Catholic Leader Says LGBT People Not Welcome in Heaven

by Michael Jones · 2009-12-03 05:08:00 UTC
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HeavenHave any plans for your afterlife? Well, if you're gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, the Catholic Church has a message for you: don't plan on spending your afterlife in heaven.

A Mexican Cardinal, and the former Vatican official in charge of the office of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Health, said in an interview with Pontifex that "homosexuals and transexuals" won't enter into the reign of God. Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan said that his afterlife buzzkill for LGBT folks isn't coming from his mouth, but rather the words of the Bible.

"God alone has the right to judge," Cardinal Lozano Barragan said. "Transsexuals and homosexuals will never enter the kingdom of heaven and it is not me who says this, but Saint Paul."

Did someone order a helping of shallow theology, with a side dish of religious bigotry?

The Cardinal's comment was so far extreme that they made some other Catholic leaders squeamish. One Vatican spokesperson, Fr. Federico Lombardi, said that Cardinal Lozano Barragan shouldn't be seen as an authority "on such complex and delicate issues like homosexuality." That sounds a little like damage control.

Though, frankly, if the Catholic Church is willing to stop helping the poor to protest gay marriage, then it's not that much of an intellectual leap for the Church to start banning queer people from heaven.

The ironic twist in all of this is that immediately after saying that LGBT folks were being stopped at heaven's door, Cardinal Lozano Barragan had the gall to say, "This does not justify any form of discrimination." Say what? It's basically as if the Cardinal said, "Hey, queer people: You're sick, disgusting, the Bible says you're immoral, you have no business being in heaven...but hey, let's just be friends."

No thanks, Cardinal. Besides, if there are no queer people in heaven, then it doesn't sound like such a great place anyway.

(Photo courtesy of trix0r's photostream on Flickr.)

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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