-ganswein/
Romans already know that Vatican City is already as gay as it gets.
Love those sexy priest calendars they put out over there.
Nizara
The Pope’s handsome man servant may attest to this policy !!
google : Monsignor Georg Ganswein
Jerry Priori
The Vatican is basically just a museum with its own government. Since when have gays been forbidden to enter a museum?
Disgusted American
speaking of that – wonder what would happen if 2 gay people innocently kissed while touring there…? (I aint talking about tonsil hockey)
alan brickman
Who are they Kidding??….
B
Jason NH wrote, “Jesus Christ “B” do you work for the Vatican? Your comment defies even the tiniest bit of logic. Excuses. Excuses.” Grow up, Jason, and learn what the real world is like.
If you look at the article QUEERTY linked to, which has much more of the conversation, his limited English skills would be much more obvious. Even the interviewer was suspicious and tried to ask in two separate ways (whether the second sank in is not clear). So, maybe this guy is a bigoted idiot, but just possibly he didn’t understand the question or maybe it came out wrong. Given the language issue, you simply should not jump to conclusions.
“Go put your alter-boy costume back on and do what you’re told.”
Try acting like an adult. It might be a new experience for you.
Disgusted American
I agree with Sarah Silverman – Sell the Vatican,FEED the world.
B
RJ wrote, “Also, why is it that when heterosexuals go here, they are on a holy pilgrimage, but when homosexuals go here, they are holding a demonstration?”
Well, one possibility is that it is a case of someone with a limited understanding of English not being able distinguish the use of “homosexual” to refer to sexual activity versus its use to refer to a sexual orientation. Given the Catholic Church’s beliefs on the subject, it might be a tad rude or disrespectful to hide behind something in the Sistine Chapel and give your boyfriend a blow job.
Read the article QUEERTY linked to. There’s more of the conversation there. What QUEERTY quoted was a very short snippet that sounded the closest to normal English. His abilities to understand or speak English weren’t quite down there with “Me Tarzan, you Jane”, but were bad enough for one to be just a tad suspicious of any assumption of what he said was actually what he meant to say.
Vo Dong Cung
Will some friends take the real thing, the real microscope, to see how much microbes on the Pope’s hand during his mass. That’s the real holly.
Mark4
B is pathetic. Stop apologizing for Catholics and their Christian bigotry. You’re just giving them permission to continue their disgraceful behavior.
B
Mark4 wrote, “B is pathetic. Stop apologizing for Catholics and their Christian bigotry. You’re just giving them permission to continue their disgraceful behavior.” Words of another idiot!
Saying some guy who can only manage very broken English just might have gotten things a bit scrambled, is not “apologizing for Catholics”.
If you want to criticize them, do it for what they are really doing – it is bad enough that you do not have to exaggerate. You can start with the money they helped raise to support Proposition Eight, attempts to prevent gays from adopting children, etc. Those are real issues. Some guy from an obscure country whose name ends in “stan” and who probably speaks like that character Borat is not worth getting upset over – unless he actually means what his garbled English suggests.
Mark4
And … you give him – a Catholic Bishop the benefit of the doubt? My point exactly. Pathetic.
Chris
I agree with No. 21 Josh. I can’t even force myself to get upset by what that guy says, because he’s basing these statements off of a bunch of fairy tales.
This is really equivalent to the cliched elementary school “No girls/boys allowed” clubs, formed on the basis of “cooties.” Except in this case the club is some so-called holy, magical land, and cooties are “sins.” Come to think of it, the elementary school kids seem a little mature compared to these people…
Wilberforce
His fashion sense needs work, which immediately puts the rest of his judgement into question. The white silk and gold inlay would be ok, but it’s too voluminous. And the hat. Please. If he can’t find a flattering drape, why should anyone listen to his political opinions? And what happened to the mini cape? That thing was so camp. I’d wear it for Halloween, with gold lame tights and a saber. So very Swiss Guard.
dontblamemeivotedforhillary
The Pope is a Nazi, worships a non-existent God, wears red Prada shoes, condones the adult molestation of children, counsels not using protection against a fatally transmitted disease, is the Bishop on a Chessboard where the King hires whores to his cabinet while his wife goes on National TV clutching Rosary beads of infidelity in a country run by organized crime on a hotbed of volcanic and seismic oblivion who’s days are long-faded as an empire into a borderline third-world country, at least compared to Western Europe. Milan is fashionably irrelevant, Venice is a big stinky toilet and Rome is the worst city in Europe. STOP THE PRESSES: We found Hades and the Antichrist is a German in a Frau-dress!
B
Mark4, “And … you give him – a Catholic Bishop the benefit of the doubt? My point exactly. Pathetic.” What’s pathetic is your bigotry, which is blinding you to the fact that he was obviously using a language in which he was not even close to fluent, not to mention your bad manners.
It has nothing to do with him being a bishop – I’d have raised the same issue for anyone with such fractured English who said something that sounded way off – its plausible that either what he tried to say or how he understood the question was very garbled.
