A mixed Christmas message from Rome

This is the time of year when many North Country families look to Rome for the Pope’s message of peace.

And indeed, Pope Benedict XVI sent words of support to “all those who, rather than resigning themselves to the twisted logic of conflict and violence, prefer instead the path of dialogue and negotiation as the means of resolving tensions within each country and finding just and lasting solutions to the conflicts troubling the region.”

In this frightening season — when the world seems balanced on the edge of a precipice — that kind of optimism and idealism are greatly appreciated.

But Pope Benedict also chose this holiday season to issue an unprecedented verbal assault on the millions of gays and lesbians in the world, describing homosexuality as a “destruction of God’s work”.

He also insisted that homosexual inclinations reflect a “more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil”.

It strikes me that Pope Benedict can’t have it both ways.

He can’t in good faith call on the world’s peoples to engage in the painful and complex dialogue that will lead to peace, while also condemning out of hand so many souls.

The Pope calls upon Israelis to sit down with Palestinians.

He implores warring nations to reject decades of hatred and to reach beyond their own faiths and doctrines to embrace other people of good will.

I understand that the Roman Catholic church disapproves of homosexality.

But surely people in same-sex relationships — who have never murdered or bombed or invaded or launched pogroms — deserve as much respect and love as all those other factions that the Pope embraces.

In this season of hope, Pope Benedict should lead by example, by sitting down with gay and lesbian members of his own church.

He should listen to them with an open mind, acknowledge the challenges and vagaries of the human heart, and extend to them his full grace of love.

That would indeed be a message of peace to the world.