A surprising piece in Spanish language Catholic news service, ACI Prensa, tells how Catholic clergy in Colombia reacted to a comment by left-wing President Gustavo Petro about Jesus’ personal life.
“Jesus made love, yes”, said the President. “Perhaps with Mary Magdalene, because a man like that without love could not exist. And the woman supported him until the very end; and he didn’t die like Bolívar, he died surrounded by the women who loved him. And there were many,” he said.
According to the article, the President’s comments were made during the reopening of the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Bogotá.
The country’s church hierarchy has issued a statement in which they emphasised that for Christians the name of Jesus is “holy and his person not only has the importance of the historical figure, but also demands the respect and adoration with which the True God is treated.” In other words their President’s comment was verging on blasphemy.
Of course we don’t see here the full context in which President Petro spoke, but they don’t sound like words of disrespect. On the contrary, while they may hint at a somewhat different emphasis in Jesus’ life from that held by Catholic orthodoxy, they still speak of a man of love.
It brings to mind the controversy in the UK back in 1967 in a piece entitled “Jesus, the Revelation of God”, where academic, and later Bishop, Hugh Montefiore, suggested there were a number of reasons why man of Jesus’ age and time might have been celibate: “either because they cannot afford to marry or there are no girls to marry…; or because it is inexpedient for them to marry in the light of their vocation; or because they are homosexual in nature”.
The suggestion, among others, that Christ might have been homosexual, was blown up into a massive crisis, and was considered a likely reason for Bishop Montefiore never being considered a suitable candidate for Archbishop of Canterbury when Donald Coggan retired in 1980.
It is a shame when the church closes ranks against those with slightly different interpretations of the gospel narrative. In both cases, it seems that President and Bishop were trying to find a way of seeing Christ in a different light, rather than attacking the fundamental doctrines of our faith.
Read the story, in Spanish, here.