About 80 Italian gays picketed the Vatican Jan. 13, shouting “shame shame shame” near Pope John Paul II’s windows. The demonstration marked the third anniversary of the death of Alfredo Ormando, a 39-year-old Italian homosexual who set himself on fire at the site to protest Catholicism’s anti-gay doctrines.
The church considers any sexual act that is not open to the possibility of procreation to be a mortal sin which, if not absolved in confession prior to one’s death, condemns one’s soul to hell. The procreation doctrine also categorizes birth control, masturbation and oral sex as mortal sins.