89 Comments

• STEVENSTAR | Dec 30, 2012, 11:24 AM EST

  McTire | Dec 27, 2012, 09:08 PM EST THE SEX SCANDALS ARE IRRELEVANT HERE ? TRY TELLING THAT TO THE FAMILYS AND KIDS OF THE ABUSED VICTIMS YOU SILLY IGNORANT PERSON YOU...

• eiriamach | Dec 29, 2012, 09:42 AM EST

  McTire blames relativism, church-hatred, fashion and confusion, and liberal "double-talk" for rejection of the pope's message. It's completely short-sighted and irrational, McTire, to endorse a speech hopelessly flawed by theological and empirical bloopers, as well as a lamentable absence of Christian charity. Now that you've had your say, do you really think your little tantrum could persuade anyone to agree with Benedict XVI?

• McTire | Dec 27, 2012, 09:08 PM EST

  The sex-abuse scandals are relevant here only to the extent that they reflect (a) the pervasiveness and depth of human sin and (b) the degree to which modern moral relativism has corrupted all institutions. Of course, they also serve as a useful smoke screen for those who hate the Church or seek to bend her to their own scandalous ways...Science, including medical science, provides no evidence about homosexuality, except that it exists, and that we knew already. The only difference today is that it has, for various reasons, become fashionable among relatively privileged people who are terribly confused about all sorts of other things as well. The Holy Father knows perfectly well that he speaking truths that far too many simply do not want to hear. He must do so nonetheless. Those who claim to be Catholic while engaging in hate-filled double-talk about profound moral and social issues (yes, I mean the "liberals") are wolves among the sheep.

• STEVENSTAR | Dec 27, 2012, 09:00 PM EST

  @@Gearoid4 | Dec 27, 2012, 11:44 I TAKE IT YOUR AMERICAN CAUSE YOU ALWAYS HAVE AMERICANS QUOTING THE BIBLE AND BEEN 'VERY' OPIONATED AND OTT... AS AN IRISH MAN WHO LIVES OUTSIDE AMERICA IM WONDERING WAS IT IN GODS PLAN FOR PEOPLE TO GO AROUND SHOOTING INNOCENT CHILDREN IN SCHOOLS AND WAS IT IN GODS PLAN TO LIVE IN A COUNTRY WHERE PEOPLE LOVE TO CARRY GUNS ..WALK IN SHOPPING CENTERS AND SHOOT PEOPLE... I WONDER WAS THAT IN GODS PLAN FOR YOUR COUNTRY ?? IM IRISH I LIVE IN IRELAND AND I PERSOONALLY HAVE NO PROBLEMS WITH TWO PEOPLE OF THE SAME SEX LOVING EACH OTHER ....

• Gearoid4 | Dec 27, 2012, 11:44 AM EST

  @Eiriamach, The sexual differences between men and women are what makes their relationship unique in terms,of sexual reproduction and close,mutual bonding which helps them to form that union which is so sacred. There are only two genders"male and female he made them" and this is key to understanding God's plan for the human race. Gender is fixed but in the world of modern day "gender" studies at universities, it seems that we have a whole range of sexualties to chose from, which seem to be a result more of psycho-sexual confusion, sexual experimentation and narcissim. These sexual "identities" do not seem to be fixed and one cannot see any permanence in them and are rather subjective. Indeed God as in the Creation story of Genesis did place man and woman(all made after His own image) on Earth to mate as a mutual couple, bonded together by love and open to procreation. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them(Genesis 1:27). There was and still is nothing undifferentiated about that reality and this is why people of Faith are determined to preserve marriage in it's properly understood form.

• STEVENSTAR | Dec 26, 2012, 10:11 PM EST

  HE'D BE FAR BETTER OFF CONDEMING ALL THE CHILD SEX ABUSE AND SCHOOL KIDS WHO WERE SEXUALLY ABUSED IN SCHOOLS BY THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS AND CHURCHES BY PRIESTS OVER THE YEARS .. IRISH PEOPLE ARE STILL ANGRY HOW IT WAS ALL COVERED UP FOR YEARS BY THE CHURCH AND BY THE IRISH GOVERMENT UNTIL LAST YEAR RTE MADE A TV DOCUMENTARY AND AIRED WHAT WENT ON.. SOME OF IT I COULD NOT WRITE IN A FAMILY NEWS PAPER... IRELAND IS A SMALL COUNTRY AND WE HAVE LESS ISSUES WITH GAY MARRIAGE THEN WE DO WITH THE EVILS AND SICK ACTS THAT WENT ON IN THE CHURCH FOR YEARS HERE.. SO PLEASE LETS FOCUS ON THAT... AND SORT THAT OUT AS IN MY OPINON ITS FAR MORE IMPORTANT AND RELEVANT !!!

• eiriamach | Dec 26, 2012, 07:38 PM EST

  Gearoid, we should remember that the Hebrew words "ha adam," used in the Creation myth of Genesis, were not, first of all, a personal name of the first male. They form a collective noun with article, referring to humanity as a whole. God created "ha adam" as sexually undifferentiated humanity in "the image of God" as both "male and female." Jesus often called himself a "son of adam," a phrase that the RC bishops insist on mis-translating as "Son of Man." "Son of adam" refers to common, sexually undifferentiated "humanity." The creation of animals provided no suitable "partner" for humanity, so God then shaped humanity first into female, then into male individuals. The first parents, "partners" of each other, continued as both "ha adam," or humanity in "the image of God, and as the sexually differentiated individuals Adam and Eve. And common humanity remains the "essence" of all and of every sexual nature. Only at this point in the creation myth could God direct them to "be fruitful and multiply," and they were! Only then could God speak of generations ("mother and father") and set each generation apart ("leave mother and father") so that none would cling to the past but all generations would renew creation together with their peers.

• olovely | Dec 26, 2012, 06:39 PM EST

  Bashing gay people is something that a lot of people enjoy. They hope it will stop you from noticing how the leaders of this church have ignored the victimized and raped generations of children worldwide.

• eiriamach | Dec 26, 2012, 01:57 PM EST

  Gearoid, theologians have dedicated their professional lives to studying the unity of triune persons in God, and they all concede that this unity remains a "mystery" to human understanding. Accordingly, you attempt mystification of human sexuality when you compare sexual differences (which are relevant only in reproduction) with the "persons" of the Trinity. Yet every day, social scientists, historians, and other workers in various fields of human knowledge are able to explain more of human sexual expression and the nature of human sexuality (knowledge about nature is the form of revelation in our time). We know that sexuality encompasses a range, not only heterosexuality and homosexuality, not only male and female. And that knowledge broadens our sense of who we are as a human family and shapes our attitudes toward human difference -- tolerance, love, inclusiveness -- as decreed by the Gospel as well as by natural law.

