Clergy must remain celibate. Again, Jesus said nothing about this. I think he even liked children, who can only come from sex…but, of course, the Bishops have spoken and what they say must be the truth.

Masturbation? Bad. Contraception? Bad. Sex? Hey, unless kids come out – really, really bad. Again, when the Bishops speak, what they say must be the truth.

Child-molesting priests don’t need to be dealt with by law enforcement. It’s an internal matter for the Church. Never mind the Cardinal Mahoney-style cover-ups, obstruction and shuffling. When the Bishops say everything is under control, they must, naturally, be speaking the truth.

And homosexuality? Bad, bad, very bad. The ultimate bad. Sure, the Old Testament condemned it, but this is the book that also suggested killing non-believers, adulterers and disobedient children. As for the New Testament, Jesus didn’t seem to care about anything other than people loving God and each other. And then there’s that whole “judge not lest ye be judged” leave-it-to-God thing. But, hey, the Bishops have spoken. What they say must be the truth.

When Bishops Gather...

Here’s a statement regarding new guideliens from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
(http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/w006/06-203.shtml):

"The guidelines state that while the Church teaches that homosexual acts are immoral, there is a distinction between engaging in homosexual acts and having a homosexual orientation. ‘While the former is always sinful, the latter is not’"

So being attracted to someone of the same gender isn’t sinful, but acting on that attraction is? How does that work? Does this even make sense to them? Another section may shed some light:

“Similarly, the Church does not support the adoption of children by homosexual couples since homosexual unions are contrary to the divine plan. For this reason, Baptism of children adopted by such couples presents a pastoral concern. Nevertheless, the Church does not refuse the Sacrament of Baptism to these children, but there must be a well founded hope that the children will be brought up in the Catholic religion.”

Do you see them? Those magic words? “Divine plan.” That’s right, the Bishops know what God’s divine plan is. Of course, so do Muslims and non-Catholic Christians and Hindus. But hey, the fact that there so many different divine plans around never stops any believers from believing that they know the real divine plan.

My question, though, is this. If Jesus never said anything about gays, who, exactly, are these Bishops to presume to put words in Jesus’ and God’s mouth? Here’s another question. For a being that, we are told, is the all-powerful creator of the universe and everything in it, doesn’t it stand to reason that he created homosexuality along with everything else? And if he’s so offended by gays, couldn’t he just, oh, I don’t know, wave his hand and make it disappear? Better yet: given how utterly confused the planet is when it comes to what God wants, wouldn’t it be within his power to just talk to us himself? But maybe he did send another messenger to deliver a few clarifications. The trouble is, everybody is so convinced of their infallible status quo that if there were such a messenger, he’d be in a loony bin along with the guy who thinks he’s Napoleon or Marie Antoinette.

In the meantime, thank goodness for those Bishops who can do everybody’s thinking and judging for them. Who needs God, even, when we have the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops?