"Shields! SHIELDS!"
Posted on 04/14/2009 8:51:10 AM PDT by presidio9
Two days after the 1999 Soho pub bomb, monthly Masses were launched at a Catholic convent in London, welcoming lesbian and gay Catholics, their parents and families. Unable to find a central London Catholic church, after the convent's closure, LGBT Catholics found hospitality at Soho's Anglican parish church. Increasing numbers resulted in the Masses being held twice a month. While the Diocese of Westminster might have believed that the group would fade away, it recognised that real pastoral needs were being met, converts to Catholicism were being made, and a vibrant community could offer something to the local church. In March 2007, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor invited the Soho Masses LGBT community, in contact with around 300 people overall, to transfer its services to one of Soho's Catholic parishes.
A positive grass-roots story, but the church worldwide still fails to dialogue formally with its LGBT members. Official statements reflect harsh judgements, uninformed either by increasing knowledge about human sexual diversity, or Catholic theological pluralism. The pastoral practice on the ground varies enormously. LGBT pastoral ministries operate with differing degrees of hierarchical support. The Catholic church reflects the kind of divisions seen in the Anglican Communion over the issue of homosexuality, with some Bishops formally recognising only those groups which advocate celibacy.
Those viewing Catholicism from afar can be forgiven for assuming that the church has held its views on homosexuality for centuries. In fact, it only began to detail this teaching in a 1976 Declaration on Sexual Ethics, through the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then headed by the present Pope. This coined an untraditional Catholic term, "intrinsic disorder" to describe homosexuality,
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
yuk. Not catholic.
I don’t think the Church is against gays per se, just as long as they don’t act on their sexual inclinations.
However, as a praticing Catholic, I find the article revolting.
Hoping to become a priest huh?
Every Catholic Church has a confessional. That's formal dialogue.
Somehow I cannot reconcile being gay with being Catholic. But having said that, I guess that is more of an individual personal decision which one must be ready willing and able to explain to the almighty when the time comes. Frankly, I would like to see more and more gay people turn to the church and spiritualism and religion for comfort. I think it would help them come to terms with their own selves and their own sexuality.
Yay, Arthur!! Direct hit!
Nor did the Church define homosexuality as an intrinsically disordered state until it had to, in the Gayest decade on record.
But the Church didn't internally change to make either of these definitions. Both proceed from the truth, and both were defined contra mundum, against a disbelieving world.
So it is when one speaks the truth. For instance: we've always known that bowing to Muslims is intrinsically disordered, but we had no need to explicitly say this until two weeks ago. The only thing that changed is that now it needs to be said!
Pride Cometh Before A Fall, dummy.
Catholic, maybe, but practicing Catholic?
He’d have plenty of company, no doubt.
> The Vatican has made it clear that its tenets on homosexuality are not 1st level in the order of Catholic teachings. As such, Catholics hear what the church’s teaching authority has to say, but neither the Vatican nor the pope is an oracle, in the presence of which Catholics cast aside human capacity, and fall to their knees in irrational submission.
Hmmmmmmm...
If I have read and understood this correctly, it is OK to be Catholic and a Homosexual, both at the same time. True?
What the gays fail to understand is that homosexuality is simply sin. What most Christians fail to realize is that homosexuality is simply sin, no different in God’s eyes than gossip or greed or envy.
We’re all sinners - that much is agreed. The real question is, how do we react to our sin? Does it break our hearts, as it does God’s, or do we cling to it and hold it close?
There’s a word for what he advocates. Protestantism. Episcopalian to be exact.
How can you be proudly gay? Pride is usually a feeling you get when you accomplish something or reach a goal.
Serioiusly, why not "Proud Beastiality, Proud Catholic"? What's next when you bend God into a shape convenient for your sins?
I'd say that's almost true ... but in a sense that liberals would refuse to understand.
It's okay to commit adultery and still be a Catholic - that's what confession and sincere repentance are for. What's not okay is saying that God made a little boo-boo with the "Thou shalt not commit adultery" thing every time it comes up, including when Jesus tells the woman caught in adultery to "go forth and sin no more", so activists are going to fix that part of the Bible for God.
As for being gay and Catholic, I see it as equivalent to being married but tempted to commit adultery and Catholic (or any other branch of Christianity). God writes the rules for our own good. Whether we choose to follow His word is a question of free will, but our choices don't determine His word. What is not okay is claiming that God was wrong, so the Bible has to be rewritten to fix God's mistakes and to make His word politically correct.
This article makes use of every equivocation, evasion, and sophistry in the book. Note how the equivocal statements of bishops are exploited. The article does not come within ten miles of discussing Catholic teaching on the subject of sexual morality.
Oh. I forgot. The article is loaded with outright lies, too.
The biggest whopper is that the Catholic Church had no developed, rational teaching on sodomy until 1976.
This is a trick (or blunder) often made in anti-Catholic polemics. Someone will stumble on a definition from, say, the 11th century, mentioning “transubstantiation,” and will triumphantly proclaim that the Catholic Church invented its teaching on the Eucharist in the 11th century.
This looks like a swell place to pimp my thread.
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