Uncle Sal is at it again!

Well Uncle Sal has opened his mouth again and uttered a terrible condemnation of gay catholics telling the press and the world at a press conference in Oakland celebrating his soon moving on to greater and greater things in the Catholic Church. 

Sal is currently bishop of Oakland but is going to take the reins of the Church in San Francisco and all its subordinate 'suffragan' bishops and dioceses including that of Oakland. He has pronounced that the gay people in his flock if they are bound together in any kind of a relationship be it marriage or something 'lesser' are “too sinful” to be admitted to the Sacraments. Those comments were a major blow personally as a catholic and very personally as a gay man. Obviously it's a judgment of the first order. There can be no doubt that Uncle Sal is making a judgment when he used “too sinful” in the sentence uttered to the press. Not only was it a judgment but it was an ugly one at that. Didn't someone big in the Catholic Church once command people to 'judge not' unless they themselves relish being judged? Apparently in Uncle Sal's view it's okay to “be into” bondage and discipline or any other kind of 'kink' but you can't be gay—that's too sinful. It's too sinful for you to be part of our eucharistic community.

Uncle Sal's view of the sinfulness of acting on your human gay nature is certainly not based on science but neither was the heliocentric nature of creation as commonly held and taught by earlier generations of bishops and popes, successors of the apostles as they like to call themselves. It's based on several things ignorance, fear and an unfathomable need of some people to look down on and condemn other people. I guess we are back to judgments again.

Personally I think Uncle Sal might happier and a more effective christian if he were to resign his high office and retire to write books on spirituality in a nice quiet monastery somewhere after he does public penance on the steps of 'his' cathedral. Sack cloth and ashes would be a nice touch offset with a penitentially shaved head.