Francis, the new popeyguy, is putting on a
show of friendliness.
Now, it may be that he really is friendly. Who knows? The man is a
stranger to most of us. We'll need time to assess his actions and words.
We
do know that he's against gay marriage. On the other hand, in Argentina
he tried to work out a compromise with the government, which was
pushing hard for gay marriage. I've read that Bergoglio (the popeyguy's
maiden name)
suggested civil unions for gays, as a form of compromise.
I
find this encouraging. I don't recall the popeyguy emeritus ever saying
that he'd like to see civil unions established for gays. All we heard
from him were his all-too-frequent comments about gays being "
intrinsically disordered".
Benedict never said one conciliatory thing regarding the church's war
on gays. On the contrary, he stepped up the church's attacks against
everything lavender. So there's this difference between the two
popeyguys. It doesn't give me great hope, but it's something.
Going forward, what I want to know is how this popeyguy will treat American nuns. You may recall that Benedict launched a
howitzer attack
against the nuns, all but calling them whores and Jezebels. But if
Francis is truly kind, we may not see this type of virulent misogyny
spewing from his lips. What will he do? I really want to know.
I
suspect it won't be long before we know the answer to this question.
After all, if he's a kind man he won't leave the nuns hanging. And his
response will tell us everything we need to know about the new popeyguy.
