Tony Bartlett’s long-awaited new book is a major advance in understanding the almost unimaginable blast from elsewhere which we far too hygienically describe as “Divine Revelation”; and how it can be traced through the books we far too complacently bundle as “Holy Scripture”.
I remember being convinced that I had a vocation, but that was long before I was able to question how much of my conviction was self-importance and a need to be special. Years of peeling away and undoing would be required if ever I were to fall into the hands of the living God.
His point, Francis said, was to insist on decriminalization. And of course, as Pope, he upholds the normal teaching about the sinfulness of sexual acts outside marriage (irrespective of orientation), with all the usual caveats that are necessary concerning different circumstances, and occasions when there may be no culpability at all―but chief among all of this was that none of this justifies criminalization.