The discussion coming out of our article on HIV/AIDS last Wednesday has yet again caused us to place the Church under the microscope, and to question the fading role which it is playing in our society. There was a time when the majority of young people could be found at Sunday school involved in one or several activities within the church; youth groups, singing in the choir, Church Lads Brigade, etc. We feel that we can say that the Church was an extension of the family and it was not uncommon for the parish priest or pastor to be intimately involved in the decision making of many households within the parish.

It is not our intention to use the argument that one has to be religious to have wholesome values. However, we all accepted that by attending Church there was a discipline acquired which was an inevitable influence on our young, impressionable minds and bodies back then. We anticipate the arguments which will come back to us and we agree that moralizing will not stave-off the morass which the HIV/AIDS problem has deposited our society. The problem is complex and must be attacked on many fronts. We know that factors such as parental delinquency, vacillating policymakers, schools which teach children how to pass examinations and not how to be rounded citizens, and many others factors all combine create some of the societal ills which we are currently battling. In the BU household we subscribe to the view that our political directorate and the church are failing modern societies.

To support our point we invite you to read the following blog which highlights the deceit and hypocrisy which is prevalent in the Catholic church. This denomination has a significant congregation in Barbados.

Vatican bars prelate in gay row, BBC News

The Vatican rarely comments on sexual scandals involving priests. The Vatican has confirmed local newspaper reports that a high-ranking Catholic priest has been suspended. The man, who works in the department in charge of clergy around the world, appeared on Italian TV earlier this month admitting that he was gay. The prelate had been suspended pending further investigation, said Vatican spokesman Father Frederico Lombari. He says he was interviewed “fraudulently” with a hidden camera and now denies his earlier statement. In a letter published in an Italian online newspaper, Petrus, he writes: “I said I was homosexual in order to unmask those who really are.”He has been publicly named as Tommaso Stenico, and has confirmed that he gave the interview. Father Lombardi said that he had clearly acted in a way that was incompatible with his status inside the world headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church. Monsignor Stenico appeared on an investigative programme about gay priests on an Italian commercial TV channel, La7.

He was filmed inside his private office in the Vatican. Although his voice was disguised, colleagues and friends easily identified him as a monsignor who frequently used to appear as anchorman and even celebrate Mass on a well known local Catholic TV channel. Monsignor Stenico told his interviewer that he did not regard himself as being in a state of sin because of his homosexual activities but was forced to keep them secret because of the church’s teaching on the subject. The BBC’s David Willey in Rome says the Vatican rarely comments on sexual scandal involving priests and the prompt admission of this priest’s suspension is unusual.

What we find repulsive and hypocritical is not the fact that homosexuality is rampant in the modern Church, but there is all the illegal and immoral behaviour which comes with it. Many of the homosexual elders in the Church inflict their ‘filthy stinking’ lifestyles on innocent members of their congregations. If a priest/pastor is gay, he or she should come-out so that the public knows his or her position, and they can make informed decisions whether they want to be led by that individual or not.

We anticipate that Bush Tea and others will have much to say but call the BU household eternal optimist; we are not homophobic!

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