you can be the president - I'd rather be the pope

I'm listening to Prince's song "Pope" in honor of a new story I read on BBC. I actually don't know what the song has to do with the pope, but I like the sentiment. I have to say, it doesn't really bug me that much that he says we need to "save humanity" from "destructive" homosexual behavior and gender blurring. This is, after all, the Pope - who wouldn't allow women to enter the priesthood, for example. This is, after all, a church that has officially been built on a philosophy of separation, distinction, and duality - in which soul is better than body, man is better than woman, procreation is better than recreation. Don't get me wrong: I appreciate the philosophical and intellectual rigor that the church brings to its faith. I also appreciate a church that makes such grand pronouncements and displays concern for the well-being of humanity. I also appreciate a church so huge that the range of diversity in human practice belies the official dogma it tries to maintain.
What I find disturbing about the whole thing is the manipulation of language about creation. You only have too look around you to see the diversity of creation. It simply can't be divided into categories of 2s, in which one is better than the other. Despite what the Pope says, people who transition gender and people who create same-sex relationships (or other "non-normative" relationships) are participating in the diversity of creation. While it's true that humanity sometimes needs to be saved from itself (greed, for example, or tendencies toward violence instead of love), the Pope gets it wrong when he says that this is "auto-emancipation" from creation. Embracing love, embracing justice, embracing ethics that provide for the basic needs of all humanity - this is embracing creation. It's embracing and celebrating the joy of survival, the gift of life in a diverse and beautiful existence. It celebrates the power of joy and love in the face of an existence that is also frightening and violence - embracing the vulnerability that we share. As a Christian, I am glad to see the Pope speaking in favor of the environment, and trying to place humanity within that framework - but also as a Christian, I'm compelled to disagree with his assessment. We have inherited rich traditions that draw on the influences of other rich traditions, and it is a lie to claim that creation can be boiled down neatly into a strict and exclusive distinction between man and woman. I'm reading a book by my theology professor, Mayra Rivera, and one of her points is that our bodies are an integral part of creation, and we cannot set them apart. Our genders, our creativity, our love, our care - are all part of that creation. Some fit into categories of men and women - and many blur distinctions - across culture and across bodies. That doesn't seem destructive to me - but it does seem destructive to try to force everyone to fit into a single framework of being.