The Tablet's Homophobia

At the very moment when the bishops of England and Wales are finally confronting the reality of the debacle with which they have apparently colluded: that is the normalisation of same-sex sexual relationships, and are finally starting to do what they should have done from the first, that is explaining Catholic teaching with regard to human sexuality, The Tablet has seen fit to publish (and I dare guess to commission) three pieces designed specifically to undermine that teaching.

The three pieces are trailed as ‘by leading Catholics.’  They are by Fr Timothy Radcliffe OP, Martin Pendergast and Tina Beattie.

Three leading Catholics?  Only in the Tablet’s view of the world!  

Fr Radcliffe is certainly well known: where he is leading Catholics may be a matter for discussion.

Martin Pendergast is only known for being the ex-priest homosexual activist who has been in the news mainly on account of his lover being, for many years, the head of CAFOD; an irregular situation of which many in the hierarchy were aware (and even apparently approved) but assiduously kept from the laity who fund CAFOD under the impression it is a charity run by faithful Catholics and in line with Catholic teaching (both, to say the least, very moot points: see my posts tagged CAFOD, passim.)

Tina Beattie: well, what can one say?

Their arguments are every bit as cogent and Catholic as you might expect...

But my question is this: which is homophobic?

To say to the gay lobby: here is the teaching of Christ’s Church; here is where your true happiness, peace, and indeed salvation may be found.  To explain that from natural reason, empirical evidence and the teaching of Christ himself, we know that the good they seek will never be found in homosexual activity?

Or to say: get on with it chaps, it’s all about Love, isn’t it?

I think the latter is profoundly homophobic: running scared of the gay lobby, and sacrificing their well being on the altar of false charity.

As I write this, I am thinking of the people I know afflicted with homosexual desires: both those who resist heroically, and on whom this contemptible issue of the Tablet spits, and those who have succumbed to disease, despair or death.

What will it take for the Bishops to recognise that the Tablet should not be allowed to pass itself off as a Catholic paper?

H/t Chrysostom on James Preece’s blog.