• Gearoid4 | Dec 26, 2012, 12:25 PM EST

  I know that God forms a perfect unity through the triune Godhead and the unity of male and female as in the Genesis story is analogous to that concept but does not usurp it. So God is only reflecting His own Ideals in that unique bond between a woman and a man as signified through the marriage sacrament. You seem to be obsessed with this theme of "ancient fertility religion" in relation to the pope's words and really I cannot see how this has anything to do with the points he makes. The fact that God is "monotheistic" in nature does not overshadow the three distinct Persons which form that Godhead. It is a difficult concept to mentally grasp but it has been at the core of Christian theology for 2000 years. The early Church fathers emphasized how the unity of the triune God underpinned the essential criteria for the unity found in the marriage between a man and a woman. Just as both male and female genders are distinct in their own right so are the 3 Persons found in the one God. They all find their completeness when operating as an integral unit in co-operation and harmony. As for your point regarding Plato's symposium and homosexuality, Plato described homosexual activity as "unnatural" and this was before Christianity came into being. Certainly homosexuality was tolerated to a certain degree within the societies of ancient Greece and Rome but somewhat frowned upon.

• eiriamach | Dec 26, 2012, 11:01 AM EST

  Talk about 'bizarre': Gearoid writes, "the Pope has expanded on the understanding of man and woman in the light of God's Revelation with respect to the properly understood nature of their genders and how they interact with each-other." Really? Maybe the pope should ask God whether God's revelation needs expansion by a pope, especially a pope who rejects our understanding of nature, including human nature, brought to light by science. Those words are bizarre the way any expression of religious hubris is bizarre. As Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, "The weaknesses of the spirit of love in solving larger and more complex problems become increasingly apparent as one proceeds from ordinary relations between individuals to the life of social groups." Christmastide is hardly the time for the pope's "spirit of love" to fail in addressing problems of social change and instability.

• eiriamach | Dec 26, 2012, 10:20 AM EST

  Gearoid, God does not need "the sacrament of marriage" to be ONE! Again you invoke primitive notions of ancient fertility religions to try to reconcile the pope's words with monotheism. If male and female need to marry-- "unifying" their disparate "essences" --to find unity as one human being, then the same is true of the god in whose image they are created. It's an oxymoron to say that a God who is ONE reproduces and that we are not "human" if we do not reproduce. Also, 'male' and 'female' are not analogous to the divine 'persons' of the trinity; rather, in the pope's words, 'male' and 'female' are two irreconcilable human "essences," two forever disparate ways of "being human." There's no way out of it--the pope went too far to find a theology that excludes homosexuality from creation. Also, Gearoid, your wishful thinking that "Even ancient pagan societies ... Rome or the Greek city states recognized the naturalness of marriage ... between a man and a woman and open to procreation" shows ignorance of ancient epics and philosophy. Begin with Plato's "Symposium," the dialogue in which various men of ancient Athens discuss love and speculate about the origins and purposes of homosexual as well as heterosexual love. The ancient gods of Greece and Rome had a far more open and generous understanding of human sexuality than you and your pope have.

• Gearoid4 | Dec 26, 2012, 09:56 AM EST

  @Eiriamach, I find your conclusion that the Pope's view on the unity of the Godhead is similar to that of a "bi-theist" or "poly-theist", very bizarre. The pontiff is only expressing the Classical understanding of the tree distinct but unified persons in one, which is re-iterated every Sunday during Mass or service. In fact, this characterizes the biblical understanding of the separateness of maleness/femaleness but also their unity as in the sacrament of marriage. So therefore, your attempts to bring in "male/female fertility gods" to the equation falls flat.

• Gearoid4 | Dec 26, 2012, 09:37 AM EST

  @Alisaann, I apologize for misspelling your name as no offence was mean't. I do not know how you can say I'm forcing people to obey the tenets of my religion, as I do not have either the authority or coercive means of enforcing them. I would not want to do this anyway, as I believe that ultimately everyone should act in accordance with one's conscience(but a properly informed one). There is no need to capitalize certain letters as in your last post as it is the written equivalent of shouting, and does not impress. @Will, No, Eiriamach, the Pope has expanded on the understanding of man and woman in the light of God's Revelation with respect to the properly understood nature of their genders and how they interact with each-other. In fact the 3 great Monotheistic religions teach those very same values. God made man and woman to mate and to become "one flesh" in a unity that does reflect the Beauty, Truth, Goodness and indeed totality of the triune God. And what is your point in relation to the maleness/femaleness of the human species and the unity of the "Godhead"? The traditional Christian vision of this is that it reflects God's spiritual vision of human anthropology in so far as it guides the direction of the relationship between a man and a woman on a social, sexual and psychological level.

• eiriamach | Dec 26, 2012, 09:27 AM EST

  The pope's words put him in the religious category of pagan. I'm not surprised that he stumbled into such an embarrassing position. He is obviously obsessed with homosexuality and is trying to erase it from the work of the Creator. Better to accept it as a natural expression of human sexuality and overcome his fear of it. Maybe then he'd also overcome his fear of women. The Creator never intended any attribute of humanity to render any of us anything less than equal to all others and one with them.

• eiriamach | Dec 26, 2012, 08:57 AM EST

  @Gearoid, you mis-stated my point. You wrote that I "attribute the Judaic or Christian understanding of marriage to ancient pagan fertility cults." NO, Gearoid, I wrote that the POPE had a pagan idea of GOD when he said during his address, "According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God." He forgot that we are created "in the image of God ... male and female." Genesis is clear on this point and puts these two descriptions, "male and female" and "the image of God" together in the same sentence. If male/female is an essential duality in the godhead of which we are an "image," that god is not a unity, not ONE, and the pope is not a monotheist but a pagan bi-theist or polytheist! He got so carried away with his demonic notion that homosexuality is not built into creation, not "normal" sexuality, that he reduced the Judeo-Christian God to dual male-female fertility gods! Maleness and femaleness do not belong to the 'essence' of humans in a Christian view, as Paul wrote to the Galations in my quotation below.

• Will Hamilton | Dec 26, 2012, 07:36 AM EST

  An elderly male virgin in a dress who is constantly escorted by a good looking priest chooses December to spew some hate filled bile about gays into the holiday season. Yep it's Herr Ratzinger's Christmas Message. Nothing like a bit of sneering from the balcony to keep the faithful focused away from the goings on under the golden dome in Rome.

