Vati-con

The BBC is reporting that the Vatican has suspended a high ranking official after he admitted he was gay.

Being, as I am, a child of the politically-correct 1990s, the very act itself is rather astonishing, and on the face of it a rather indecent act. Sacking someone because they are gay is not de rigeur in the modern world. But it is precisely this sort of saga that goes further than just awakening my politically-correct indoctrination: it weakens my respect for Christian religious institutions and their teaching.

In pursuing such trivial things in our society as sexual preference and contraceptives in such a high-profile way, the Vatican may think it is doing us all a favour. Rather, they are being horrifically narrow-minded. To avoid confusion, I use the phrase narrow-minded in this sense: homosexuality is a mere spec on the canvas of the religious teaching of the Bible (to say nothing of whether the Bible actually incites hatred against homosexuals), and to focus on these specs misses the bigger picture.

The bigger picture is that we live in a world full of anger, theft, hatred, murder, warmongering, genocide, rape and so on. If the Christian faith is nothing else, then it is a means by which we can reconcile our competing claims in the pursuit of a common end; it a method of fostering 'brotherhood amongst men'.

By focusing on the specs, the Vatican fails to see the bigger picture.

And in the process, it fails us.