Is the pope Italian?

Is the pope gay?

There was a time when both of those questions would have been regarded as jokes.

From Colm Toibin's review of the book, The Pope Is Not Gay, by Angelo Quattrocchi:

There are very good reasons why homosexuals have been traditionally attracted to the priesthood. I know these reasons because I, as someone ‘confused about my sexuality’, had to confront and entertain the idea that I should join the priesthood. In 1971, aged 16, I gave up my Easter break so I could attend a workshop for boys who believed they had a vocation.

Some of the reasons why gay men became priests are obvious and simple; others are not. Becoming a priest, first of all, seemed to solve the problem of not wanting others to know that you were queer. As a priest, you could be celibate, or unmarried, and everyone would understand the reasons. It was because you had a vocation; you had been called by God, had been specially chosen by him.
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That you were gay was something you managed to know about yourself and not know at the same time.
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This is almost an aspect of the Catholic religion itself, this business of knowing and not knowing something all at the same time, keeping an illusion separate from the truth. We knew that the bread and wine, for example, were literally and actually changed into the body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ by the priest at Mass, and, at the same time, we must have known that this was not the case, that, really, they remained just bread and wine.

The shame an adolescent felt about being gay in those years should not be underestimated; the feeling that you were less than worthy, that if people found out the truth about you they would despise you, went deep into your soul. This was another reason to become a priest. You could change your own powerlessness into power. As a priest, you would be admired and looked up to, you would spend your life – as so many Catholic priests have indeed spent their lives – doing good and being good. And being seen to be good, being needed by the sick and the dying, being wanted to officiate at weddings and baptisms and funerals, saying the sacred words which would mean so much to the congregation, all this would offer you a fulfilled and fulfilling life. Becoming a priest solved not only the outward problem of forbidden and unmentionable sexual urges, but, perhaps more important, offered a solution to the problem of having a shameful identity that lurked in the deepest recesses of the self.
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when Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope in April 2005, it was possible to imagine, as he came out onto the balcony of St Peter’s with a benign and humble look on his face and the bearing of a kind but wily old man with a deep inner life, that he was someone with the authority, the intellectual depth and the good sense to carry out these reforms. It was possible to imagine him spending his papacy restoring prayer and the spiritual life to the heart of the Catholic faith, placing much emphasis on the mystery and beauty of the Eucharist and dwelling as much as he could on ideas of redemption, responsibility, solidarity, forgiveness and love in the life of Jesus in the New Testament.

If anyone wonders why this has not happened, it is worth taking a look at Ratzinger’s views on homosexuality, which are offered in full in a number of appendices to The Pope Is Not Gay! by Angelo Quattrocchi.
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When I listed the reasons homosexuals might be attracted to the Church and might want to become priests, I did not mention the most obvious one: you get to wear funny bright clothes; you get to dress up all the time in what are essentially women’s clothes. As part of the training to be an altar boy I had to learn, and still remember, what a priest puts on to say Mass: the amice, the alb, the girdle, the stole, the maniple and the chasuble. Watching them robing themselves was like watching Mary Queen of Scots getting ready for her execution.

Priests prance around in elaborately fashioned costumes. Bishops and cardinals have even more colourful vestments. This ‘overt behaviour’ on their part has to be examined carefully. Since it is part of the rule of the Church, part of the norm, it has to be emphasised that many of them do not dress up as a matter of choice. Indeed, the vestments in all their glory might make some of them wince. But others seem to enjoy it. Among those who seem to enjoy it is Ratzinger. Quattrocchi draws our attention to the amount of care, since his election, Ratzinger has taken with his accessories, wearing designer sunglasses, for example, or gold cufflinks, and different sorts of funny hats and a pair of red shoes from Prada that would take the eyes out of you. He has also been having fun with his robes. On Ash Wednesday 2006, for example, he wore a robe of ‘Valentino red’ – called after the fashion designer – with ‘showy gold embroidery’ and soon afterwards changed into a blue associated with another fashion designer, Renato Balestra. In March 2007, for a visit to the juvenile prison at Casal del Marno, he wore an extraordinary tea-rose-coloured costume.
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Quattrocchi draws conclusions a little too easily from a consideration of the connection between the fury of the pope’s attacks on homosexuality and his attire. ‘The secularist,’ he writes,

will inevitably wonder, not particularly maliciously, whether such fury isn’t the fruit of a deeply repressed desire for what he condemns. Of an unconscious desire which manifests itself as its opposite … Now that he has ascended to the throne, our hero has discovered the dazzling clothes, the trappings of power and wealth, which centuries of pomp have draped on the shoulders of his predecessors. In this way, his true nature, his deepest unspoken inclinations are revealed. In short, he might simply be the most repressed, imploded gay in the world.