• KatieMurphy | Dec 26, 2012, 02:57 AM EST

  Virtually every psych and the AMA and the American Academy of pediatricians say that gay is natural and built in. The Church must know this, but the pope simply uses lies to try to mask his attempt to have religion masquerade as medical science..............He's just an old fuddy who helped hide the endless molestation of children, and still he doesnt get it - May he live much longer and he will finish destroying Bennies form of the church and let us bring it back to what Jesus will be proud of...........In England where the battle rages , you cannot imagine the horror show of hate that spouts from his bishops. Things like nazi, commie etc about gays and marriage equality.............Conveniently forgetting how he UNexcommunciated Bishop Williamson- a holocaust denier in 2009. who had been living in Argentina and got kicked out of the country - then Argentinians voted in marriage equality in 2010.........The man is hates himself for his disasters after disasters. And like so many other situations *** throws out his hate on others.................it's kind of like how so many vicious homophobes - not the people who simply oppose marriage equality but the loudest and most verbally violent - turns out they are gay. YOu might get a flavor for this kind of thing by going to gayhomophobe dot org, and there are other lists. as well. In my NE state in the USA the two chief homophobes of our state house are well known - one of them in a love triangle 15 years ago, the poor man jumped out a window. the other this past summer got drunk and nearly killed another boat load of people. (his wife left him last spring and one of the equality groups found her - int4eresting story how she found out so the rumor mill says ........Bottom line - gay marriage under civil law helps promote the insittuion of marriage, and the church knows very well that it has - I support- the absolute right to limit its ceremonies and membership to whomever it chooses.

• alisaann | Dec 26, 2012, 01:03 AM EST

  @ Gearoid4: PLEASE , if your going to respond to ME....spell my name RIGHT.....and STOP FORCING people to live according to religion IF they choose NOT to.......and NOT every person is SUITED for children....in fact, some parents SHOULDN'T be parents to begin with....and NO i'm NOT talking about GAYS.....hell, they probably are BETTER at parenting then hetero parents. alisa

• anglo-norman | Dec 25, 2012, 06:56 PM EST

  booby- The Truth hurt you son?

• anglo-norman | Dec 25, 2012, 06:34 PM EST

  Norman Shut up

• anglo-norman | Dec 25, 2012, 04:25 PM EST

  Grow up Ireland

• Gearoid4 | Dec 25, 2012, 03:17 PM EST

  Whether you like it or not, Eiriamch, Jesus specifically referred to male and female when he spoke about a couple leaving their families to mate and marry. He unambiguously spoke about this in Matthew 19:5-".."For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh?.. Nothing there about same-sex couplings and to attribute the Judaic or Christian understanding of marriage to ancient pagan fertility cults is so ignorant of the reality of how this teaching developed. Even ancient pagan societies situated governed by Rome or the Greek city states recognized the naturalness of marriage as consisting of the relationship between a man and a woman and open to procreation.

• Gearoid4 | Dec 25, 2012, 02:51 PM EST

  @Ailsinn, Many chose not to have children by blocking the natural-occurring fertility of the woman, but that is their choice. But in doing so they are deprived of the beauty of procreation which is a gift from God and their stance is anti-life. Some couples are infertile and not by choice and would love to have children. So contrast and compare as some disrupt God-given fertility deliberately by artificial contraception while others would love to have children but unfortunately cannot. The consequences of widespread conception for the Common Good of society are negative on a number of levels. The rise in divorce, abortions etc are not coincidental with the increased use of the Pill over the last 40 years but have been facilitated by it. There has also been a dramatic fall in the demographics of nations across the western world NYCsheridan, you are wrong on both accounts about me and your idiotic comments on our current pope is not worth commenting on, except to say that it shows a person who does not seem to think very deeply. @Eiriamach, I acknowledge that Augustine certainly did use Plato's thought in relation to his Christian formulations, but it was Aquinas who brought this relationship between Greek-inspired Reason and Christian Faith to their Zenith in the High Middle Ages. Consequently his influence is still very much with us today. The Catholic Faith has integrated his legacy and modern-day scholars are still using his conclusions to approach modern day problems.

• eiriamach | Dec 25, 2012, 01:33 PM EST

  Actually, Gearoid, it was not Aquinas but Augustine who brought Plato's philosophy into Christianity by placing the Platonic Forms or Ideas in the mind of God. When Aquinas referred to "The Philosopher," he was writing about Aristotle and restored some balance in Christianity's appropriation of the ancients. The work of the Medievals is bequeathed to all Christians, and no other age has approached their ecumenism (Jewish and Islamic philosophers debating Christians at the medieval universities).

• NYCsheridan | Dec 25, 2012, 11:31 AM EST

  Gearoid4, you sound like a nasty old drunkard.

• NYCsheridan | Dec 25, 2012, 11:29 AM EST

  The Religion of Hate. RATzinger is the AntiChrist

• rainbowbrew | Dec 25, 2012, 10:51 AM EST

  Benedict is merely the biggest marketeer of the catholic religion (er way of life) With gays they see no future as they can not produce children and new members. He is no doubt in need of a new marketing plan. People are beginning to see that his ethics work for him but not the rest of us. Why do you need some men in dresses to tell you how to interpret the bible. remember that this pope is trying to rewrite the bible with his current rendition of how Christ lived. THis is important to notice becasue it tells us how can we believe this great book if it is re-written by humans constantly. Sorry but his interpretations are historic and not true. He is the seller of vaporware and so many have been fooled (yes even I was once).

• eiriamach | Dec 25, 2012, 07:09 AM EST

  @darao, the pope's "fixed essences" rejection of same-sex marriage violates the most basic principles of our Western tradition of natural law, which includes Jesus' social justice. The equality of all is basic; civil law respects equality when, as in the US Constitution, it mandates equal treatment under human law--no discrimination on the basis of race, sex, class, national origin, degree of handicap, age, sexual orientation, etc. Christ's "Love your neighbor as yourself" means love each "as equal to" you. King adds that civil law should nurture the human personality and not degrade it; laws that exclude gays from social institutions are therefore unjust. It is a perversion of justice also for a numerical or power majority to pass laws that impose burdens on a minority group while exempting the majority, or that provide benefits (such as legal marriage) to the majority while excluding a minority. Jesus was firmly in this tradition; he noted that God makes his rain to fall and sun to shine on everyone, regardless of whether we consider them good or wicked; so must we ensure that the benefits of civil society are equal for all. The pope's theology removes him from this natural law tradition and even from a coherent reading of the purposes of the creator in Genesis. He renders the "image of God" polarized into two distinct "essences" of male and female--an attribute of ancient fertility religions, paganism, not Christianity: "Because all of you are one in the Messiah Jesus, a person is no longer a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a male or a female" (Galatians 3:28).

