Another long quote from Anne Rice's Called Out of Darkness; this one regarding the Catholic Church's teaching on (preoccupation with) gender, sexuality, and reproduction:
"Centuries ago the stars were sacred. A man could be burnt at the stake for declaring that the earth revolved around the sun. Churchmen feared that if astronomers gained authority over the Heavens, Scripture would be undermined.I am not sure if she is right on the question of whether gender, sexuality, and reproduction will ever become like the geocentric universe, but I agree that allowing these issues to drive people from the Church and more importantly from Christ Himself is simply wrong. At its best, the Church teaches us to love and forgive as Christ did. Maybe that really is enough.
"But no such thing took place. Scritpure is too great, too powerful, too fathomless for such a thing to take place.
"Now the Christian world holds the stars to be secular. Most of the Christian world holds biology and geology to be secular as well. And Scripture is as potent and irresistible as ever. Scripture still guides our lives.
"And the stars are still the lamps of Heaven.
"Is it not possible for us to do with gender, sexuality, and reproduction what was long ago done with the stars? To realize that these are also secular areas, and that new sources of information about them may be as valid as the information given us long ago by men who gazed through the first telescopes at the night sky?
"Is it not possible that gender, sexuality, and reproduction are areas which the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount may be entirely adequate as they are for every other sort of behavior we face?
"If I am wrong on this, I pray you will forgive me for this suggestion. And a suggestion is all that it is.
"But I see people driven away from churches by these issues. And some for their whole lives.
"And too many make the same mistake I made. They leave the loving figure of Jesus Christ because they feel they have to leave His churches" (244 - 245).
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