Pope Benedict and "eros"

Far be it from me to "steal" an entire post from another blog, but this one I think warrants being "saved" at least for my own reference in a place where I'm more likely to see it again. Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for having the patience and the philosophical background to pick through this latest Papal document and point out some verrrryy interesting things...

I have read the first encyclical closely now; and it's clearly some of Benedict's finest work. I've posted a few of extracts - his critique of Christianity's tendency to abhor the body, his understanding of the limits of politics, his connection between eros and agape - that strike me as particularly eloquent. ...

Benedict and Same-Sex Love
30 Jan 2006 10:26 am
At the same time, I have to say I'm struck by the references in the document. It's pretty stunning to me that Benedict should cite Plato's Symposium for his definition of eros. This sentence is mind-blowing:

"That love between man and woman which is neither planned nor willed, but somehow imposes itself upon human beings, was called eros by the ancient Greeks."

Er, not exactly. For the Greeks, eros meant a kind of longing. Plato saw it as bound up in the search for truth, as well as for beauty. But also - critically - it describes same-sex love as well as opposite-sex love. The Symposium, the source of Benedict's description of eros, treats same-sex love interchangeably with opposite-sex love, and the myth cited by Aristophanes even places same-sex erotic love on a higher plane than mere heterosexuality. (I'm even hoping to use the passage in my own marriage service, and began my anthology on gay marriage by citing it.) Benedict must know this. He's a deeply learned man. Why rest his own treatment on sources that clearly embrace gay love? Beats me. He even cites Virgil's Eclogues, a deeply homoerotic work. Part of me thinks that Benedict's anti-gay posture is just orthodoxy, made more reactionary by the social revolution of our time. And then I wonder if he doesn't have an esoteric meaning as well. Nothing in this encyclical couldn't apply to same-sex eros; his bigoted Instruction has helped expose the fact that the Church is a deeply homosexual institution, and in the West, at least, there's no real attempt (so far) to purge gay seminarians and priests. Maybe the Instruction's unpersuasive and naked bigotry is esoterically designed to advance the argument that gay people are obviously not "objectively disordered" in such a way to render them unfit for the priesthood. Is Benedict quietly showing the validity of same-sex eros and equal dignity of same-sex eros, even while publicly denouncing it? Or have I read too much Leo Strauss? Probably the latter.