• alisaann | Dec 25, 2012, 03:55 AM EST

  Gearoid4: MANY couples CHOOSE NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN.....and SOME women are PAST that stage in life, if they remarry ( after a death of their spouse or something.) ; SHOULD those couples be KEPT from MARRYING and having the SAME RIGHTS & BENIFITS as those who DO want to have kids?...i say, YES, they DO......try living OUTSIDE YOUR BIBLE WORLD....you might enjoy life MORE.....marriage is about LOVE and kids ( if wanted) are a BONUS....and if someone only gets married because of kids, that's the WRONG reason.....GOD MADE GAYS, THE WAY THEY ARE.....JUST AS HE MADE BLACKS, ASAINS, ETC. MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE. ALISA

• olovely | Dec 24, 2012, 11:48 PM EST

  The Catholic Church kept silent for decades as their own priests abused tens of thousands of teenagers and children, but NOW they think marriage equality for gay people is a threat to civilization and 'world peace?' Can you believe the gall and hypocrisy of this crew?

• Gearoid4 | Dec 24, 2012, 07:52 PM EST

  Sorry Eiriamach your parody of Catholic moral ethics based on the Natural just won't do. It was the Catholic scholastics of the High Middle Ages like Aquinas who took the philosophical thought of Plato and others out of it's pagan context and enlightened it with the Faith and Reason of Catholic thought. Aquinas's contribution to the whole area of Catholic theology/Natural Law philosophy has been held in very high regard down to the present day. Present day interpretations by the best scholars retain the essentials within a modern-day framework. The Catholic approach to Natural law is firmly based on God's Revelation through the scriptures, Tradition and Reason and all human activity should be aligned with this for individuals and society to reach their full potential. Any disordering of this leads to troubled individuals, families and societies, which is much in evidence from such distortions as widespread contraception, which has severed people from the true beauty of sex within marriage and has led to free and easy sex without consequences. Catholic Natural law ethics has an all encompassing reach in terms of it's concern for the flourishing of all humanity from conception to natural death(which includes all the social interactions in-between). The social interactions would be called Social Justice by another name and the Catholic pearl of Social Teaching is becoming much more publicized and valued around the world.

• eiriamach | Dec 24, 2012, 05:58 PM EST

  Darao, my own education was similar to yours, with some of the same results. Most people consider natural law a ready-at-hand, useful alternative to ethical intuitionism and moral relativism, which leads to indifference or defeatism in the face of the problems of social justice that interest you. You've probably read The Republic of Plato, but if you haven't, I wouldn't recommend beginning there. I'd begin with Sophocles' ancient Greek tragedy "Antigone," Fitz and Fitzgerald translation, esp. Antigone's speech in her own defense before Kreon. To see how natural law illuminates contemporary problems, I recommend Dr. Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail, available on the Internet. His approach is certainly not Scholastic though he references Augustine and Aquinas, along with Tillich and others; he does not read natural law "essences" from configurations of the human body, for example! He most often calls natural law "the law of God," but of course he was a minister. King gives objective grounding to principles of social justice and criteria for just laws. He follows Jefferson's natural law approach in the first argument of the Declaration of Independence. What Catholic theologians call "natural law" is not in this tradition, but is an over-Platonized, ossified doctrinal fundamentalism. Plato wouldn't recognize it.

• Gearoid4 | Dec 24, 2012, 03:27 PM EST

  @Darao, You rubbish the well-founded reality of Natural Law, but ancient pagan philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle were aware of it. They wrote about the concepts of Good and evil, and instinctively knew that they were an integral part of the universal morality which surrounded them. Have you ever read Plato's "The Republic", as it might enlighten your mind. In terms of the Natural Law for rightly ordered sexual relationships, we have only to observe the physical attributes which make men and women to complementary to each-other. The sexual reproductive organs are not there for decoration, but are a sign of the Creator's wish that the Human species propagates and establishes stable populations across the world. Marriage is founded on the natural coupling between a man and a woman in terms of their physical, psychological and social complementariness. The Natural Law predates the positive law of human societies and will always be around whether you like it or not. Societies in effect encoded the natural law into their judicial systems e.g."thou shalt not steal" or "thou shalt not kill". This has been happening since the establishment of ancient civilizations and has very much influenced modern juridical law. As the famous Roman statesman and Orator Seneca put it.."“You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she’ll be constantly running back". This is very apt today when we consider the widespread use of contraception to subvert natural-occurring fertility and the push for same-sex "marriage".

• Gearoid4 | Dec 24, 2012, 03:12 PM EST

  @Darao, Your ignorant dismissal of my points regarding artificial contraception and the advantages of NFP as "drivel", betrays a shallow thinking process on your part. Artificial birth control disrupts the natural fertility cycles of a woman and prevents conception which is a natural outcome of sex. It separates the procreative from the unitive side of sex and degrades it. Consequently populations across western Europe and elsewhere are in freefall. The widespread use of the pill has facilitated behavior which undermined institutions such as marriage and to the exponential rise in divorce rates across the western world. NFP is nothing less than a couple co-operating with a woman's fertility cycles and not undermining them. It is a known fact that married couples who practice it, have very low divorce rates(some cite 3%), which is in contrast with the general population with a divorce rate of nearly 50% in the US alone(where artificial contraceptive use is widespread). So maybe it is you, Darao, that is "out of touch" with advice that contributes to the sexual health of couples and the Common Good of society.

• markday | Dec 24, 2012, 11:42 AM EST

  Richard Sipe is a world reknown expert on priest sexual abuse & the Vatican His writings can be found on Richard Sipe dot com. Here is a quote regarding Pope Benedict: Many informed people in Rome believe that Pope Benedict XVI has a homosexual orientation. This is neither an accusation of fault nor any implication of wrongdoing. But the official teaching of the church proscribes that men of homosexual orientation should be allowed to train for the priesthood or be ordained (Cf.1961 Directive). The patent hypocrisy of church teaching and practice is a travesty. Many saints had a homosexual orientation and many good priests are gay and celibate. Homosexual orientation is neither an illness nor a perversion. To oversimplify: It is an inborn attraction and disposition to love persons of the same sex, even sexually - parallel to persons of heterosexual orientation and disposition. Homosexual persons can behave perversely and be ill just as heterosexually persons can.

