Dear Pope

You miscalculated. We now know. You are just as human as the rest of us, although I would argue with less heart. And you have proven that you are indeed fallible. And to paraphrase what a priest in my diocese said, the Holy Spirit did NOT pick you!

Look me in the eye and tell me to my face that one of my 3 children was born a lesser human being because he is gay or to use your words, "objectively disordered”. Please, I dare you. I’m betting you won’t. And let me tell you why you won’t. You know the unbelievable love a mother has for her child. You know it is an intense love that can actually make the heart hurt. You know most mothers would lay down their life to defend their child. So why do you think you can tell mothers all over the world that their precious children are flawed, imperfect, objectively disordered? And just wondering, don’t you think you insult God when you make this proclamation? I do. A wise Jesuit once told my son, “God does not make trash.” So why do you believe otherwise?

And how can you stand in your glass house and use language like “intrinsically evil” and “serious depravity” to describe the love of two people who happen to be gay? It is not evil for two consenting adults to want to commit to a life of love and devotion. I would argue that it is quite human, quite beautiful. But let me tell you what is a serious depravity and intrinsically evil: raping and molesting children. And even more evil and depraved are the actions of those within the Catholic Church who chose to protect the predators rather than the children. You should be aiming your vitriolic, caustic language at the actions of those who played any role in shattering innocent children’s lives and even more so at anyone who chose to protect the victimizers rather than the victims. How many souls were destroyed?

And how dare you think that you can morph dedicated, celibate homosexual priests into the pedophile priests that have left an indelible black stain on the Catholic Church. Most people know that homosexual does not equal pedophile and for you to try and equate the two is reprehensible and sinful. Homosexuals are not responsible for the cancer that has been growing unabated within the Catholic Church for so long. Stop destroying even more innocent people’s lives. This is a time for true leadership and accountability, not shifting and evading blame. This is a time for rebuilding trust, not destroying it even more. This is a time for healing the wounded, not wounding even more people.

Do you have any concept of the agony that you have brought down on so many people? You cannot heal a gaping wound by throwing salt in it. But that is exactly what you are doing. I was always taught that one of the bedrocks of the Catholic Church is forgiveness. There can be no forgiveness, no healing, no moving on, until you honestly acknowledge how horribly wrong the Catholic Church has been and continues to be under your leadership. By attempting to shift blame and paint all gays as evil, you shame yourself and create another group of people deeply harmed by the church.

My son is gay. I love and completely accept him just the way he is. I believe God made him just the way he is. When you push him away, you push all who love him away. What you say about him cuts deeply into my heart and the heart of everyone who loves him. I have cried many tears over your searing words. Learning that my beloved son was gay was not devastating, learning that the only church I have ever known condemns him, was. I can no longer walk through the doors of a church whose leader deems my son disordered and evil. It has taken a long time to get to this point, but I am finally at peace with saying good bye.

You were chosen by your peers to be the next Pope. You had to know that the job ahead of you would be quite daunting. You were taking the reigns of a church overshadowed by the taint of evil, a church that had deeply wounded so many of its most vulnerable. People from all over the world watched the light gray smoke coming from the chimney that day and prayed that this marked a new beginning for the church. But it was not to be. Rather than healing the wounded you have chosen to add to their numbers.