David Berger and my reponse to his interview

Dear Readers,


 I recently posted a discussion on AtheistNexus.org that I posted on my blog dealing with the openly gay, ex-theologian, David Berger who was interviewed  about his being excommunicated from his position within the Church after he came out as gay and the bigotry he faced from fundamentalist Roman Catholic groups in Germany:

























Ever since Pope Benedict XVI, at the latest, you have to be anti-modern to have a career in the Catholic Church. [...] That is how people noticed me. Because I was an expert on the medieval thinker Thomas Aquinas, I was invited by almost all right-wing conservative groups to give lectures. I was in touch with the Sedevacantists, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, the Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, Una Voce, Opus Dei and the Servants of Jesus and Mary."
SPIEGEL: What went on at the meetings?
Berger: "These groups are very careful about who they invite. They meet in very high-class venues, sometimes in former aristocratic residences or in luxury hotels. Old men smoke fat cigars, drink expensive red wine and eat well. It is a parallel world whose inhabitants seek to defy the modern world."
SPIEGEL: And what do they discuss?
Berger: "They talk about a supposed Jewish global conspiracy or about how to keep emancipators, freemasons and gays out of the church. For many years, there were "gentlemen's evenings" in Düsseldorf that were organized by a tax consultant. They increasingly became a focal point for a right-wing Catholic network. At one of the meetings, which were regularly visited by senior clerics, the man sitting next to me, a retired university professor, was railing against the gay parades on Christopher Street Day (in Germany): "Instead of standing in a corner, being ashamed of themselves and just shutting up, they behave like pigs gone wild."
[...]








Why should gays have to stand in a corner, be ashamed of themselves or shut up?  Why do gay parades bother this professor?   What sort of global conspiracy are the Jews planning, by the way? By the way, don't they know that their beloved Messiah was Jewish? What have the Freemasons done to them? They talk about how to keep freemasons, emancipators and gays out of the church, talk about "purging sin", huh? Kind of like how Hitler wanted to purge the world of "non-Aryans" whom he considered to be "blights upon society". How ironic, these Roman Catholics who talk of Jewish global conspiracies and how to discriminate against gays in regards to Church membership, I'm sure that Adolf Hitler who had been a Roman Catholic would be so proud of them. No wonder young generations are not finding Christianity and other religions to be very appealing anymore. A person can only deal with so much hate and bigotry in their lives.  It's sad to see that German Catholics would act like this. How could they even call themselves moral persons while promoting anti-Semitism, homophobia and religious intolerance? Again, did they learn nothing from the Holocaust?














Berger: "I published the magazine Theological Issues and was summoned by the sponsors every time a faintly liberal view was espoused. Opus Dei people were always there to observe. They said I wasn't allowed to write "life partner;" it should instead be referred to as "fornication partner." "Homosexuality" was too neutral, they said. One had to refer to it as "unnatural fornication."










 I recently posted a discussion on AtheistNexus.org that I posted on my blog dealing with the openly gay, ex-theologian, David Berger. So, this fanatical Catholic group wouldn't allow David Berger who is an expert on the life of Thomas Aquinas to write "life partner" during his involvement with a fundamentalist Roman Catholic organization, but said that it should be "fornication partner". What is wrong with unmarried consenting adult couples having sex? Homosexuality is natural and so is fornication in all actuality.  The Roman Catholic Church and most other Christian sects, denominations, branches, splinter-groups and movements wouldn't dare excommunicate their members left and right for engaging in non-marital sexual relationships because if they did, they would lose the vast majority of their members.  Roman Catholic priests should be the last people to be qualified for talking about marriage and family relationships. As I have said before, they cannot date, have sex or marry and can certainly never have any children. I don't know why David or his boyfriend would want to identify as Roman Catholics, they have the right to do so, but why affiliate yourself with a prejudiced religious institution that has too many problems going for itself to name?  Why don't they identify as Catholics without being involved in an actual Catholic Church congregation, that is not an unusual choice. It's quite common.






Sincerely,


B.W.