(Time) The Pope's Declaration of Christmas Joy... Let's Start Ticking Off Our Threats List Shall We?

[Guest guest]

This really infuriates me for multiple reasons. For one, please do name precisely how a decision I make in the interests to properly reconfiguring my physical form to match my internal hardwired gender identity becomes a threat to humanity. Another was the opposition to a basic UN proposal that would ban such actions as Iran giving the death sentence to two teenagers for little more than the crime of having had consensual gay sex (I am not discussing the fact that sex at that age unprotected is not a good idea). Also, it offends me that I am supposedly as great of a threat as environmental destruction.

I also note that the article incorrectly confuses sex and gender. Sex is the physical makeup, while gender identity refers to the person's internal gender " setting " that is hardcoded into the brain, and as immutable as having autism or Asperger's.

--Zoehttp://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1868390,00.html?xid=feed-cnn-world

The Pope's Christmas Condemnation of Transsexuals[Photo Caption:] Pope Benedict XVI has said that saving humanity from transsexual

behavior is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction. [/caption]The celebration of the birth of the Lord is at our doorstep ... " Thus began Pope Benedict XVI

in his annual pre-Christmas address to top Vatican officials. But

rather than a pro forma holiday wish of good tidings, the pontiff

delivered his latest heavy-hitting discourse on everything from ecology

to ecumenism, with carefully chosen citations from past Popes and even

Friedrich Nietzsche. The topic that most grabbed press attention came

about halfway through the 30-minute long address: transsexuals.

Without actually using the word, Benedict took a subtle swipe at those

who might undergo sex-change operations or otherwise attempt to alter

their God-given gender. Defend " the nature of man against its

manipulation, " Benedict told the priests, bishops and cardinals

gathered Monday in the ornate Clementine hall. " The Church speaks of

the human being as man and woman, and asks that this order is

respected. " The Pope again denounced the contemporary idea that gender

is a malleable definition. That path, he said, leads to a

" self-emancipation of man from creation and the Creator. " (See TIME's Top 10 religious stories of the year.)

Critics of the Church hierarchy see such pronouncements as proof of

Catholicism's unhealthy " obsession " with sexual matters. In his book Sex and Heaven,

Catholic writer Portmann argues that the Vatican has made having

" correct sex " the singular virtue for achieving salvation. In just the

past month, the Vatican has announced its opposition to a United

Nations proposal to protect gays from being criminalized and punished

by governments for their orientation, and released a doctrinal office

document reinforcing the Church's opposition to assisted fertility and

stem cell research. Even though these stands don't stray from his predecessor's, we tend to remember

more for his globetrotting, crowd-pleasing ways. Benedict, more a

thinking-man's Pope, tends to make news with his words rather than

actions.

The question " What is man? " is fundamental both to Benedict's worldview

and to his attempts to convince his flock to question the conventions

of modern secularized society. Much has been made of the Pope's recent

focus on environmental issues. On Monday he repeated his metaphor that

the human body should be protected much as environmentalists want to

protect the earth. " The fact that the earth, the cosmos, mirror the

creator Spirit, also means that beyond the mathematical order, their

rational structures in the experiment become almost palpable, which in

itself brings an ethical orientation, " he argued Monday, before

declaring that one " must defend not only the earth, water and air as

gifts of creation belonging to all. One must also protect man against

the destruction of himself. " Thus Benedict's concern with gender

manipulation and environmental degradation are all of a precious piece:

protecting God's creation. (See pictures of the Pope in Brazil.)

As incisive as his writing is, some Catholics still question the

priorities coming from the bully pulpit. Why, for example, does he not

use his Christmas address to boldly condemn Mugabe, whose brutal dictatorship has left a largely Christian country crushed and struggling with a cholera outbreak

that has already killed more than 1,000 people? Such thoughts naturally

recall Benedict's predecessor, whose geopolitical skills were

legendary. (See pictures of Mugabe's reign.)

Though their view of internal doctrine and the world at large are

virtually identical, the last two papacies have featured a contrast in

personalities and skill sets. In his end-of-the-year address, Benedict

seemed to confront the expectations that may have been created by the

popularity of . Reflecting on his trip this summer to

Australia for World Youth Day,

Benedict said it was wrong to think of these kinds of mass Church

events as a " type of rock festival modified in the ecclesiastic sense,

with the Pope as the 'star'. " As he prepares to lead his fourth

midnight Mass inside St. 's Basilica, the soft-spoken pontiff will

aim yet again to reach the faithful through the force of his intellect

and the grace of his prose. Many however will tune in because the man

in white, even one with both academic and doctrinaire tendencies, will

always carry serious star power.