从《教授与疯子》谈起
The Professor and the Madman
）中有这样一幕令天下语文学家动容的场景： 梅尔·吉普森（Mel Gibson）饰演的詹姆斯·穆雷（James Augustus Henry Murray， 1837 1915）被带进牛津大学基督教堂学院一间神圣庄严的学堂里，面对着牛津大学出版社的代表们 一群维多利亚时期最桀骜不驯的精英知识分子，穆雷神色凝重，开始了以下这样一段陈述：
我不得不说语文学，不管是比较的还是专门的，都是我毕生挚爱的追求。我对雅利安和叙利亚 阿拉伯语系的语言和文学有一般的了解，并不是说我对它们全部或者说它们中的全部都很熟悉。但我拥有一般的词汇的和结构性的知识，故只需要有机会应用就能够获得更精通的知识。同时，我熟习罗曼语种，包括意大利语、法语、加特罗语、西班牙语、拉丁语，还懂得一定程度的葡萄牙语、瓦尔多和诸多地
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Brigitte Schmidt (R), a pastoral worker blesses a same-sex couple, Nini and Juliana Weinmeister-Bisping, in Cologne. (Andreas Rentz/Getty)
Catholic priests in Germany have defied the Vatican by offering blessings to same-sex couples in group ceremonies in more than 100 churches.
Numerous churches across the country performed mass blessings of same-sex couples in recent days after the Vatican ruled in March that such ceremonies should not go ahead because God “cannot bless sin”.
Some of the churches were decked in rainbow decorations to mark the occasion, while priests delivered empowering sermons about the need for LGBT+ inclusion in the Catholic Church. Around 20 of the services were live-streamed.
(Pixabay/StockSnap)
An international group of theologians and scholars released an academic statement on May 4 alleging inconsistencies in the Vatican s arguments against same-sex relationships, and urging the church to review its stance in light of modern research. When people suffer . because of doctrines, laws and disciplines, about whose correctness there are now well-founded doubts, the competent Church authorities have a religious and Christian duty to carefully and empathetically revise them, wrote theologian Fr. Krzysztof Charamsa, a former official at the Vatican s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in the foreword to the statement.
The authors argued that the Bible never condemns consensual, faithful same-sex relationships. They also said evidence that non-heterosexual orientations occur naturally and the fact that the church allows infertile straight couples to marry undermine the Vatican s natural law arguments against same-sex relationship