The bullying bishop

 I live in a fairly cosmopolitan part of the world and over the centuries many foreigners have settled here, from wounded crusaders to holidaying emperors, and whole national communities too: British, Russian, French, you name it. Prior to Covid there was still a weekly train all the way to Moscow! There are lots of places of worship for each community: a pretty Russian orthodox church (that is firmly pro-Ukraine at present), an Anglican church, a Romanian church, a synagogue, a mosque, etc. But this being Italy the dominant religion here is Roman Catholicism and the local bishop is a super transphobe (despite his regular appearances in an ankle-length frock, matching bolero and lacy sleeves). 

There's more than a little controversy resulting from his fairly clear admonitions to his flock to vote for the extreme right, and his expressed delight at its success in the recent election. More than a few of his flock have written open letters about that. I commented last year on his condemnation of the national song contest as being too camp and this year he instituted a religious song festival to contrast it. I'm not sure that garnered quite the same following! Everyone loves a bit of camp, really.

At the same time a parish priest in a different diocese down the road has been suspended for blessing gay unions and feeling that dialogue needs to be opened on issues like LGBT rights, assisted suicide, abortion and so on. He had 500 parishioners and supporters turn out yesterday to ask his bishop to reverse the suspension and this has made the national headlines.

Given that only one third of Italians turn up to church at all these days, and in the rest of Europe it's less, I feel its time that churches turned to rather more significant issues than trans and gay bashing. There's a serious cost of living crisis now, as well as rises in unemployment and bankruptcy, with war and pandemic ongoing and a massive refugee influx. Maybe churches could deal with some issues in their own back yards, too: in France a recent investigation into the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy has uncovered abuse so extensive, even in a country where the church has little influence after three centuries of decline, that that church has decided to sell property to compensate the victims. Were the same sort of investigation to be held in Spain or Italy, where the Catholic church is stronger, it is believed that what would be uncovered would be truly scandalous.

Of course, trans bashing makes a diversion from all this. I note how clergymen have recently been all too happy to snuggle into a political bed with trans-excluding feminists who have until now been among churches' most vocal critics. The old adage that my enemy's enemy is my friend seems to apply. It's very hard to scapegoat Jews after the experience of World War II, and the gay community has made so much progress in fifty years that it's almost impossible to suppress them now, so the small trans community - most of whose members are invisible in any case through fear - is now the target of all this bullying and abuse. I still think the public isn't buying it, that most people support gay and trans rights and have a lot more important things to worry about right now than that there might be someone with different genitals in the public restroom. But the current target of community scapegoating is us, plus wretches escaping civil war in open boats. 

It's the cowardice behind bullying that always bugs me most - find the most vulnerable in society and stomp on them because, let's face it, trying to tear down the rights of those who've already gained them is much harder, not to mention the near impossibility of taking on those who are in a strong position.

I have a feeling that this current climate of transphobia won't last long since this spate of populism, fascism and nationalism are proving fairly catastrophic in the public mind. Hang on in there.

Sue x