In a statement released to Italian news media the 85-year-old departing pontiff says he is relieved to be coming out after eight decades in the closet and urged the Catholic Church and other faiths to accept homosexuality as a natural part of God’s creation.

“Like many gay Catholics, I have been forced for too long to choose between my faith and my identity,” the statement reads. “My profound love for my beloved church compelled me to lie to myself and to my fellow believers about a basic component of my humanity.

“I deeply regret that deception. I have not been honest with the Church, and for that reason I decided that I could not continue my role as leader of the world’s one billion Catholics.

“Now that I have been liberated of this secret, I wish to express my belief that homosexuals are equal in the eyes of God. I beseech the Catholic Church to reconsider its ban on gay clergy and become a leading force in the struggle for gay rights.”
Source: dailycurrent.com

Seeking to regain the initiative amid a series of controversies that have threatened his second-term agenda, Obama said new leadership was needed to restore public confidence in the IRS, whose reputation for political independence has suffered a major blow.

With congressional investigations looming, Obama said he had told Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to seek the resignation of Steven Miller, the acting IRS commissioner, and Lew had done so.

“I’ll do everything in my power to make sure nothing like this happens again by holding the responsible parties accountable, by putting in place new checks and new safeguards,” Obama told reporters in the White House’s ornate East Room.

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On Tuesday, Alejandro Fleming, the country’s commerce minister, announced that the government would make the equivalent of a frantic grocery store run to pick up some rolls. “The revolution will bring the country the equivalent of 50 million rolls of toilet paper,” he told the state news agency AVN. “We are going to saturate the market so that our people calm down.” (Not that long ago, the “revolution” was promising to provide housing and health care but hey, Marx said something about the importance of toilet paper, right?)

“This is the last straw,” Manuel Fagundes, a shopper trying to track down some toilet paper in Caracas, told the Associated Press. “I’m 71 years old and this is the first time I’ve seen this.”

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