...Most of all, the new pope’s words and deeds have emboldened liberal Italian priests to push boundaries they never would have under Benedict XVI.Read the rest here.
From his perch at the millennia-old Sant’Alessandro parish nestled high above the olive groves of Tuscany, for instance, the Rev. Giorgio Mazzanti has long baptized the children of unmarried parents and offers the Eucharist to divorced worshipers. But he recently set a new standard for progressive clerics here by authorizing local actors to stage a production of “Bent,” the 1979 Martin Sherman play about the persecution of gays in Nazi Germany.
The four sold-out shows — performed in a hall that shares a common wall with this village’s ancient Catholic church — depicted two men who fall in love at the Dachau concentration camp. At one point, the two male leads kiss.
“It seemed to me to be the right thing to do, to give space to this issue now,” said Mazzanti, 66, the longtime pastor at Sant’Alessandro. “The atmosphere created by our new pope has, in a sense, made it official for us to have a more open door.”
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First point - secular newspaper, reporting about the Francis I.
ReplyDeleteSecond point - not the first secular paper to do this.
Third point - secular newspaper wants to sell newspapers, not proclaim the truth.
Fourth point - Francis I's words often taken out of context. By the secular press. Quite often. And eaten up with a large spoon by, here's a newsflash, Catholics.
Fifth point - Reverend Fathers of the "progressive" bent, two words: Grow. Up.