In his monthly diatribe against homosexuals Christmas address to the clergy of the Vatican, the Pope weighed in for the zillionth time on his opposition to proposed legal recognition of same-sex couples that is being debated in the Italian legislature (among other places--GO NEW JERSEY!).

Some choice selections from the pontif's pontifications:

On the very idea that same-sex couples should in some way have legal equality with male-female married couples:
"This tacitly accredits those dismal theories that strip all relevance from the masculinity and femininity of the human being as though it were a purely biological issue."

(Said the man who (like me) frequently wears a dress to lead worship and, presumably like me, is a virgin when it comes to male-female sexual activity.)

But seriously, what exactly is he saying with regard to masculinity and femininity that seeks to separate it from biology? Is he talking about prescribed gender roles in scripture? Is he seriously asserting that fathers should control who their daughter marries? That non-virgin females should be stoned to death? That the husband rules the marriage and family the same way His Holiness rules the church, as a benevolent dictator? And by breaking this apart from biology is he trotting out that hoary idea that God ordains male domination of women? Is that really what Catholics actually think? or are supposed to think? Not in my experience.

And then weighing in on the idea that different persons have different sexual identities, he condemned these theories "according to which man should be able to decide autonomously what he is and what he isn't," as ending up with mankind "destroying its own identity."

I'm intrigued. He acknowledges that some are called into the priesthood and some are not. He acknowledges that one comes to an understanding of calling through prayer, study, guidance by others, and the movement of the Holy Spirit. In that, I agree with him completely. But it was a similar process through which I came to understand my identity as a gay man. I didn't "decide" who I am, I discovered who I am. So he's okay with discernment about vocation, but not identity? What the #%@$?

It seems to me that the Bishop of Rome has decided that he is the Arch-Sociologist and the Arch-Psychologist and the Arch-Anthropologist as well. I'm wondering, how does an academically trained theologian, whose entire career before he became Archbishop of Munich was in the cloister of Catholic academia, dare to assume infallibility in questions that are clearly outside of his training and experience?

Why am I suddenly reminded of this statement published under the seal of a prior Pope? “Whereas it has come to the knowledge of the Holy Congregation that that false Pythagorean doctrine altogether opposed to Holy Scripture, on the mobility of the earth and the immobility of the sun, taught by Nicholas Copernicus. ... This congregation has decreed that the said book of Copernicus be suspended until it be corrected.” In other words...the Pope was saying that, science bedamned, the sun revolved around the earth.

While certainly religious leaders have the obligation to speak out on public issues in light of their understanding of revelation, perhaps some humility might be in order when the church (myself included) meanders into the field of science.

Perhaps it's appropriate that the book by Copernicus that was for centuries condemned by the church was actually dedicated to Pope Paul III.

Wishing, I suppose, peace--of mind, spirit, and tongue--to His Holiness this Christmas season.