This prime hunk of Bavarian beef – think Steve McQueen in a frock – was never more than a few feet behind, rarely in front of, his master.
The personal relationship between the older pontiff and his younger secretary forms an intriguing narrative to this delightfully waspish, though intellectually rigorous, examination of a pope apparently obsessed with sex.
Whether you enjoy it with men, women or by yourself, it seems the pope has something to say on the subject. Happily many of his more extreme pronouncements on what is clearly his favourite subject are collected in a reader-friendly appendix.
In a letter written in 1986 the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger asks whether, since homosexuality “must be seen as an objective disorder,” Catholics should attack homosexuals?
“It is deplorable,” he concluded, “that homosexual persons have been or are the object of violent malice in speech or in action… but the proper reaction to crimes committed against homosexual persons should not be to claim that the homosexual condition is not disordered.”
So far, so good.
But Ratzy wasn’t finished.
“When such a claim is made and when homosexual activity is consequently condoned, or when civil legislation is introduced to protect behaviour to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground, and irrational and violent reactions increase.”
If the pope had given half as much thought to the pastoral care of his worldwide flock, especially the younger members, the Roman Catholic church would not have lurched from one sex scandal to the next with the regularity with which its leader changes hats.
Angelo Quattrochi – four eyed angel – introduces the notion of a pope who has spent much of his life, and almost all of his papacy, protesting too much.
“The secularist will inevitably wonder, not particularly maliciously, whether such fury isn’t the fruit of a deeply repressed desire for what he condemns.”
And backs up his argument by presenting the pope as a global fashion icon, pictured in a startling variety of clerical garb, much of it influenced by leading – and mostly gay – Italian fashion designers.
And always, at his side, urging him on from one fashion excess to the next – designer shades, Prada shoes, natty gold cufflinks – is gorgeous Georg.
The Queen Mother once said that if you removed gays from the royal household “we’d have to go self-service”.
In his heart Benedict knows that if you removed gays from the Catholic church it would cease to be operational, but this doesn’t prevent him from wishing they’d shut up.
“The ‘sexual orientation’ of a person is not comparable to race, sex, age. An individual’s sexual orientation is generally not known to others unless he publicly identifies himself as having this orientation or unless some overt behaviour manifests it. As a rule, the majority of homosexually oriented persons who seek to lead chaste lives do not publicise their sexual orientation. Hence the problem of discrimination in terms of employment, housing, etc, does not usually arise.”
Maybe not, but scandal doesn’t erupt from behind an open door either.
Quattrocchi has written a concise and supremely witty history of homophobic and sexist obscurantism in the Roman Catholic church while examining in endoscopic detail its foremost proponent, God’s Rottweiler, a man who went from the Hitler Youth to dressing up in women’s clothes.
“Now that he has ascended to the throne, our hero has discovered the dazzling clothes, the trappings of power and wealth, which centuries of pomp have draped on the shoulders of his predecessors. In this way, his true nature, his deepest unspoken inclinations are revealed. In short, he might simply be the most repressed, imploded gay in the world.”
Read this book and draw your own conclusions.
SIC: TM/UK
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