What Was Behind Georgia’s Anti-Gay Rally?

It was a gathering of clergymen worthy of a religious festival: a line of dozens of bearded priests in black robes, with heavy silver crosses hanging on their chests. And yet, you couldn’t imagine a less holy march. The clergymen led a huge mob along the main street of Tbilisi, the capital of the Republic of Georgia, through a police cordon, and toward a small group of visibly nervous young men and women who had set out to mark the International Day Against Homophobia.
“Fuck your mothers,” a priest shouted.
Another priest came armed with a stool. Their followers carried rocks, sticks, and crucifixes. “Kill them! Don’t let them leave alive,” they screamed.
They smashed heads, windows of shops, and a minibus in which activists tried to escape. Twelve people, including three policemen, were seriously injured.
“Before the van arrived, about ten girls—gay rights activists—were being taunted by a growing, frothing mob. A stone was thrown and split a girl’s head open.… This mob was the creation of the Georgian Orthodox Catholic Church and the Georgian government has so far been gutless in standing up to the Church to protect the rights of its citizens. Shame on you, Georgia. Shame on you,” Paul Rimple, a Tbilisi-based journalist, posted on his Facebook page. He later wrote about it for the Moscow Times.
“A Georgian Taliban has been born,” read status updates of other Georgians on Facebook. Some changed their location settings to Iran. But those who opposed the priests and those who cheered them agree that gay rights—an issue, until now, seen as marginal by most Georgians—has become a proxy for a larger conflict.
As I looked through videos and photographs of the attack, I spotted a familiar bearded face in the crowd of angry anti-gay protesters: the excommunicated Orthodox priest Basili Mkalavishvili. A dozen years ago, when I was reporting for the BBC from Georgia, Father Basili, as he is known among his supporters, invited me for a cup of tea in his little church on the outskirts of Tbilisi. He told me he was proud to be cleansing Georgia of “satanic forces.” He wasn’t shy about discussing the techniques he used in his crusade against religious minorities. Hitting Jehovah’s Witnesses with iron crucifixes, he said, was an effective way of fighting them. But, when I asked, he denied raiding their homes.
“That’s not true,” he told me. “We find out where they gather, and then we wait for them outside. When they come out, that’s when we attack them.” He also said that he was thankful to the Georgian police force for their support.
I bet Jesus couldn't be more proud of these faithful disciples. 
Can't help wondering why the Pope hasn't said anything about this?