Pope’s new preacher Pasolini teaches rainbow bible

At first it was a suspicion, then it became a probability, now it’s a certainty. The appointment of the new Preacher of the Papal Household, Capuchin Father Roberto Pasolini, decisively confirms that Pope Francis has decided to surround himself with people who are bent on passing off homosexuality as a normal sexual orientation. About a month after Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe’s appointment as Cardinal, the preacher at the Synod known for his stands on homosexuality, the Pope chooses to replace Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa with another preacher who has no qualms about following the criterion of pure fantasy in the interpretation of the Scriptures in order to say that ‘gay is normal’; and even approve the blessings authorised by Fiducia supplicans on the basis of non-existent exegetical, which is as non-existent as it gets.

But let us proceed in order. Friar Roberto Pasolini ‘sells' his gibberish to the public, which we will see in a moment, from the lofty heights of his Doctorate in Biblical Theology at the Gregorian and his teaching in the same discipline at the Theological Faculty in Milan, Northern Italy. Also in Milan, in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Piazza Velasquez, he holds the Ten Words course (a catechesis based on the Ten Commandments), conceived decades ago by Fr Fabio Rosini. And with the latter, the Capuchin has in common not only a passion for the Ten Words, but also for Father Marko Rupnik, the former Jesuit and artist (founder of the Aletti Centre) at the centre of a serious sexual abuse scandal. This can immediately be surmised from the covers chosen for his ‘trilogy’ dedicated to man's freedom before God, all with images rigorously taken from the Joseph Cycle, realised by the Aletti Centre in the church of the Friars Minor in Mostar; in short, the big-eyed, big-black-eyed, cartoonish men by the former Jesuit, who, lo and behold, is also the author of the preface to the first volume, Non siamo stati noi. Fuori dal senso di colpa  (It wasn't us. Beyond a Guilty Conscience) (2020).

That Pasolini is no stranger to the Aletti household is also demonstrated by a series of collaborations: he gave two lectures at the Centre’s annual meeting in Assisi, in July 2019; he was also entrusted with a few reflections for the Briciole di Parola column, with the specification that Pasolini attended the Atelier of Theology of the Aletti Centre in 2015-2016 and 2016-2017. He’s a disciple of Rupnik. So, while in the Vatican they are busy setting up a scrupulous trial on the Rupnik case - so scrupulous that it always seems to be back to square one -, the ex-Jesuit seems not to have stopped exerting a discreet influence on the Pope and his appointments.

But about Pasolini's biblical gibberish. During a series of public meetings held at the Convent of the Capuchin Friars Minor in Varese, the friar dealt with the subject of ‘Homosexuality and the Christian life’ (watch video) with a string of embarrassing statements in terms of superficiality, recalling the now ‘classic’ biblical passages favoured by homosexualists to demonstrate at all costs that homosexual love would have illustrious precedents in some characters of sacred history.

Immediately after affirming that the homosexuality condemned by St. Paul (in particular Rom 1:26-27, where he explicitly speaks of ‘relations against nature’) was actually one marked by selfish traits and pure pleasure, Pasolini asks whether in the Bible there exists a form of approval of homosexual relations, thus hinting at the possibility of an altruistic and not hedonistic homosexuality; the ‘answer is not easily no, because in reality there are stories [...] that may allude to this. The first of these stories is the evergreen ‘story of homosexual love between Jonathan and David’. Pasolini admits that ‘to go so far as to affirm that it was a homosexual relationship is, however, a manipulation of the text, because nothing alludes to this’. Here, indeed: this honest statement suffices to close the discourse; instead, perhaps in order not to disappoint his listeners, he states that since homosexual relationships existed at the time, we are in any case authorised to imagine that the love between David and Saul's son could have been of this nature.

Much worse is the second reference cited by Pasolini: the relationship between the centurion and his servant(cf. Mt 8:5-13; Lk 7:1-10). From the simple statement that ‘the centurion held him [the servant] very dear’ (Lk 7:2), Pasolini deduces that the ‘fantasy’ of certain interpreters, who have given this relationship a homosexual connotation, would be legitimate, because the centurion's interest in this servant appears disproportionate. That there was therefore such a relationship between the two, according to the Friar, ‘is not improper to think so’. Just imagine, if that were the case: to whom did Jesus give the highest praise? In fact, a certain way of thinking quickly puts us in deep trouble. It means we have to revise all our opinions. We have to accept that Jesus... wasn't so afraid to speak well of people, going back to ‘this blessing that the Pope wrote recently, which raised a hornet's nest’. The ‘logic’ is more or less this: the text does not allow us to talk about homosexuality, therefore we are permitted to think it was homosexuality, therefore Fiducia supplicans is right.

Since the verb used in the ‘incriminated’ expression is ἔντιμος (entimos), the semantic arc of which covers meanings such as hold in honour, appreciate, esteem much: anything that concerns the sexual sphere, is absolutely excluded. So, it is evident that, here too, Pasolini has forced his hand, making semantically permissible what the text does not allow. Even more unfortunate is his endorsement of Fiducia supplicans (one wonders if this the reason the Pope called him to the Papal Household?), causing, among other things, the collateral effect of showing the world that the Declaration has no biblical foothold whatsoever, except for the distorted interpretations of homosexualists. Because, dear Pasolini, a sacramental blessing is not a simple ‘a good wish’, nor is the issue of those blessings on single persons, but of ‘couples’ characterised by the blessing of their homosexuality. Just to clarify.

Once again, Pasolini throws out other possible homosexual stories, which he defines as ‘extreme’, to the listeners, realising that they are even more alien to the meaning of the sacred texts than the previous ones. In other words, hot air. And which should have led him, out of modesty and honesty, simply to keep quiet. But no. Better to put a flea in the ear, letting one imagine homo relations in the circle of the disciples, between Jesus and the disciples, between Jesus and Lazarus.

After all this fanciful paraphernalia, which is nothing more than the forced application of a pre-established and arbitrary (as well as ideological) interpretative scheme to the Scriptures, Pasolini concludes that, in the culture of the ‘biblical world’, the only ‘tendency that existed in the eyes of the authors and for the people was the heterosexual one [...] that is why homosexual acts were also stigmatised so forcefully: they were acts that were immediately catalogued as something that did not exist, like a woman who wears trousers’. So, homosexual acts were stigmatised because they were culturally inconceived: it is a pity that just before he made that statement, he had admitted that homosexuality in the ancient world was well known and practised. And it is a pity that he does not note that those orientations (and not just acts) whether ordained or disordered are determined precisely by the act of creation; erotic attraction to persons of the same sex is severely disordered, even when it does not reach acts that are sinful in themselves. Between men of the same sex, a deep friendship is ordained, as was that between Jonathan and David, between Jesus and the disciples, and not the same-sex friendship, which some attempt to continuously make credible. So much for the new preacher's erotically fanciful exegesis.