• darao | Dec 24, 2012, 11:00 AM EST

  A healthy and vigorous debate here on the issues of importance. Let's all remember to base out comments and defences on facts or on dogma if that is what you prefer to use. But it is the ideas and thoughts that can be challenged and never the right of people to choose their own path. COmpassion should be the end result.

• darao | Dec 24, 2012, 10:52 AM EST

  Gearoid4 - you refer to Church Law and Natural Law. Your church has no jurisdiction over anyone other than those who chose to accept its rules. The Vatican has absolutly no right whatsoever to promulgate laws of any kind outside its pseudo state no more than Ireland has to do that. As for "Natural Law" - there is no such thing -- Nature is not a set of Laws. That idea is ludicrous. Trying to make up laws or rules that have no validity or basis in reality exposes your dogma based efforts to control people. ood news though... 30% of lovely children in Ireland were born outside any church participation so they will grow up without the emotional damage of the church. Let everyone including you chose what they want to follow but therre is also a role for warning children and others of the dangers inherent in following religious dogma.

• darao | Dec 24, 2012, 10:42 AM EST

  The drivel suggesting people should not use birth control are so out of touch with reality. Modern women know fully their place in society and are capable to make their own choices. Gearoid - your religious beliefs are for you to choose but society now realizes there is no reason to listen to the church rantings against women. Your promotion of NFP is thinking that goes back to the dark days of the men of the church taking away the rights of women to choose for themselves. Such bullying and attempts to use god nonsense as a cudgel are contrary to compassion, respect and human dignity. Calling NFP a "hidden treasure" shows how absolutely out of touch you are with couples, men and women.

• Gearoid4 | Dec 24, 2012, 05:32 AM EST

  It seems that this site appears to be playing up again with a promise that your commentary has been sent after you click on the 'submit' button, but it does not appear. Is this IC censorship in action or just the action of poor software?

• seamus60 | Dec 24, 2012, 12:23 AM EST

  Can`t imagine the Catholic church worrying on a big scale about new recruits to the priesthood. War torn countries who have found themselves at the recieving end of an occupier have often been the equivelant to a couple of (forces) recruitment officers getting stuck into young men and woman who have just left school. Follow the poverty and there is always people prepared to sell their soul.

• seamus60 | Dec 24, 2012, 12:04 AM EST

  What the feck does he suggest I do with this pair of nipples God put on my chest whether I needed or wanted them.

• hollabackgurl | Dec 23, 2012, 09:35 PM EST

  In Europe and America church attendance is at critically low levels already. Seminaries and parishes have to look to Africa and South America for priests. That's when the pope decides a circular firing squad is the best path to the future.

• Mousemess | Dec 23, 2012, 07:20 PM EST

  The Pope's and his church's entrenched homophobia is discouraging modern and progressive thinking young men from joining the priesthood.

• Mousemess | Dec 23, 2012, 07:15 PM EST

  John Galt, While I don't go for atheism in my own life as a liberal non-Catholic Christian, I believe very firmly that religion is a choice and that being gay is not a choice and being gay is a very natural condition. Modern science reveals that especially those animals species with the more complex brains and more complex social structures such as the primates (humans are part of the primate class of the animal kingdom)exhibit both heterosexual and homosexual behaviors. Certain species of marine mammals hang out and swim with other males of their species after they are done mating with the females of their species. Even a pair of male penguins forsook female penguins for being with each other in a zoo inspite of unsuccessful efforts to get them interested in females. Both heterosexual and homosexual exist in the natural world and neither the Pope or any other religious authority can erase those facts. Scientists now know better from modern scientific as well as from casual observation that both straight and gay sexual and non-sexual affection occur in nature regardless of what the Pope, etc. says about what is "natural and what isn't".

• Mousemess | Dec 23, 2012, 06:54 PM EST

  A Eamoinn i mBaile Atha Cliath, Ni mian leat fear eile a phosadh? Bhuel, na pos fear eile. Simpli go leor. Eamonn in Dublin, You don't want to marry another man? Well, don't marry another man. Simple enough.

• Mousemess | Dec 23, 2012, 06:45 PM EST

  Religion is a choice. Sexual orientation, gender and race are not choices.

• Seanmor | Dec 23, 2012, 05:21 PM EST

  It seems very unlikely that Pope Benedict or any other pontiff will ever recognize same-sex marriage as long as the Bible prohibits men from engaging in sexual activity with other men. The pope did NOT make the rules but it is his duty to enforce them.

• eiriamach | Dec 23, 2012, 04:35 PM EST

  Gearoid, if reasonable people were attracted to your religious doctrines, you would not need to bolster them with lies about contraceptives. Women are not attracted to doctrines that tell them to leave their childbearing to the forces of Nature. It's not compatible with any common-sense idea of moral responsibility--God expects us to use our reproductive capacity responsibly. Today, women have the means to exercise that responsibility. "Woman" has, despite the pope's medieval fancies about "essences," changed over the last half-century. So has marriage, many times over the course of human history, and we're changing it again, making it more inclusive and equal, ensuring that it will contribute to greater social stability and human dignity. Same-sex marriage, like responsible child-bearing, signals moral progress.

• eiriamach | Dec 23, 2012, 04:21 PM EST

  Gearoid, this statement of yours is also false: "birth-control pills ... also leave considerable health problems in their wake e.g. breast, cervical, and liver cancer, thrombosis or heart problems when used over a long period." You have not cited and cannot cite even one clinical study that provides any shred of support for that claim or any other you've made about currently available hormonal contraceptives! No woman can obtain oral contraceptives without a doctor's prescription, and no doctor prescribes the pill "over a long period," so there's no elevated risk of these diseases. Your claim about "pills like Ella" is simply false and easily determined to be false. I call repeated irresponsible false statements lies. You must be an honors graduate of the GOP "we don't listen to fact-checkers" school.

• irishamerica46 | Dec 23, 2012, 03:19 PM EST

  Anglo Norman, Anti Catholics seem to hang out on IC. Guess you have nothing better to do then bash the Church.Guess you never met a good priest or nun.Guess you never met a good Catholic either.So judgemental in your rantings.Get over what ever is making you hate.

• Gearoid4 | Dec 23, 2012, 03:15 PM EST

  Please, Eiriamach, spare us the comparison of seeking truth via the contraceptive mentality with the sage words of the Pope's address concerning Christ as the way to Truth.

