Vatican official opens to gay union rights

Agence France-Presse ^

[wideawake]

Good post.

[EEGator]

Some people just love bashing the church. I’ll bet most didn’t even read the article, let alone comprehend the spin in it.

[PJammers]

Thank you.

Unfortunately the press has painted a huge target on my Catholic brothers. We need to recognize it for what it is and stand united against such slander.

[paladinan]

(*sigh*) Yes... here we go again, with the thoughtless canards.

You might as well say that you (personally) “parade as Gospel” the bits of the Bible you like, but ignore all the “embarrassing apparent contradictions and awkward bits” of the Bible which don’t gel with your preconceived notions. Have some sense.

[Iscool]

Good...They are finally steeping out from behind the curtain...

A couple of heteros cohabiting is a mortal sin...A couple of queer fellas, even priests, not so much...

[wideawake]

You are exactly the sort of rube the MSM was hoping for with this article.

Congratulations on living down to their expectations.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Toothless white trash making inroads with the vatican.

That was 1)uncalled for (what does "toothless white trash" have to do with the story?), 2)cowardly (the only ethnic group it's safe to bash), and 3)ignores the fact that "toothless white trash" don't exactly have the reputation of being "gay"-friendly.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

[KC_Lion]

Oh, this thread is going to be fun.

[Zionist Conspirator]

You might as well say that you (personally) “parade as Gospel” the bits of the Bible you like, but ignore all the “embarrassing apparent contradictions and awkward bits” of the Bible which don’t gel with your preconceived notions. Have some sense.

"Apparent contradictions?" You mean "errors" and "mistakes?" And "development?" And "mythology?"

American Catholics have allowed Protestants to make them allergic to the Bible.

[Zionist Conspirator]

You are exactly the sort of rube the MSM was hoping for with this article.

I never expected to see you use the word "rube" in this fashion, wideawake.

I am disappointed.

[wideawake]

I used "rube" in the circus/carnival sense of a "mark" - an uninformed dullard whom a carny can fleece of his money.

It has nothing to do with ancestry or geographic provenance - PT Barnum did not say that the suckers who are born every minute come exclusively from any particular region or clime.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Oh, this thread is going to be fun.

No it's not. Catholic FReepers are going to devote themselves to reacting to a media attack on their Church by making absolutely unnecessary attacks on rural America and on Biblical inerrancy.

For all the chest-thumping about being "the one true universal church" there sure is a lot of bigotry towards the same group the Left hates more than any other. Coincidence?

And worst of all, any response, any objection, is defined as "anti-Catholic bigotry." It's open season on "rednecks" by their "fellow conservatives" in the "one true church," and those "rednecks" can just shut up and take it.

I've never in my life encountered a nastier group of people than many of the Catholics on Free Republic.

[paladinan]

Zionist Conspirator wrote, in reply to my comment:

"Apparent contradictions?" You mean "errors" and "mistakes?" And "development?" And "mythology?"

No, I mean nothing of the sort. Had I meant anything of the sort, I would have said so (and I would have been a heretic, thereby, and flatly against the true teaching of the Catholic Church). I realise that there are a great many clueless Catholics (including many who are/were teaching in Catholic seminaries) who teach/believe such modernist rubbish (e.g. "the Bible isn't the inspired, inerrant written Word of God", etc.)... but I assure you, I'm not of their number.

Rather, I was pointing out that anyone could throw similar thoughtless, self-sealing, fallacious nonsense at "DManA" as he chose to throw at Catholics. I meant no disrespect toward faithful Protestants, or even to him; that was merely to illustrate the point (i.e. that his comment was silly and illogical, if not flatly anti-Catholic).

[PJammers]

The homosexuals have an agenda. The Church is a target. We need a united defense against it. Instead we sit around and compare planks in our eyes.

[Gator113]

To me, this reads like a hit piece with nothing but spin.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Did any of you guys read what the guy, Mons. Vincenzo Paglia, actually said, in contrast to the expansion, highlighting, and extension and bolding-for-emphasis suggested by the Agency France-Presse writer?

