Day 109 - 11:26am, 19 April 2019
It is Good Friday and the last episode of the BBC2 series Pilgrimage: the Road to Rome is showing. I've really enjoyed it. The basic premise is that eight celebrities, covering the whole TV arena from
light entertainers to an Olympian, of different faiths and none, and a range of ages, walk the Via Franigena and talk about their beliefs, or lack of them.
The comedian Stephen K. Amos is not religious and feels as a gay man that he is not accepted by the church. So when the programme concludes with an audience with the Pope, many (me too) would probably be expecting him not to attend, having already turned down a blessing en route. But he goes. And he speaks out, telling the Pope how he feels rejected by the church due to his sexuality. Whatever it was he was expecting to hear in response, it probably wasn't the reply he got, which was basically as a human being he was due his dignity and those who focus on the adjective "gay" are heartless. there was a beautiful dignity to both sides and I hope it marks a defrosting of relations all round. I wonder if he is free to sort out the Brexit negotiations . . .
light entertainers to an Olympian, of different faiths and none, and a range of ages, walk the Via Franigena and talk about their beliefs, or lack of them.
The comedian Stephen K. Amos is not religious and feels as a gay man that he is not accepted by the church. So when the programme concludes with an audience with the Pope, many (me too) would probably be expecting him not to attend, having already turned down a blessing en route. But he goes. And he speaks out, telling the Pope how he feels rejected by the church due to his sexuality. Whatever it was he was expecting to hear in response, it probably wasn't the reply he got, which was basically as a human being he was due his dignity and those who focus on the adjective "gay" are heartless. there was a beautiful dignity to both sides and I hope it marks a defrosting of relations all round. I wonder if he is free to sort out the Brexit negotiations . . .
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