• Gearoid4 | Dec 23, 2012, 03:10 PM EST

  You have summarised the selfish nature of the contaceptive mentality, Eiriamach-.."My generation was the first that could be sexually active without the fear of ill-timed pregnancy". The embryo or fetus is to be then regarded as source of inconvenience that has to be got rid of, because it interferes with one's social life. When you separate the procreative from the unitive aspects of the sexual act, you distort the whole nature of the act. Sex is then purely sterile and recreational, and not a creative experience that can beget life. The design of the creator is ignored as one's selfish desires take over. Besides the life-denying aspect of modern birth-control pills, they also leave considerable health problems in their wake e.g.breast, cervical, and liver cancer, thrombosis or heart problems when used over a long period.

• Gearoid4 | Dec 23, 2012, 02:59 PM EST

  I'm afraid that you are wrong on that score, Eiriamach, the modern contraceptive pills does have the potential to eject a fertilized egg from the uterus after around 5-7 days. It has been proven by the Science that you use to try to refute my points in vain. Modern birth control pills like Ella have much stronger doses of synthetic hormones like Progestin than the previous generations of contraceptive pills, which when failure to prevent ovulation happens, either stops the fertilized ovum from being transported from the Fallopian tubes or implanted in the uterine wall, which are abortafacient actions. It is well known within the Scientific community that such contraceptive pills/devices are very well capable of these actions and carry them out regularly.

• eiriamach | Dec 23, 2012, 02:45 PM EST

  The saddest part of this discussion is that I've posted the same information so many times in reply to the same false claims made by posters (mostly Gearoid) on Irish Central. Where is the integrity in ignoring consistent scientific data and repeating falsehoods? This behavior washes the words of Benedict XVI's address on Friday with the sewage of hypocrisy: "Christ, who is the truth, has taken us by the hand, and we know that his hand is holding us securely on the path of our quest for knowledge. Being inwardly held by the hand of Christ makes us free and keeps us safe: free – because if we are held by him, we can enter openly and fearlessly into any dialogue; safe – because he does not let go of us, unless we cut ourselves off from him. At one with him, we stand in the light of truth." Don't lies cut the Church defenders "off from ... tbe light of truth," Christ?

• EamonnDublin | Dec 23, 2012, 02:38 PM EST

  The day they make it compulsory, I'm outta here! Éamonn, Dublin, Ireland.

• eiriamach | Dec 23, 2012, 02:24 PM EST

  It's also false, Gearoid, that the pill "undermines a woman's natural fertility." On the contrary, most healthy women who stop using the pill because they're ready for childbearing find that they become pregnant quickly. I won't bother responding to your claim that contraceptives "undermine the sexual act." My generation was the first that could be sexually active without the fear of ill-timed pregnancy, from which my grandmother's and mother's generations, as well as all earlier generations, suffered severely. Just ask any married woman in her 70s or older what life was like for married women before the scientific control of fertility. No way are we revisiting that world!

• eiriamach | Dec 23, 2012, 02:08 PM EST

  More on the science of contraception that Gearoid chooses to ignore: “'These medications are there to prevent or delay ovulation,' said Dr. Petra M. Casey, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Mayo. 'They don’t act after fertilization.' ... European medical authorities have not placed implantation on Ella’s label, and after an additional two years of scrutiny, Ella was approved for sale in overwhelmingly Catholic Italy, where laws would have barred it if it could be considered to induce abortion, said Erin Gainer, chief executive of Ella’s manufacturer, Paris-based HRA Pharma.... A New York Times review of hundreds of pages of approval process documents found no discussion of evidence supporting implantation effects [the theory that the pill interferes with implantation of a fertilized ovum].... in 2007, 2009 and 2010, researchers in Australia and Chile gave Plan B to women after determining with hormone tests which women had ovulated and which had not. None who took the drug before ovulation became pregnant, underscoring how Plan B delays ovulation. Women who had ovulated became pregnant at the same rate as if they had taken no drug at all." The anti-choice fanatics continue to tell their lies, however many clinical studies and scientists refute them.

• eiriamach | Dec 23, 2012, 01:51 PM EST

  This statement is patently false, Gearoid: "The modern contraceptive does not just prevent conception but acts as an abortifacient in ejecting the fertilized egg from the uterus within days of fertilization." Hormonal contraceptives are not abortifacients. See Pam Belluck's / Patricia Wall's NY Times articles, for example, June 5, 2012 on the morning-after pill, Ella, for the science: "It turns out that the politically charged debate over morning-after pills and abortion, a divisive issue in this election year, is probably rooted in outdated or incorrect scientific guesses about how the pills work. Because they block creation of fertilized eggs, they would not meet abortion opponents’ definition of abortion-inducing drugs." But the USCCB KNOW the facts when they put out these lies in bishops' letters, about Ella and more ordinary hormonal contraceptives being abortifacient. They KNOW that Catholics support access to contraceptives, and they count on being able to frighten Catholic voters into thinking that contraception is really abortion. See also "Religious Groups Equate Some Contraceptives With Abortion," Feb 17, 2012. Fortunately, most women are not naive enough to believe these "religious" lies.

• Gearoid4 | Dec 23, 2012, 01:33 PM EST

  Sorry I mean't Hollabackgurl instead of Eriamach in my last comments..lol

• Gearoid4 | Dec 23, 2012, 01:31 PM EST

  No-one is being banished, Eriamach, as you put it. Contraception undermines a woman's natural fertility and undermines the sexual act by depriving it of a procreative intent. It also separates the sexual act from the unitive nature of love which binds a couple. Contraception allows free and easy sex without consequences. The modern contraceptive doe not just prevent conception but acts as an abortifacient in ejecting the fertilized egg from the uterus within days of fertilization. Conception only happens as an expected outcome around 30% of the time that couples have sex and thus does not happen every time. But when one puts an artificial barrier between oneself and conception, one frustrates the natural process and it does not exactly contribute the Common Good of society as the population levels across western Europe continue to fall sharply. One of the hidden treasures of Catholic reproductive ethics is the promotion of Natural Family Planning which allows couples to intimately get to know each-other better on all levels which is in contrast with the ideology behind artificial birth control. Couples who practice NFP have very low divorce rates(some give a figure as low as 3%). I did not say that procreation was THE central component in marriage, but rather was one of them, as the other was the unitary love which bound a couple together in respect and harmony.

