One Funeral and a Wedding
10 April

On Friday, Pope John Paul II was buried. On Saturday, Charles and Camilla were married.

I don't propose to say anything more about the latter event. I really don't think that it signifies at all. In ten years time, it may cause a constitutional crisis but it will hardly be one which matters too much to the majority of people.

Of the Pope, I wish to say more. An advertorial in The Guardian on Friday accused him of causing more deaths by AIDS in Africa that any other single factor. I'm afraid that I find that statement to be bigoted nonsense.

If you take the Catholic Church's historical standpoint that all life is sacred then it is logical that he should take a stance against abortion, euthanasia and contraception. I don't necessarily agree with those stances but I understand how you get to that point. In fact, my position is less tenable and more equivocal - yes, life is sacred but, in certain circumstances, that comes into question - yeh, well like how and when?

So, the Pope says don't use condoms and find some other means of avoiding contracting AIDS. Now, that may be harsh and it may be unrealistic but it is an honest and an arguable position.

More disturbing are the following words (presumably from a gay publication in North America which Rod has emailed to me.

Pope John Paul II: As the World Mourns

Excuse us if our eyes are dry.

On the death of the most homophobic Pope in history - one who wrote "Homosexual marriages are part of a new ideology of evil that is insidiously threatening society"... who said homosexuality was "against natural law", homosexual acts were "acts of grave depravity", homosexuals were "objectively disordered"... who warned Catholic politicians that they had a "moral duty to oppose gay rights" and forbade them from passing any laws that decriminalized gay acts less they fall "into grave error" (Pope-speak for heresy) - we can think of no better reaction than what Bette Davis said upon hearing of the death of Joan Crawford.

In an act of heroic generosity, Bette put aside her 40-year feud with her scene-stealing co-star in the Queer 101 essential film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and looked deep into her heart where she found these touching words:

"They say that nothing but good should be said of the dead. She's dead. Good."

Well, I'm afraid that such statements may have a camp classic ring about them but I'm unhappy about dismissing all of Pope John Paul's work on a couple of quotes taken out of context. I know that they all sound pretty damning but Leviticus gets all biblical scholars into a muddled position. Do you take a culturally relativist point of view or do you accept that the word is the word is the Word? I should like to see the context of the utterances before accepting the political pronouncement.

Elsewhere, Ross and I got on and did our own thing.

The weather has not been kind enough for us to make the progress I should have like with the trellis in the garden but we press on.

Friday night took us to the Lowry via an excellent meal at Pizza Express for a performance of Gioachino Rossini's The Thieving Magpie by Opera North. In comparison to the previous night's Wozzeck, it was pure blissful enjoyment. In more strict critical terms, I should say that it was a good night out without ever being excellent.

David Parry's conducting was well-paced and illuminated the various flavours of the score from tender melodies through pungent comments from the wind band to the occasional militaristic outburst.

The singers were mostly over-parted. Only Robert Poulton's mayor really shone as a true Rossini voice. Mary Hegarty's Ninetta was fluid but a little shrill and Ashley Catling took on the rôle of Gianetto probably three years too early in his career.

But it was a more than pleasant evening out and yet another Rossini opera notched up in this Journal. I'm keeping a tab on these things in my opera timeline where I notice that I've now seen six Rossini operas in the last ten years.

Saturday morning and Ross and I were off to Tate Liverpool. He now has a contract to work there as a Casual Gallery Educator which means that he shows groups around and talks about the artworks with them. He'll be there with a school group next week and so he wanted to look around to decide what he was going to cover.

We also went to see the Richard Wentworth exhibition which was good in parts. His work seemed either to hit me straight away like a perfect piece of poetry or to pass me by completely. The best were a series of books into which all manner of objects had been inserted as markers for an internal text which could never be seen. Those I liked. A series of everyday objects placed high up on the wall on a glass shelf. No, not for me really.

And from there we went down a floor to the Seeing is Believing exhibition which is about aspects of faith. I particularly liked the Stanley Spencer painting of St Francis which just had all of the luminous and jolly qualities which I like about this painter.

It was probably also inevitable that I should be drawn to the Anish Kapoor given how I loved the exhibition of his works which I saw in 1998 and Marsyas which I saw in 2003.

However, I was surprised by the jolt I got from the Graham Sutherland crucifixion. It reminded me of visiting Coventry Cathedral in the early 90s.

Anyhow, it was all well worth the visit and worthy of another three stars in its own right. We finished the visit off with a very good lunch in the recently re-opened Tate café.