He said that, NOT mnrriage, but "individual law" and "property law" could be applied to ensure the rights of parties in a non-marital cohabitation case. He did not justify sexual cohabitation. He did not address "same sex' sexual cohabitation. He just said that if people are living together w/o out being under marriage law, they'd have to handle disputes (e.g. concerning propety) under some other law.

Is this Paglia guy teaching Catholic doctrine? No.

Is he giving Catholic policy directives? No.

Has he any authority to do anything whatsoever about this as "The Church"? No.

Running around in circles yodeling "the Catholic Church is doomed" plays right into the hands of the secular press. They jerk your strings, you jump.

Must be fun to be a journalist when you can make people twitch any way you want.

[Campion]

Running around in circles yodeling "the Catholic Church is doomed" plays right into the hands of the secular press. They jerk your strings, you jump.

On the topic of Catholicism, a certain set of people are looking for any excuse to jump. A journalist jerks their strings, they jump. The Pope catches cold, they jump. It's Thursday and it's raining, they jump.

When all you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail. When your whole theology is built around the proposition that Rome is the Whore of Babylon, every event and every news story confirms it.

[MichaelCorleone]

According to the article this person is ‘The Vatican’s top official on family policy’, is he not?

He said: “I think this is a terrain that politicians should begin to approach,” said the archbishop, adding that legal rights for non-traditional families would “prevent injustice against the weakest”.

In today’s America, ‘non-traditional families’ mean same-sex parents. Just because the word ‘homosexual’ isn’t specifically used doesn’t mean the door won’t be open for them. Yes, it could mean single mother/fatherhood, or a single father with a live-in nanny (substitute mother), but in most people’s minds that is not the case I don’t think.

Maybe I’m wrong, and I hope I am, but it does appear some elders are falling away from Church doctorine.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Buckeye, I'm respectfully assuming I can reason with you. Please look at the parts that are in quotes
as opposed to the parts that are not.

Despite the slap-you-cheeks headline, this Fr. Paglia said nothing about sodomy, boy-boy or boy-girl sexual cohabitation in particular, etc. etc. He was talking about the availability of laws other than marriage laws to deal with parties sharing a domicile.

That could be a mother and adult son, that could be two chaste maiden ladies, that could be a couple of guys with no known sharing of anything else except the refrigerator, it could be a pair of twin sisters, that could be a disabled homecare patient with a resident caregiver who's also his aunt.

He did not specify sexual preconditions or recognition.

He said that individual laws and property laws could address issues involving this class of people: people who share a home but are not covered by marriage law.

What he said was so unremarkable, that Agency France-Presse had to add 12 more paragraphs to make it seem that he said something salesworthy at the newsstands.

They even managed to mangle a reference to the Catechism. The Catechism does not say that there can be "no" "discrimination" against gays. It says there can be no >"unjust" discrimination, meaning something that has nothing to do with the person's sexuality per se, such as: a hospital can't refuse to treat a gay boy who was injured in a train wreck.

Yeah, if you stare at the screen enough, you can see I'm folding my hands and praying for patience. In between rolling my eyes.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Buckeye, I'm respectfully assuming I can reason with you. Please look at the parts that are in quotes
as opposed to the parts that are not.

Despite the slap-you-cheeks headline, this Fr. Paglia said nothing about sodomy, boy-boy or boy-girl sexual cohabitation in particular, etc. etc. He was talking about the availability of laws other than marriage laws to deal with parties sharing a domicile.

That could be a mother and adult son, that could be two chaste maiden ladies, that could be a couple of guys with no known sharing of anything else except the refrigerator, it could be a pair of twin sisters, that could be a disabled homecare patient with a resident caregiver who's also his aunt.

He did not specify sexual preconditions or recognition.

He said that individual laws and property laws could address issues involving this class of people: people who share a home but are not covered by marriage law.

What he said was so unremarkable, that Agency France-Presse had to add 12 more paragraphs to make it seem that he said something salesworthy at the newsstands.

They even managed to mangle a reference to the Catechism. The Catechism does not say that there can be "no" "discrimination" against gays. It says there can be no >"unjust" discrimination, meaning something that has nothing to do with the person's sexuality per se, such as: a hospital can't refuse to treat a gay boy who was injured in a train wreck.

Yeah, if you stare at the screen enough, you can see I'm folding my hands and praying for patience. In between rolling my eyes.