Recent statements by the latest Pope have led some people to believe that the Catholic Church is taking a more enlightened approach to LGBT people. Of course, compared with what has gone before – many centuries of Vatican persecution of LGBT people – the Pope’s suggestion that they make it less of a priority does, technically, constitute a more enlightened approach.

But we shouldn’t exactly be singing from the rooftops just because we’ve been moved marginally down the Vatican’s hate list. The persecution of LGBT people is very deeply entrenched in the policy and practice of the Catholic Church.

Indeed, today is the 27th anniversary of the issuing of the ‘Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons’. It was issued specifically to put an end to perceived sympathy for LGBT people in various areas of the Church and it pulls no punches. 

It begins by making its overall position very clear:

“Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil: and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder. Therefore special concern and pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not.”

Not exactly ‘Have a nice day’ is it? And then, in order to explain the apparent sympathy for homosexuals within the Church, the letter explains:

“Nevertheless, increasing numbers of people today, even within the Church, are bringing pressure to bear on the Church to accept the homosexual condition as though it were not disordered and to condone homosexual activity. Those within the Church who argue in this fashion often have close ties with those with similar views outside it.”

But who are these dangerous people who are ‘bringing pressure on the Church’?

“The movement within the Church, which takes the form of pressure groups of various names and sizes, attempts to give the impression that it represents all homosexual persons who are Catholics. As a matter of fact, its membership is by and large restricted to those who either ignore the teaching of the Church or seek somehow to undermine it. It brings together under the aegis of Catholicism homosexual persons who have no intention of abandoning their homosexual behaviour. One tactic used is to protest that any and all criticism of or reservations about homosexual people, their activity and lifestyle, are simply diverse forms of unjust discrimination.”

So, some of the people who are driving this criticism of the Catholic Church are real-life, unrepentant homosexuals who seem to think they’ve got a right not to be discriminated against!

But in case people thought that this was all just some silly philosophical argument, the real issue needed to be spelled out – this was about saving people’s lives:

“There is an effort in some countries to manipulate the Church…This is done in order to conform to these pressure groups’ concept that homosexuality is at least a completely harmless, if not a good, thing. Even when the practice of homosexuality may seriously threaten the lives and well-being of a large number of people, it’s advocates remain undeterred and refuse to consider the magnitude of the risks involved.”

‘Seriously threaten the lives and well-being of a large number of people’? I’m guessing that will be the Vatican’s nasty allusion to AIDS rather than the number of LGBT people who have committed suicide or self-harmed through religion-inspired guilt.

Of course, now that we’ve been set up as a risk to life and limb, they need to make it clear that:

“It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action”

Not that they’ve ever undertaken malice in speech or action, of course. And just to undermine their sincerity even further, they quickly follow up their concern with a statement that violence is quite understandable really:

“When such a claim is made and when homosexual activity is consequently condoned, or when civil rights legislation is introduced to protect behaviour to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the Church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground and irrational and violent reactions increase.”

For some reason, the fact that the Catholic Church helped many senior Nazis escape justice at the end of the Second World War comes to mind as I re-read that previous paragraph!

And so, in conclusion, here’s what the Pontiff and his henchmen want the Bishops to implement:

“No authentic pastoral programmes will include organisations in which homosexual persons associate with each other without clearly stating that homosexual activity is immoral…

All support should be withdrawn from any organisations which seek to undermine the teaching of the Church, which are ambiguous about it, or which neglect it entirely. Such support, or even the semblance of such support, can be gravely misinterpreted. Special attention should be given to the practice of scheduling religious services and to the use of Church buildings by these groups, including the facilities of Catholic schools and colleges. To some, such permission to use Church property may seem only just and charitable; but in reality it is contradictory to the purpose for which these institutions were founded. It is misleading and scandalous.”

There is a cruel irony in ending such a foul letter with that last sentence. It seems to me that it’s the document itself that is misleading and scandalous.

Sadly, this narrow-minded epistle from the Pope led to lots of gay and HIV/AIDS support groups being barred from premises owned by the Catholic church. So much for Christian charity.

Of course, there may be some explanation in the fact that this letter was actually constructed on behalf of the Pope by one Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Ratzinger, as we all know, is the ex-Nazi who went on to become Pope then decide he didn’t want the job anymore.

He’s also know as the Cardinal who, in 2001, issued a letter to every Catholic Bishop reminding them that there were strict penalties for publicly revealing information about Church investigations into allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. Some years later, lawyers for two alleged victims of such abuse claimed that, by sending the letter, Ratzinger had conspired to obstruct the course of justice.