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Can the Catholic Church be saved?
While most gay Catholics agree that the new pope is likely to be conservative, some find hope in a groundswell of support for gay equality in the parishes of Western nations
From The Advocate  May 10, 2005
Can the Catholic Church be saved?

Distraught over the Roman Catholic Church’s treatment of gay people, 40-year-old Sicilian native Alfredo Ormando entered St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City on January 13, 1998, and set himself on fire. He died in a nearby hospital 10 days later. The Vatican remained silent, issuing only banal statements denying any connection between the church and the suicide.

“John Paul II never recognized [Ormando’s] death,” says the Reverend Mel White, director of the Virginia-based gay religious advocacy group Soulforce, who was among those who protested outside the Vatican after Ormando’s immolation. Instead, the pope’s many public condemnations of homosexuality continued. In fact, they got much worse.

John Paul II, the third-longest-sitting pope in the Catholic Church’s history, died April 2 at age 84. Disenfranchised, angry, and in many cases bitter, many of the world’s Christian gays and lesbians were quick to condemn him as millions of others mourned. “The many tributes to him left me sad,” White says. “He was the most influential homophobe in the 20th century. He did more to set back our cause than any other religious leader. His influence on a billion people turned back the progress we had made in ways we will regret for another century.”

No one can be certain what the next pope will be like—the College of Cardinals was just beginning its conclave at press time—but given that 113 of the 115 cardinals electing him were put in place by John Paul II, most agree that he will likely be conservative and not gay-friendly. “The chances of the new pope being liberal are slim,” says Paul Lakeland, 58, a professor of Catholic studies at Fairfield University in Connecticut. “We have to assume that he will be a moderate at best.”

Indeed, moderate Catholics, particularly in the United States and Western Europe, are hoping the new pope will be more like John XXIII, who became pope in 1958 and quickly set about modernizing the church. Known as “the great reformer,” he convened the Second Vatican Council in 1962 and spoke of “throwing open the windows of the church.” Social organizations were formed, and languages other than Latin were for the first time permitted in the celebration of Mass. John XXIII’s successor, Pope Paul VI, completed the Vatican II documents, which sought to create a less dogmatic, more pastoral approach to Catholicism. He was followed by John Paul I, elected in August 1978—also a beloved reformer and progressive. He was the first pontiff to go on record saying the church needed to show more compassion to gays and lesbians. But hopes of a move in that direction came to end when John Paul I died suddenly a month into his papacy.

That October, John Paul II became the first Polish pope in history, and he soon embarked on an unprecedented and unremitting campaign to condemn gay sex, gay relationships, and gay parents that began with his “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons,” coauthored in 1986 by his staunchly antigay confidant, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany. The document labeled gay sex “an intrinsic moral evil” and homosexual attraction “an objective disorder.” Support of U.S. Catholic’s for the Vatican’s position soon dropped from 68% to 58%.

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