The appallingly stupid “gay” book about the Vatican by the “gay” French writer

I received a Kindle copy of the appalling “gay” book by the “gay” French writer – and I use the term writer loosely.

Damian Thompson’s review says it all better than I could:

An exposé of high-ranking gays in the Catholic Church bears the fingerprints of the Pope’s closest advisors
Team Francis are playing a nasty game in encouraging this attack on their conservative enemies

[…]

Martel is, to put it charitably, an odd fish. He is besotted with Rimbaud, sleeping beside a volume of his poetry, and the generation of tortured French gay artists and intellectuals who followed him. He presses a ‘white volume’ (he won’t say what it is) into the hands of his inter-viewees. On almost every page he outs himself as a raging bore.

He’s more than an odd fish, though. He’s a menace, because he hasn’t bothered to equip himself with basic theological knowledge.

[…]

I know why the Pope’s hardline allies, known as Team Francis, indulged Martel.They wanted a hit job on their conservative enemies; he was writing this book and they saw their chance. [….]

Unfortunately for Team Francis, they have landed themselves in The Pink Panther rather than The Day of the Jackal.

[…]

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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5 Comments

  1. iamlucky13 says:

    As I am unaware of what ties link this book or its author to Pope Francis, much less whether he himself finds the book credible or supports its distribution, I’m concerned in charity for the Holy Father, and for the sake of our own credibility, lest we look like rabid critics of the Pope, about the way the “Team Francis” reference seems to suggest his complicity in some form with the book’s publication.

    That said, if there are substantive points in Mr. Thompson’s review, I would be interested in reading the review. Does a link happen to be available?

    [I added the link, above.]

  2. rcg says:

    It might be that Martel is merely being consistent with modern homosexual social theory: that everyone has ‘gay’ desires and only the bravest act on them. So the conscious congregation of homosexuals at the highest levels of the Church is a natural event. In his world the homosexual clergy who are comfortable with their desires. are closeted by their narrow-minded surroundings. Others, such as Müller and Pope Francis need a nudge to confess their homosexuality or encouragement to publicly support the homosexuals around them. So he is merely ‘outing’ others as an act of intimidation as well as a public inventory of those clergy he finds attractive. One aspect of homosexuality is the desire to control others. This is his play at that.

  3. Charles E Flynn says:

    From Why Celibacy Matters, by Ross Douthat
    How the critique of Catholicism changes and yet remains the same.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/opinion/sunday/why-celibacy-matters.html

    The rhetoric of anti-Catholicism, whether its sources are Protestant or secular, has always insisted that the church of Rome is the enemy of what you might call healthy sexuality. This rhetorical trope has persisted despite radical redefinitions of what healthy sexuality means; one sexual culture overthrows another, but Catholicism remains eternally condemned.

    Thus in a 19th-century context, where healthy sexuality meant a large patriarchal family with the wife as the angel in the home, anti-Catholic polemicists were obsessed with Catholicism’s nuns — these women who mysteriously refused husbands and childbearing, and who were therefore presumed to be prisoners in gothic convents, victims of predatory priests.

    Then a little later, when the apostles of sexual health were Victorian “muscular Christians” worried about moral deviance, the problem with Catholicism was that it was too hospitable to homosexuality — too effete, too decadent, too Oscar Wildean even before Wilde’s deathbed conversion.

    Then later still, when sexual health meant the white-American, two-kid nuclear family, the problem with Catholicism was that it was too obsessed with heterosexual procreation, too inclined to overpopulate the world with kids.

  4. I may have already posted this link at some point, but Damian Thompson’s conclusions are identical to those of the (impeccably liberal!) CNN reporting on this screed:

    https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/14/europe/vatican-book-analysis/index.html

  5. Grant M says:

    (Reposting with less misleading punctuation)

    I take to heart Douthat’s observation: “A critic of the church can be quicker to see problems than a believer.”

    I note that when the NO replaced the TLM, cultured outsiders such as Sir Kenneth Clark and Yehudi Menuhin exclaimed: “This is cultural vandalism!” Many faithful Catholics responded: “Well, we are sacrificing something aesthetically, but this is an authentic renewal of our faith.” In retrospect….

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