En Passant

The hierarchy of the Catholic Church has recently been strutting its homophobia and misogyny on the catwalk of reaction. 

Recently I wrote on this site (Religion, marxism and all that jazz) that we on the Left should not be dismissive of religious people because with billions in the Christian and Muslims faiths, they will be part of the revolution.  I drew a distinction however between the leadership of the various faiths and ordinary worshippers, arguing these differences reflected class divisions in society.  In the case of the Catholic Church it’s the rulers and the ruled; the empowered and the disempowered.

Here is a translated quote of the Pope’s discussion recently of human ecology, a comment that provoked some reporters to allege that the Pope was saying homosexuality was a greater threat to society than global warming.

We need something like human ecology, meant in the right way. The Church speaks of human nature as man or woman and asks that this order is respected. This is not out-of-date metaphysics. It comes from the faith in the Creator and from listening to the language of creation.

Although he doesn’t mention the word homosexual, it is pretty obvious what the Pope means. After all, how can anyone misinterpret his comments about “human ecology, meant in the right way”? Or that “human nature is man or woman”.

He is saying homosexuality is unnatural and a threat to society.  Really?  How so?  The Pope doesn’t explain the link between homosexual activity and the threat to us or human ecology (other than that homosexuality is contrary to the Pope’s views of the world.  That doesn’t make it a threat, and such reasoning displays dictatorial or even fascist undertones.) Since we have survived as a race for somewhere up to one hundred thousand years and homosexuality has been a normal part of our societies during that time, I fail to see what threat it poses.

But clearly the Pope didn’t come out and say gays are a greater threat than global warming as some reports suggested. 

A real threat to many humans in Southern Africa is HIV/AIDS. The Pope’s proscription of condom use has contributed markedly to the epidemic sweeping Africa.  That is unnatural.

I am unsure how lay Catholics react to this sort of hysteria about gays, and about condoms, and about the Pill (more of which anon.)

I remember Trotsky in his book, My Life, writing about his school days.  He said there were three types of people even then; those who followed the rules, those who were ambivalent or indifferent, and those who rebelled.  He saw this as something embedded in humanity.  (Now this may be historical and seemingly anti-Marxist since people change in struggle, but I suspect it applies generally under capitalism in times of class peace, and in particular in the  Church. )

Certainly the Canberra Times letters page indicates the Pope’s homophobia offended some Catholics while some were supportive of his comments. The indifferent I assume didn’t bother to write in.  (Hardly a representative sample I know,  but it’s the the only indication I have.)

Another point. If human nature is man or woman, why are all the Church hierarchy men?  That seems, to use the Pope’s logic, unnatural.

The Pope is continuing the Church’s attack on homosexuality as outside the god-given order. This attempt to control sexuality (and monopolise the ideology surrounding creation, birth and death) has been a constant theme of the Church, especially as its power has declined because of the rise of capitalism and the modern State. So the Church has withdrawn more and more into the mystic realms of life and death and the control it can exercise through strict sexual mores.

But that’s not the only issue that the Church has decided to comment on.

A Vatican newspaper recently declared that the Pill is degrading the environment and helping make men infertile.  How?

Well, supposedly when women on the Pill pee, they release all these extra hormones into the environment. Tonnes apparently.  This is making men infertile.  (Maybe it is turning us gay!)

Others say the argument is rubbish. Gianbenedetto Melis from the contraceptive research association says that once metabolised the hormone loses its characteristics (i.e. before being excreted.) Flavia Franconi from the Italian Society of Pharmacology says that hormones are everywhere, in plastic, disinfectant, even the meat we eat.  

Again, this is an example of the Church’s attempt to control sexuality and the reasons for love making, one of the few areas it now has any influence over, at least among its own congregation. For Catholics love making is a gift from God for procreation, although the rhythm method the Church allows seems to contradict that. 

The Church is now using the environmental angle to bolster its case that contraception offends the God-given human order.  The discussion about human ecology sends hints (or is it dog whistling?) about the environment and the natural order.  (To talk of a natural order has distinct underpinnings in fascist thought, to my mind at least.)

There is something else here too. Like racism, homophobia and sexism divide the working class. The capitalist class use these issues to keep workers from unifying despite “differences” of race, nationality, gender and sexual orientation. But the day to day wage slavery of workers, the very act of providing surplus value to the bosses, means some workers are prepared to adopt these divisive “ideologies”. Only in mass working class strugggles does the crap of ages disappear.

So the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is not only constantly trying to reinvent itself and modernise its essentially reactionary message, it is also performing a valuble function for the bosses in creating or reinforcing artifical divisions in the working class.

I suspect we will hear more and more about human ecology and the environment from the Pope in the coming years as the Church hierarchy seeks new ways to bolster and re-inforce its relevance.

Given the two examples I have used, we can expect little more from the hierarchy of the Catholic Church than misogyny and homophobia re-badged in dubious science and clothed in mysticism about the way god created the world and our supposedly natural role (narrowly envisioned) in that grand plan.