UK Gay Rights Campaigners: Plan To Exhume Cardinal Is 'Homophobic'

[DeSwiss]

Plan to exhume cardinal is 'homophobic'

The Independent UK
By Robert Verkaik
Monday, 25 August 2008


The Catholic Church is under growing pressure to abandon the "homophobic" exhumation and reburial of the body of one its most famous cardinals, in defiance of his wish to lie for eternity next to the man he loved. Gay rights campaigners have accused the Vatican – which has ordered the disinterment in the first step towards beatification – of attempting to cover up the sexuality of Cardinal John Henry Newman, who died in 1890. Opposition to the reburial among some British Roman Catholics has been bolstered by a new poll organised by The Church Times which shows that a majority of Anglicans are now against the separation of Cardinal Newman, a former Anglican clergyman, and Father Ambrose St John who lived together as "husband and wife" for most of their late adult lives.

Yesterday, the gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell told The Independent: "The Vatican's decision to move Cardinal Newman's body from its resting place is an act of grave robbery and religious desecration. It violates Newman's repeated wish to be buried for eternity with his life-long partner Ambrose St John. "They have been together for more than 100 years and the Vatican wants to disturb that peace to cover up the fact that Cardinal Newman loved a man. It's shameful, dishonourable betrayal of Newman by the gay-hating Catholic Church." The Church Times' poll found that 80 per cent of responders were opposed to the Vatican's decision to move Newman's body.

But Austen Ivereigh, former advisor to Cardinal Cormac-Murphy O'Connor, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, told BBC Radio 4's Sunday programme yesterday that Mr Tatchell's criticism was a nonsense. Mr Ivereigh said the reburial was "part of the process to the journey towards canonisation" so his remains can be taken to a suitable city to allow pilgrims "to venerate the saint to be". He added: "I don't think anyone disputes that Cardinal Newman deeply loved Ambrose St John. He did say after St John died that the grief is comparable to a husband losing a wife or wife losing a husband, but he did not mean that the relationship with Ambrose St John was a marriage like a gay relationship. It is simply wrong to read back from today's categories into the Victorian periods when these very intense, passionate, but totally celibate relationships in Oxford and among the Anglocatholic community were very common."

Cardinal Newman and Ambrose St John share a memorial stone and are buried side by side in the same grave in Rednal, Worcestershire. Cardinal Newman wrote shortly before his death: "I wish, with all my heart, to be buried in Father Ambrose St John's grave – and I give this as my last, my imperative will." On their gravestone is a Latin inscription, "there from the shadow and images into the truth", which many people believe is a posthumous coming out. The Ministry of Justice has granted a licence for the removal of the Cardinal's remains into a sarcophagus to stand opposite the Holy Souls Altar in the Birmingham Oratory. Pope Benedict is likely to declare Cardinal Newman as blessed in November, which could lead to canonisation.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/plan-to-exhume-cardinal-is-homophobic-907797.html">LINK

- So, Mr. Ivereigh tells us that its "wrong to read back from today's categories into the Victorian periods when these very intense, passionate, "BUT TOTALLY CELIBATE RELATIONSHIPS" in Oxford and among the Anglo-Catholic community were very common."

Oh. Right. How could anyone think that there was anything like a gay priest in Victorian times? Now how ridiculous is that? In fact, the Catholic Church doesn't accept the idea that there are even any gay priest today. And if there were any gay priests back then or now, its not their fault. Because its clearly the work of the DEVIL, who is trying to besmirch their pristine institutional reputation.

See?
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DeSwiss


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[Ian David]

1. After Der Popenfuhrer is dead and burning in Hell, we can always move his body back. n/t

[DeSwiss]

2. Agreed.

And I recommend final internment to be made at any one of the several "Super Fund Toxic Waste Sites." So that he can be interred along side all the other poisons.

- Failing that, there are a number of Pet Parks he could be planted in. This way he'll receive the kind of veneration he so justly deserves. Every day.....

[Falcon_Lights1916]

3. It Doesn't Make any %^$£&! Difference...

Whether or not there was a platonic or a sexual relationship between Cardinal Newman and Fr. St. John! The fact of the matter is that Newman wished to lie for eternity next to the man he loved!! The very fact that the Vatican wants Newman's remains moved is insulting to the men's memory. Goddess forbid that someone might figure out that gays and lesbians are as worthy of canonisation as others. This is absolutely repulsive, but entirely what I expect under the current Papacy. The one thing you can always count on from the Vatican is the oppression of LGBT people and lies about our lives and loves.