• hollabackgurl | Dec 23, 2012, 09:21 AM EST

  I'm glad you replied to my post and made clear you don't support contraception, Gearoid4. That reveals that it's religion that shapes your perceptions. Shaming heterosexual couples that use contraception by saying they contravene Natural Law (whatever you think that is) means you're preparing to banish them like you do gay people. Heterosexuals take note. In Gearoid4's ideal world you get pregnant each time you have sex. And the central component of marriage is procreation. Knock yourselves out.

• Gearoid4 | Dec 23, 2012, 08:52 AM EST

  @hollabackgurl, I'm afraid you misunderstood completely the nature of marriage, if you think that the procreative element is not a central component of it. This has been recognized in religious and non-religious societies across the globe for thousands of years. As for your point concerning childless couples, many of them deliberately opt out of having children by using artificial birth-control which contravenes Church teaching and the Natural Law. This contrasts with situations where couples experience fertility problems, involving one or either of them and cannot therefore have children. But they still consist of a woman and a man with the sexual and physical complementariness to potentially reproduce which is not present in the same-sex couple. The widespread use of the Pill since the 60's has seriously undermined the procreative aspect of marriage and separated it from unitive love. This has opened the door to same-sex couplings to be included in legal attempts across the world to radically re-define marriage. Thus a pandora's box has been opened which will have very negative effects socially for societies in the future who take it upon themselves to so redefine the well-understood definition of marriage.

• hollabackgurl | Dec 23, 2012, 08:05 AM EST

  If you try to suggest that heterosexual marriage is always superior to homosexual marriage because they can conceive, you immediately insult the tens of millions of childless married heterosexual couples. Procreation is not the point of marriage. Marriage is the union of two loving and consenting adults in law. Conception - and indeed religion - need have nothing to do with it. Old theocrats like the two blow can't accept that. But that generation is old and dying out rapidly, it has been observed.

• Gearoid4 | Dec 23, 2012, 06:43 AM EST

  The pope is only reiterating 2000 years of received wisdom handed down in the Catholic Christian Faith and indeed in all the great Monotheistic religions. He is reasonably pointing out truisms in relation to ourselves as human beings and how we should relate to each-other in order for our development to reach it's full potential. A society which protects and supports marriage as consisting of the union between one man and one woman and open to procreation, will continue to flourish on many levels i.e social, political and religious. It guarantees the Common Good and demographic stability. As jacers points out any coupling which does not meet the above criteria as in same-sex configurations can never be deemed a "marriage".

• jacersagain | Dec 23, 2012, 03:50 AM EST

  (…more) Quite simply, there can never, ever, be such a thing as gay marriage - however Gay and Lesbian people might dress it up in their own garish manners. True marriage is between a man and a woman. It is has been made sacrosanct when executed within the Christian Sacrament of marriage, instituted by our Christ by His attendance at the marriage solely of a man and a woman. Anything else is true, pure pantomime, indelibly, of itself, totally self-delusional and self destructible. Gay “marriage” can’t ever be a fact. ICentral posters, like John Galt and The Commentator, who airily assume authority, might particularly, gallingly and haltingly take note.

• jacersagain | Dec 23, 2012, 03:49 AM EST

  In my humble opinion, Carroll09 shouts out the truth, unlike those who would have the world according to their own, mostly falsity-driven wishes. We already have lots of evidence that living in the world according to selfish wishes leads to anarchy. Anarchy… now there you go… that’s a word that most anarchists don’t even know the meaning of, let alone it’s consequences, for their own selves or for their children. I’m pretty sure that Carroll09 doesn’t, as alleged by olovely, work for the Vatican. I don’t either but you can be pretty sure that neither Carroll09 nor I can have much argument with the truths of advice that emanate from the Vatican’s hugely learned and much-educated personnel. As a body of people from around all parts of our world (over 1 billion members), they’re hugely more learned than smirking-can’t-get-past-journo-life inadequately educated people like Antoinette Kelly and her over-paid, not-bothered-on-checking Editor, who himself has also been unchecked by Chief-Editor Niall O’Dowd - they’re more learned than people like me as another example and probably Carroll09 as well. (More…)

• plgoble48 | Dec 23, 2012, 02:36 AM EST

  This corrupt ole' fool can condemn whatever he likes but nothing is going to stop equal protections under the law and eventual recognition of all marriages - the Catholic Church via the Vatican's control only continues to show how out of touch they are compared to the rest of the world and how they refuse to recognize any form of change until its forced upon them - which is humorous since they consistently force their beliefs down the throats of everyone else without any problems, but God forbid they should face the same standards!!

• alisaann | Dec 23, 2012, 01:34 AM EST

  GOD MADE GAYS, THE WAY THEY ARE....and this old foll, doesn't KNOW what marriage really IS, because he's NEVER been married.....he should CLEAN OUT his bad priests, who like to RAPE little boys....and LEAVE GAYS TO LOVE WHO THEY WANT. ALISA

• anglo-norman | Dec 22, 2012, 04:20 PM EST

  irishamerica46- Bill Donoghue in the house I see...

• irishamerica46 | Dec 22, 2012, 04:03 PM EST

  Anti Catholics out in force!

• anglo-norman | Dec 22, 2012, 03:34 PM EST

  Is this site only for Irish Catholics? It's catholic this & pope that on this site...

• hollabackgurl | Dec 22, 2012, 03:24 PM EST

  Message from the Pope: "Love the sinner but hate everything about them."

• JohnGalt | Dec 22, 2012, 02:47 PM EST

  Celibacy is unnatural. Pedophilia and warmongering is perverse. JG2

• JohnGalt | Dec 22, 2012, 02:45 PM EST

  Actually, homosexual activity is VERY natural ... occurring in 100's of species throughout nature. Then again, "The Church" has never had any more respect for any of the sciences than tolerance for folks that don't fall for their fairy tales. JG2

• JohnGalt | Dec 22, 2012, 02:35 PM EST

  As the spokesman for, current engineer of, systemic mystical nonsense and the "natural" results of celibacy vis a vis institutionalized pedophilia, the old Nazi should rot in the hell that his cult invented. JG Redux

• CitizenWhy | Dec 22, 2012, 02:28 PM EST

  Bah! This is not the first time the Catholic Church, besotted with its peculiar, non-Biblical, medieval, bad science based philosophy of "Natural Law," has opposed human rights. It is saying the same things about gay marriage that it said about democracy in the 1800's.

