Andrew Sullivan has once again accused retired Pope Benedict XVI of being a homosexual. His evidence? The pope’s “handsome male companion [Archbishop Georg Ganswein] will continue to live with him, while working for the other Pope during the day.” Sullivan asks, “Are we supposed to think that’s, well, a normal arrangement?”
Speaking about normal is hardly normal for Sullivan, who in 2001 solicited anal sex with anonymous men by posting a picture of his torso on the Internet. He explicitly requested men who didn’t wear condoms, begging for orgies. Unfortunately for him, he was outed by his boyfriends after they recognized it was his body.
The media were all abuzz about Sullivan’s latest charge, which is really nothing new. In 2010, he wrote, “it seems pretty obvious to me…that the current Pope is a gay man.” He cited what he called “the Pope’s mental architecture,” alleging his “prissy fastidiousness, the effeminate voice…the over-the-top clothing accessories,” etc. Seems like Sullivan employs gay stereotypes when it suits him. But if the pope were truly gay, why no prototypical gay lisp? Nor has anyone ever accused him of being a narcissist, another trait associated with homosexuals.
It’s not hard to explain why Sullivan has smeared Benedict again. Recently he wrote, “Evil remains at the heart of the Vatican.” If he believes that, then it is easy to demonize the former pope.
We don’t know enough about Sullivan’s own “mental architecture” to explain why his intrinsic disorder manifests itself in such a vile way. That it does is beyond dispute.