B
Disgusted American wrote, “speaking of that – wonder what would happen if 2 gay people innocently kissed while touring there…? (I aint talking about tonsil hockey)”
Well, http://www.qdomine.com/Morality_pages/MHR.htm (if you scroll down a bit) has a video of an October 7, 2007 mass presided over by an archbishop in San Francisco. Draw your own conclusions (the web site belongs to a ‘traditional’ group not at all pleased with what transpired). The archbishop “apologized” to traditional groups after the fact. During the service, having gone through the ritual who knows how many thousands of time, he was probably running on autopilot, as distracted as those two airline pilots who overshot their destination by 150 miles.
In any case, the whole group was as gay as can be, as befits a church located in the Castro. There’s some ‘peck on the cheek’ kissing on the video.
romeo
@ Dontblameme #38 — I just love you, but try to take a breath every now and again.
BTW: Venice does stink, but it’s so beautiful. LOL
dontblamemeivotedforhillary
Romeo, Romeo! I just do drive-by blogging every now and then! It’s for the reactions that I don’t read or until I’m banned by Queerty! If you poke the stick at them enough, they lose it and there ya go! It’s quite entertaining to know that a shallow insecure jaded queen who tries to divide gays with snarkiness can actually be hurt rather than pitching us against each other. Can you imagine the untolled damage they are doing to unstable queerty readers with their constant negative reinforcement of how much the world hates us for who we love. Black on Black Crime is the New Gay!
BTW – The Pope wears diapers and likes boiled eggs rolled down the red carpet into his open fork-tongued mouth! God (who doesn’t exist) told me!
mark
Standing in their ermine capes and tiaras in front of the queer art treasures they either pilfered or purchased….no hetero
mark
Vatican….back at ya
http://s810.photobucket.com/albums/zz24/Qbear_01/?action=view¤t=GuanoPope2.jpg
mark
Janusz speak up honey, the constant drip drip drip of Santorum leaking out of bloodied altar boy’s a$$es drowned out what you were saying.
SoylentDiva
Pope Nazi can go screw himself.
B
Mike L., “Will there ever be an openly gay Pope?” The answer is almost certainly “yes”, provided we don’t kill ourselves off in a nuclear war or by environmental damage before it would happen. There have been 266 popes in the past 2000 years (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12272b.htm) so with gays representing around 3 percent of the population, you can figure on a gay pope every 250 years or so.
The main question is whether the first openly gay pope will come out before or after he becomes the pope. Once a pope, always a pope unless said pope resigns. There is no mechanism to impeach one – it would not be consistent with their “infallibility” doctrine.
If a closeted gay cleric rises through the ranks and becomes the pope, with no way to kick him out, he can come out, make an “ex cathedra” statement that “Gay is OK”, and there is nothing they can do about it except cringe. Well, I guess they could kill him off, but that option is more in the realm of conspiracy theories and Hollywood movies.
If one in a hundred gay popes would be willing to rock the boat and come out after being elected, figure on about 25000 years before it happens (unless attitudes change before that). If that sounds like a long time, remember that it took them nearly 400 years to admit their mistake about Galileo.
romeo
@ Mark: Cool pic. Wish I had Photoshop (and knew how to use it). Is that you flippin’ em off? Cute.
@ B: Interesting numbers crunching, but I think historically the instances of “inconvenient” popes dying an unnatural death is fairly substantial. Can’t remember his name, but wasn’t there a pope in there about 30 years ago that only lasted for a month or so? Remember thinking it looked suspicious when I read about it. The catholic church has got to be the largest privately held corporation in the world. Those guys are into power, not Jesus.
Spent many a night in Rome trying to get some decent tunes on the radio. Station after station is some old priest droning on and on. Town had a great past (LOL) but boring as shit now. If you go to a little square in the old part called Campo de Fiori, you see a great statue in the middle. It’s the philosopher, and major swinger, Giordano Bruno. He’s in a hooded cape glowering toward the Vatican. Even the Italians know, it’s just that the church is such a habit there, especially among old peasant women — who are the church’s power base. LOL The Church chained him to an iron cross and burned him alive on that spot, just for voicing a few doubts about their bullshit. They’d be doing that still if they could get away with it.
TikiHead
I still love Betty Bowers’ (America’s Best Christian™) comment on the Vatican: It looks like it was decorated by a New Jersey florist who won the Lottery.
Jeff Johnson
They are all a bunch of closeted Homosexuals in the church. I mean just look at them…….the clothes, the building, all men….it’s clear to anyone with half a brain.
rudy
No. 40 · B
The Roman Church spends millions of dollars slandering gays and lesbians, trying to prevent those of us who don’t have them from getting our civil rights, and trying to roll back the rights from those of us who won them.
Fighting back is self-defense, not bigotry.
Given all they have done to us and all they are trying to do, there is absolutely no reason for a gay person to imagine anything the Vatican says is motivated by goodness or a sense of justice.
