Andrew Sullivan, They Cannot Speak Our Name: An Addendum

As I take a welcome break from slogging on my treadmill machine, I'm seeing that Andrew Sullivan has now posted an addendum to his previous posting to which I linked earlier today, on the refusal of the Catholic church's leaders (and, I'd argue, the powerful liberal-centrist Catholic media and intellectual commentariat colluding with them) to speak our gay names.

Sullivan writes, 

I used to think that homosexuality was a relatively minor issue for the church, and that the natural law arguments for allowing an eternal part of God's creation some dignity and respect, along with all others who for unchosen reasons cannot partake in procreative heterosexual marriage, were strong. I have come to realize that the homosexual issue is at the very heart of the church's current crisis - and that the cruelty we see is the kind of cruelty inflicted by closeted gay men on those who have sought an honest life.  This goes all the way to the very top of the church. Its secrecy and hypocrisy and self-hatred all played a part in the cover-up of mass child-rape for decades. 

Pope Benedict XVI himself is a living embodiment of these profound and crippling contradictions. Until they are addressed, until they are fully acknowledged, reform on a whole range of issues will remain extremely hard.

And he's correct, I think.  And, of course, the pastoral leaders of the church and their centrist co-belligerents have to make us invisible as they talk about love, justice, mercy, human rights, those on the margins, the common weal, and catholicity.

Because how otherwise could they talk about any of those things with a straight face, if they recognized us sitting in the room while they natter on?