Australia: Cardinal Challenged to Debate on Homosexuality

Australia's Catholic Cardinal George Pell has been challenged to a debate about homosexuality and gay rights by lesbian activist Monica Hingston. Monica, by the way, is George's cousin. It should be a very interesting debate, assuming Pell ever accepts.

The Courier Mail reports:

Cardinal Pell is well known for his public sermons against homosexuality and sparked controversy when, as Archbishop of Melbourne, he refused gay activists holy communion. ... In her latest invitation, Ms Hingston, a former Catholic nun, urged her second cousin to debate the issue with gay Catholics at the closing of gay film festival QueerDOC.

The forum will follow a screening of In Good Conscience, a film about lesbian Sister Jeannine Gramick who was stripped of her ministry by Pope John Paul II in 2000. "Cardinal George Pell was a member of the congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, the body that attempted to silence Sister Gramick," Ms Hingston said. ... "We are frighteningly moving down the path of the USA, where religious fundamentalist leaders and Republican politicians run the country together."

I don't know Pell, but somehow I doubt he will accept — that would legitimize the idea that there could be a debate about homosexuality, something Catholic leaders seem to dismiss. I find it interesting that America's attitude towards and treatment of gays is being used elsewhere as a standard which should be avoided — not unlike how people in America use the Saudi treatment of women.

Read More:

• Gay Rights, Gay Marriage
• Evangelical Christianity & Homosexuality
• Catholicism & Homosexuality