Francis
The Catholic Church needs to divest itself of all its art created by homosexuals and all of it Pagan treasures. Granted, it can’t really tear down the sistine Chapel but they should paint over Michaelangelo’s work. Then it needs to purge itself of all homosexual clergy. Then it needs to enforce all of its proscriptions against birth control for families. And it needs to flat out deny marriage annulments, no matter how much money they bring in.
romeo
@ Francis: Interesting idea. Remember, though, the buildings themselves were designed by homosexuals in the main. If they removed all the “homo” stuff, the Vatican would just be a parking lot! LOL
@ Rudy: Good point about “self defense.”
mark
@Romeo
The flipping off pic is Andy Towle from Towleroad
http://www.towleroad.com/
I wish I looked that good….that boat sailed decades ago
B
Romeo wrote, “Can’t remember his name, but wasn’t there a pope in there about 30 years ago that only lasted for a month or so? Remember thinking it looked suspicious when I read about it.”
What probably happened is that the cardinals were more or less deadlocked so they put in a guy they knew wouldn’t last very long as a compromise, and he ended up lasting for a much shorter time than they expected. (Some nut will probably complain that this is some pro-catholic excuse, but the model is really that the Vatican is not much different internally than any political party).
I thought the numbers were pretty funny – expected time of 25000 years for an openly gay pope! No wonder they are into eternity.
B
rudy wrote, “No. 40 · B The Roman Church spends millions of dollars slandering gays and lesbians, trying to prevent those of us who don’t have them from getting our civil rights, and trying to roll back the rights from those of us who won them. Fighting back is self-defense, not bigotry.”
Rudy, you missed the point – we weren’t talking about the Roman Catholic Church but rather one particular bishop who (it seems) was interviewed in English, a language that he quite obviously was not very good at. The interviewer seemed to think he didn’t understand but (being as lazy as most reporters) gave up after asking twice rather than rescheduling the interview after hiring a translator.
I didn’t take what the bishop said all that seriously because the language barrier made the quote an unreliable indicator of what he actually meant, and the comment about bigotry was a response to someone who was not willing to make allowances for language barriers. It’s no different than making fun of an immigrant who is still learning English.
As to your “fighting back”, you should remember that “military strategy 101” includes trying to figure out what the enemy is actually trying to do. In the first Iraq war, U.S. casualties were incredibly low because the Iraqis had their artillery pointed in the wrong direction (the U.S. managed to fool them about which direction the invasion was coming from), so the Iraqis were clobbered because they couldn’t turn the guns around before they were overrun. It’s the same thing here – if you want to fight the Catholic Church, you have to do it efficiently and treating broken English as reliable intelligence is not the way to do that.
“Given all they have done to us and all they are trying to do, there is absolutely no reason for a gay person to imagine anything the Vatican says is motivated by goodness or a sense of justice.”
Who said anything about them being motivitated by “goodness or a sense of justice”? It was simply a case of noting that someone with very limited English could easily get things garbled. We weren’t talking about the Vatican but rather the statement of a single individual in a language he was not comfortable using.
Try http://foundintranslation.berkeley.edu/?p=4338 and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/6239659/Sign-Language-special-toilet-humour.html if you are having trouble understanding the point.
Colin Payne
Hello B at #32. There’s not really much of anything IN the Sistine Chapel to hide behind…except a lot of tourists all taking flash pictures of the ceiling and slowly ruining it for future generations. At #23 JARVISBEARCUB – 50% of Catholic priests are gay? Are you high? There’s a whole S**t load of them to be sure, but not 1 in 2.
Also, St Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel are consecrated churches where kissing of any sort, hetero or homosexual, would be inappropriate.
That said, the bathrooms are said to be active and the guy this article about is a complete and utter fool. Talk about intrinsically evil! This guy fits that bill completely.
Sarah Arthur
erm has this Bishop ever heard of the many hundreds of mosques around the world who are open to anyone…?
B
Colin Payne wrote, “Hello B at #32. There’s not really much of anything IN the Sistine Chapel to hide behind…except a lot of tourists all taking flash pictures of the ceiling and slowly ruining it for future generations.”
… I’ve heard about people hiding behind (or in) a circle of like minded individuals for such purposes, mostly in bars that officially do not condone that sort of thing. Not that I was being serious – the idea of a surreptitious blow job in the Sistine Chapel was meant to be merely amusing.
“At #23 JARVISBEARCUB – 50% of Catholic priests are gay? Are you high? There’s a whole S**t load of them to be sure, but not 1 in 2.” I saw once saw an article with that number, attributing it to a gay psychoanalyst who had treated quite a few priests. It was meant as a historical number, and may not be current. In Catholic-influenced cultures where men are expected to get married, the only excuse for not getting married was to become a priest. So, closeted gay guys looking for an excuse jumped from the frying pan into the fire. I think the “1 in 2” figure included closeted gays – many so deeply closeted that they were fooling themselves. There’s probably less pressure to get married today than in the past.
MB
Janusz is a comedic genius!