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Posted on 09/14/2007 7:42:44 AM PDT by NYer
.- The bishops of England and Wales are asking for an exemption from new equality laws that could force them to ordain transsexuals as priests or allow them to become nuns.
The bishops said proposals to ban “indirect discrimination” against people who have had gender reassignment operations would take away their right to check baptismal and confirmation certificates which would show if candidates for the priesthood, religious life or marriage had a hidden past, reports the London Times.
“Many Christians believe, on strongly held religious grounds, that gender is given before birth and cannot be changed,” Archbishop Peter Smith of Cardiff reportedly said.
The government plans to change the law so that such records are altered when a person has such an operation. The bishops are asking that the Catholic Church be exempt from such a law. However, the government’s track record on giving the Church exemptions has not been good. Earlier this year, the government refused to give the Church an exemption from its new adoption law which make it illegal to prevent homosexuals from adopting children. (CNA coverage here)
What’s a trans-testicle? Oh, never mind...
Well they got rid of Catholic adoptions, now they can get rid of the whole Church. That may be the reason after all. A few years ago Canada tried the same thing declaring Catholic teaching hate speech.
The only place progressives have been successful is China where they made a fake Catholic Church loyal to the state.
Gonna drive the Church in England underground, just like in China. At war with God, it’s almost funny, if not so damn tragic
As an example, the Catholic church could decree that henceforth, Catholics will not be barred from the throne of England. See what the liberals will say then.
Begging for government "exemptions" to its godless, humanist social program is not going to produce diddly squat and it's way past time that the Church realized that its teachings and indeed very existence are of no consequence to the socialists, New Agers, homosexuals and their fellow travelers who run that country.
The Catholic Church must now go into confrontation mode and be prepared to defy this anti-Christian swill. It must prepare itself for prosecution, sanctions, loss of property, money and even imprisonment.
It's come to that.
Compromise with the state will only further weaken the faith of that already sick country. A spiritual rebirth depends on the Church courageously suffering for its beliefs as so often in the past.
There is a simple solution to the problem. The vatican needs to decree that no original records will be stored anywhere in England. They can be stored in a location of the vatican’s choice. If someone needs a copy, it will be faxed to them. Final employment decisions should come from the vatican too.
Vatican City is a sovereign country. British laws do not apply to them.
We'll see if the latter-day Church is made of the same stuff as its noble forebears.
Many scientists believe the same.
On another note, the Archbishop is right to speak against passage of this law, but if he fails to persuade the politicians, the Church simply cannot obey it. The current leaders of the Anglican Church may be able to live with woman or gay or transgendered priests and bishops, but the Catholic Church simply cannot do so.
End times bump
Very good point FreeInWV. The Church can keep records in Rome. I’m also in agreement with marshmallow (although it’s substantially easier to type this than to do it), but the Church needs to fight back. Ancient Christians braved the Colliseum for the Faith. Time to pray for the Church in the UK.
***It must prepare itself for prosecution, sanctions, loss of property, money and even imprisonment.***:
The Catholic Church in England: “Been there, done that.”
Catholics in England have been able to worship freely only since about 1820, and they are now being persecuted again. They had only about 175 years of respite. I wonder how many current English Catholics had relatives who perished in times past?
You are exactly right. They need to oppose the whole damn system. There are millions of Catholics in the UK (and immigrant Catholics, too: there's lots of Irish, Poles, Africans and others) who would respond to a clarion call.
Mealy-mouthed statements like this: “Many Christians believe, on strongly held religious grounds, that gender is given before birth and cannot be changed,” Archbishop Peter Smith of Cardiff reportedly said" are just worthless.
How about:
Objective reality makes clear that the human race, like all mammalian species, is composed of two sexes, neither more nor less. In 99% of us this can be unambiguously empirically detected through the examination of genetic, physiological, and anatomical evidence. (The other 1%, sadly, are objectively disordered.)
There are some in this society who way that bodily sex is both insignificant and inconsequential. The Church does not agree. At the very least, we are convinced that the significance of bodily sex, male or female, is part of the "matter" of the Sacraments of Matrimony and Holy Orders --- sacraments which would be invalid if personal sexual identiy were negated.
This will not change, and can not change. We would go to the stake for this.
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