The changes are not piffling, Steve, even if we can both easily think of things that are much bigger. I know you would agree they are not piffling to those affected, so I assume you mean piffling "in the great scheme of things." But they aren't there either, I would say. I am a practising Catholic but support the laws enabling gay marriage (and not a quotation mark in sight!). But if you compare the number of gays who want to marry with the number of Catholics who want or are divorced, I would guess the divorce number is much larger. And I do not downplay the mental anguish involved. Imagine you have lived in some society for all you life and still want to belong to it, but are rejected. That is going to be painful however you cut it.

And there are similar changes going on in other areas, you know. The church opposes abortion and I know a lot of people who are much fiercer critics of it than the pope appears to be. But even there, if you look, there is a lot happening to stop women who have had abortions being excluded. You and Bill M would want the church to stop opposing it, and I don't think that likely for decades or more, but I see it as substantial progress to move from "this is an absolute horror" to "this is something we think wrong but in the real world circumstances mean it happens, and we must treat those who choose it with respect". From what I hear, the second is the Pope's stance, which is very different to some other parts of the church say, and I don't see it helpful in the long run to behave as if the church uniformly thinks the former.