• eiriamach | Dec 22, 2012, 02:00 PM EST

  Carroll09 complains: "Ms Kelly makes a most horrendus inference, saying that the Pope inferred that being gay is a choice. READ HIS ADDRESS!! He neither said nor inferred this." Well, I've read it, and I find that he did say that being gay is a choice, a false choice, an attempt by a person to reject the "duality [that] is an essential aspect" of being human. The pope said, "The words of the creation account: 'male and female he created them (1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female – hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist.... The manipulation of nature now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned." It always amazes me that a man can believe he knows the mind of God and has the authority not only to speak his limited human interpretation but to impose it on all of humankind through the power of civil laws. For his penance, he should meditate on Chapter 40 of the Book of Job, where God severely reprimands those who presume to preach the purposes of the Creator. And he should study Genesis closely: "In the *image of God* he created them; male and female he created them." If you think there is an "essential duality" in God because "male" and "female" are essentially different natures of the Being who created us in the divine image, you're no monotheist; you're a polytheist (a pagan).

• peterson | Dec 22, 2012, 12:34 PM EST

  The Catholics need to clean house. The Bible says that marriage is between a man and a woman !! I believe what the Bible says !!!Judgement Day will tell the story !!

• peterson | Dec 22, 2012, 12:28 PM EST

  Is the Pope living in a vacuum and doesn't realize the world knows about the pedophile priests who rape little boys? The Roman Catholic Church has fostered the gay priest family in the church and indeed protected them from the prosecution for the heinous crimes they committed. I guess he's never heard of John 8:7, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." What a hypocrite he and his cronies who live in the Vatican in luxury are. As far as homosexuality is concerned, it occurs in nature with other animals, so what could be more natural? It seem the Catholic Church hierarchy is living in the Dark Ages and don't want to give up the power they gained through killing and plundering non Catholics. They are very selective about what parts of the scriptures they wish to embrace and suppress any information that would differ with their sanctimonious position.

• pilib04 | Dec 22, 2012, 12:17 PM EST

  Joseph Ratzinger's comments should come as no surprise to anyone. What, you thought he would temper his statements once he became Pope Benedict? This is the same man who ignored written complaints of priests involved in raping small boys. If the Catholic Church chooses not to "marry" gays, then that is their prerogative. However, the Church does not have a right to dictate to civil society or civil law! Presumably we learned this when we were in 6th grade preparing for Confirmation.

• fmcevoy | Dec 22, 2012, 11:37 AM EST

  Well, St. Serge and St. Bacchus may have a slightly different opinion. If I didn't know better, I'd bet his Holiness had some earlier Nazi connections.

• jim treacy | Dec 22, 2012, 11:33 AM EST

  THE POPE OBJECTS TO SAME SEX MALES GETTING MARRIED. THIS HAS RESULTED IN GREAT DECLINE IN VOCATIONS TO THE PRIESTHOOD AND WE NEED NEW MEN TO PICK UP THE COLLECTIONS ON SUNDAYS.

• eiriamach | Dec 22, 2012, 11:29 AM EST

  The pope is trying to win allies from other fundamentalist religions to oppose equal treatment under the law for homosexuals. He called for "protecting" heterosexual marriage as "the authentic setting in which to hand on the blueprint of human existence." But same-sex marriage does nothing to damage this "blueprint" and much to enhance it, as when couples provide loving homes for children awaiting adoption. Another way that same-sex couples strengthen marriage is, in general, by rejecting stereotyped gender roles. The pope does not recognize the changes that women and men have already accomplished in how we think about and behave as "female" and "male." He clings to a medieval notion that we "have a nature, given by [our] bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being" and is a "pre-ordained duality of man and woman." The "sexual identity" he wants us to reclaim is the submission of female to male "head of family," which does not exist between most same-sex couples. His delusion that human nature cannot change is the perennial pitfall (sin) of those who claim to speak with the authority of God because it inhibits progress toward healthier human relationships.

• PhlutiePhan | Dec 22, 2012, 10:59 AM EST

  @olovely: who marries "whom". Who marries who would imply that you marry yourself. We are now getting to the core issue involving the incumbent U.S. administration. The Great One has surrounded himself with "birds of a feather", many of whom are lesbian Catholics. Marriage implies monogamy. Gay males are notoriously promiscuous. Gay females traditionally are not unless, as is happening in the U.S., they are using steroids to simulate masculine behavior which causes promiscuity.

• MarybethC.P. | Dec 22, 2012, 10:50 AM EST

  As we say in Philly, "You no playa the game, you no make-a the rules!"

• darao | Dec 22, 2012, 10:15 AM EST

  The pope and the church are completely at odds with the human decency of people running their own lives. Anti choice on sexual orientation, anti choice on abortion, and anti choice on death with dignity. The good news is that people can make a choice not to align themselves with such denigration of people. The church has little decency left and after the recent sad events in Ireland has the neck to continue its vulgar opposition to the wishes of good ordinary people.

• olovely | Dec 22, 2012, 10:14 AM EST

  I think you must work for the Vatican's press office, Carroll09. The pope has twice attacked gays this week in the lead up to Christmas saying they are 'a threat to world peace' and insisting they're making the choice to defy human nature. That's the pope's rhetoric, not this articles. The Church is in full battle stations mode over gay marriage, because they want to keep their monopoly over who can marry who.

• Carroll09 | Dec 22, 2012, 09:57 AM EST

  Normally, calling a piece of writing "news" implies that it aims for accuracy and some degree of impartiality. With that in mind, I must congratulate Ms Kelly and Irish Central for publishing one of the most distorted "news" items I have ever seen. Firstly, anyone who reads the two addresses mentioned in the article - whatever their views may be - will see that there is no "heightened offensive" on the issue in question. The Pope is merely stating what the Church has always taught: that acting upon a homosexual orientation is sinful, and that marriage is between a man and a woman. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the Pope on this is another matter - the fact here is that Ms Kelly has deliberately exaggerated and distorted what the Pope actually said. Next, Ms Kelly makes a most horrendus inference, saying that the Pope inferred that being gay is a choice. READ HIS ADDRESS!! He neither said nor inferred this. The Church, as anyone who reads the Catechism will see, does not teach that the orientation is sinful, but rather the acting upon it. This is what the Pope was clearly referring to. I don't know what "complex" Ms Kelly is suffering from that she believes that the Pope's remarks (in either of his addresses) were the centrepiece of what he said - Ms Kelly, like a dog with a bone, has latched on to a little snippet of what the Pope actually said, proceeded to distort this snippet, and has utterly missed the wood for the trees. Ms Kelly, you may not agree with what the Pope said, but at least have the decency to report the facts to your readers, rather than attempting to advance your own agenda based on false premisses.