Quattrocchi also considers the relationship between the pope and his private secretary. The private secretary is called Georg Gänswein. Gänswein is remarkably handsome, a cross between George Clooney and Hugh Grant, but, in a way, more beautiful than either. In a radio interview Gänswein described a day in his life and the life of Ratzinger, now that he is pope:

The pope’s day begins with the seven o’clock Mass, then he says prayers with his breviary, followed by a period of silent contemplation before our Lord. Then we have breakfast together, and so I begin the day’s work by going through the correspondence. Then I exchange ideas with the Holy Father, then I accompany him to the ‘Second Loggia’ for the private midday audiences. Then we have lunch together; after the meal we go for a little walk before taking a nap. In the afternoon I again take care of the correspondence. I take the most important stuff which needs his signature to the Holy Father.

When asked if he felt nervous in the presence of the Holy Father, Gänswein replied that he sometimes did and added: ‘But it is also true that the fact of meeting each other and being together on a daily basis creates a sense of “familiarity”, which makes you feel less nervous. But obviously I know who the Holy Father is and so I know how to behave appropriately. There are always some situations, however, when the heart beats a little stronger than usual.’

In his book, Quattrocchi prints many photographs of the pope in his papal clothes, and many of Gänswein looking sultry, like a film star, and a few of the two together, taking a walk or the younger man helping the older one to put on a robe or a hat. He writes:

About ten years before he became pope, when age was beginning to take its toll and was maybe sharpening the secret internal rage, Ratzy [Ratzinger] met Don Giorgio [Gänswein]. And it was a spark of life amid the doctrinal darkness … So we can at least imagine how a pure soul becomes inflamed when it meets its soulmate, when a nearly 70-year-old prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith meets a brilliant 40-year-old priest from his native Bavaria who shares the same outlook on the world … When we see the photos, which we publish in this book, of Georg putting Ratzy’s little hat on for him, handing him his stole, watching his back, looking after him, accompanying him and helping him as he walks, we cannot help being moved.

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While there is something oddly emphatic and absolute and oddly hateful in his [the pope's] diktats, it should be understood that he has taken this tone on other matters besides homosexuality. He may well have taken it out of pure conviction and seriousness; to suggest that this most ideological of figures may or may not be homosexual himself simply because he has made so many statements on the matter seems unfair to him. And in his way of wearing clothes, he is not different from any other member of the Church hierarchy. It is unlikely they all get pleasure from wandering around looking like elderly fashion victims, even if some of them, including Ratzinger, seem to do so. It may depend on who is taking the photographs. And it seems natural that Ratzinger would have a private secretary who is also from Bavaria and with whom he seems to share an ideology. It might be pure coincidence that he is one of the most handsome men alive.

The problem is that, after all that has been revealed, many of us who were brought up in the Church now know that we once listened to sermons about how to conduct our lives from men who were child molesters. And that senior members of the Church hierarchy protected these men, believing that the reputation of the Church was more important than the safety of children, and that Church law was superior to civil law. When they were found out, their sorrow was not fully credible. Thus, when we think of the Catholic Church, we think of secrecy, half-hearted apology, studied concealment.
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However, rather than listening to this message or bowing our heads as he offers us his blessing, because of what has happened, because of a new suspicion which even the most reverent feel about the clergy, we will find ourselves examining Ratzinger’s clothes and his accessories, his gestures, and checking behind him for a glimpse of the gorgeous Georg with whom he spends so much of his day.

From Wikipedia:

Reverend Monsignor Georg Gänswein, JCD (born July 30, 1956 in Riedern am Wald, Waldshut, Baden-Württemberg) is a German priest of the Roman Catholic Church, and the personal secretary of Pope Benedict XVI.

Known to Italians as "Padre Georg" or, due to his handsome looks, "Bel Giorgio" ("Beautiful George"), Gänswein was born in a small town in Germany and ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1984.
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In his private life, Gänswein devotes his time to playing tennis, skiing, and flying airplanes.

Like Toibin, I also considered becoming a priest but settled for becoming a Marist Brother instead. And I considered it because of many of the same reasons that he cites - not the least of which was that I had discovered that I was "different." I did not want to be "gay" but I also knew that I was definitely not "straight." But I eventually realized that it was not the solution.

The male Catholic leadership is not "gay" as such but there is a strong element of "androphilia" (about which more in another post) especially in the monastic orders such as I joined. "Androphilia" is not the same as homosexuality. Androphiles are attracted to men but don't necessarily practice homosexuality. Modern "gays" nowadays call androphiles "closet cases."

I knew many priests and monks like that. Most of them didn't even know that they were androphiles. The thought never crossed their minds. (Sadly many of them were also in denial about being pedophiles.) But most of them never succumbed to their lusts.

In my mind, the pope is like that. I'm sure he's a virgin. And, yes, he's a sissy - as his red satin Gucci shoes and designer gowns hint. "Gorgeous Georg" is definitely not a sissy - just the type of beautiful athletic masculine male that intellectual sissified androphiles like the pope love.

My conclusion is that neither of them are "gay" in the modern sense but are androphiles in the way that Plato, Michelangelo and Shakespeare were.

More pictures of the pope and his private secretary.