Tutu: God Must Be Weeping

Via The Lead:

The Times of London reports on a recent conversation with the former archbishop:

“What is sad to me is that we are investing so much time and energy in the subject of homosexuality at a time when the world is groaning from poverty, disease and corruption. God must be weeping.”

Just as he opposed discrimination against people because of the colour of their skin or their gender, he said he opposes discrimination against gays.

“I cannot have fought about the injustice of apartheid and keep quiet about the injustice of being being penalised for something about which they can do nothing, their sexual orientation,” he said.

You can’t blame The Times or The Lead for burying the lede – there are two big stories here (well, big in the Anglican world):

Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican Archbishop and anti-apartheid activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, said yesterday that his prostate cancer had returned but that he was in “good health”.

Archbishop Tutu, whose cancer was first diagnosed in 1996, said the illness had come back after a period of remission. But he added: “I am fine. I am slightly older than I was yesterday.”

He said his oncologist had told him he had “a good cancer”, and that the prayers of others were helping to keep him alive. “I owe a great deal to the many who sustain me with their prayers.”

I really love Archbishop Tutu — he was one of the reasons I was drawn to the Episcopal Church in the first place (that and a raging case of Anglophilia). It’s shocking how many men I know – Episcopal priests all — who have or have had prostate cancer.

I’ll have to be sure to keep the good Archbishop in my prayers for his health and well-being.  And also pray that he learns to use that little word “no” more often – he finds it difficult to turn people down when he’s asked to help with some worthy cause.