Joe.

Two things.

The extreme actions and statements by the two sources you refer to are to my mind no different in origin to any other hatred of equal members of society. But by using religion and Christian religion for that matter as a cloak of respectability, I am highlighting the problems your Pope faces in his reasonable quest to gain relevance for his position and outlook both in and out of his church.

If organisations who feel they have a voice to be heard on moral issues can't formally banish bigotry from what they actually can control, what use do they have in trying to convince the larger community they are relevant?

The Uganda priest is there in his name and ultimately by his appointment. The Russian politician in St Petetsberg who has made claiming gay to be a normal state for the people concerned as a crime is also a Catholic priest. He says if being gay is seen as normal, men will have free rein to rape small boys. His outlook is weird but to be fair, he is a priest as well as the equivalent of mayor.

Instead of wringing hands and saying how broad and large your church is, perhaps you can start by realising if the vast majority of decent people who call themselves Catholic told the Vatican to get their house in order if they want bums on pews, the dichotomy of decent people and discriminatory official position could be solved.

Then religious people might stop moaning of being persecuted for their beliefs. The bosses quietly dropped some of the Old Testament crap so why not the rest of the obscene stuff. If it is no longer church teaching to advocate execution for shagging a donkey or another man and the Bible advocating keeping slaves, then why cling to homophobia and the role of women?

Secondly, questioning gay marriage on the basis of numbers when it is not only a recent thing but an element of choice is not worthy of you my friend. Here in The UK we could remove charitable tax exempt status for churches on the basis of dwindling numbers if that were the case. If Church of England paid tax, the social programmes it could fund. .. wow.

Thirdly of the two points..

You picked me up on spelling which always excites our resident flawed researcher Keith. I laid the trap to wind him up, but to be fair you started it!

Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.

Both spellings are admissible it seems but the medieval post I used to walk past every day as a child said pail, as they tended to be next to wells. Where you took your pails.

About as distracting as the worm and his sidekick throwing statistics out of proportion to satisfy the worm's awful agenda and Keith's lack of social skills.