Gonna drive a schism in America if they do that (well, another one—we already host at least one anti-pope that I know of—but others haven't been as big as I expect this one to be). American conservative Catholic media have been propagandizing against liberalizing the church for decades, especially around sexual morality issues.

I gotta say, I kinda agree with them on the Latin mass thing. I'm not Catholic (or religious at all, in fact) but the magic and gravitas and historical continuity of the service sounding like something out of Indiana Jones or The Exorcist or what (one imagines) a tenth-century mass would have sounded like, would be one of the bigger draws for me, if I were looking to convert.

[EDIT] OTOH I know at least one formerly-atheist gay guy who decided to pick up religion years and years ago, and definitely, for-sure would have become Catholic (see above about the pomp and circumstance being a big draw)—if not for their stance on homosexuality. IIRC he went Episcopalian instead. Maybe there's a vast untapped reserve of converts there?

Thanks for linking this. I needed a good chuckle this morning.

On a more serious note. I'm gay and if you want to know why Pride parades, Pride month, and being out is so important, it's this sort of rhetoric. Calls for "biblical morality" and "homosexual crimes" to be punished are coded calls for our destruction. This sort of thinking is always absolutist and apocalyptic. There is nothing I can do to "tone it down" that will make them happy. They simply want us dead. Being out is the only real defense we have because we then go from a demonized other to just your friend, coworker, or family member.

We're here, we're queer - fuck off.

For anyone curious about what oramit's talking about: Gay people have tried extremely hard in the past to "fit in", especially during the AIDS crisis. Gay catholics at the time were forced to face the fact that, if they acquired AIDS (at that time known clinically as "Gay-related immune deficiency") they will have to face the horrific and slow deaths without the support of their religious leaders due to homophobia. These were churchgoing, churchfearing, model catholics who did everything they could to fit into their parish and the church turned their back on them to the point where they could not even hold bible studies amongst themselves on church grounds.

Basically, the way AIDS victims were dehumanized, mistreated, overall publicly humiliated, shattered any real belief that if you just tried to fit in enough society will treat you as one of their own. Ultimately, the LGBTQ community were the only people supporting the LGBTQ community, and this required radical self-acceptance movements in the face of horrific death and apathy.

The term "gay Catholic" masks the distinction between a Catholic who is merely same-sex attracted (absolutely nothing wrong with this, per se) and a "Catholic" who actively pursues sodomitic relationships and/or attempts to justify it as consistent with Catholic teaching on morals. During the AIDS crisis there was quite a lot of masking of this distinction, and quite a lot of outrage (among outsiders) over the fact that the Church would not condone the use of contraception as a prophylactic against HIV. Indeed, we often hear about the former meaning of the term "gay" as "mirthful" or "joyful", but between this meaning and the popular meaning at present, the term mostly denoted a person who was generally sexually-uninhibited or promiscuous, even a prostitute. There is plenty of data out there that would suggest that men pursuing sodomitic lifestyles enjoy many sexual partners, despite the bourgeois depiction of the "married" gay couple popular in the media. Condemning such lifestyles is entirely in line with what Catholics have historically believed about morals and moral instruction. Not sure why that is hard for people to grasp.

I'm Catholic. I'm sure there are some Catholics that believe the stuff you're saying, just like there are some Baptists who are Westboro Baptists. Just to keep the categories clear.

Crack open the Catechism once in a while.

You're trying to excuse the way the Catholic church turned their backs on mass death and suffering within their communities by blaming the sufferers. This is the precise horrible truth that gay people were faced with during the AIDS crisis, when them and their peers were dying horrific death en masse and they were at the same time being ousted from their bible studies and refused to be given final rites on their deathbeds.

The church will watch gay people die on the street and spit on their graves like everyone else, and all the speech of forgiveness and compassion was actually a lie. Gay people aren't equal humans in their eyes. Like I said before: the only people supporting queer people were the queer people. The only thing they could do is love themselves, for the world was glad their deaths were painful, slow, and public.

These instances of rejection of final rights - were perhaps some of these cases due to the fear of transmission prior to common understanding of the means of transmission? Same for the Bible studies?

Again with the term "queer", this masks the important distinction mentioned above, because its use presents certain actions as morally-neutral. Many of us view(ed) the AIDS crisis as being used as a justification for sinful actions. I'm sure you're familiar with the Stop the Church event (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_the_Church). It is rather obvious, based on who organized this event and others like it that they were opposed to actual teachings of the Church, such as its condemnation of sodomy, contraception (even as a prophylactic against contracting diseases) and even abortion.

We're not calling for your destruction, we're calling for your conversion.

Yeah... the Church's long and violent history of colonialism and cultural genocide proves that to be a distinction without a difference.

Colonialism + condemning homosexuality is a bizarre equivocation. In any case, people in the Church obviously aren't perfect and many were involved in destructive behavior, but the Church was the first European institution to formally condemn slavery and the natural rights of infidels. Secularists often don't realize that most of what they believe is just bastardized, naturalized Christianity and that the crushing conditions of capitalism are mostly a result of abandoning this faith.

God I can’t stand communities like this.

I don't understand why this is such a big issue.

If you grew up in a heavily Catholic area in America, then chances are that you know at least one if not a few people who were resigned to becoming clergy because it was the easiest way for them buy into a system that either repressed their natural sexual urges or gave them an out from society for not having any in the first place.

Please don't do this here.