Arthur Fitzmaurice criticized the Church’s 'poor and dangerous theology' on homosexuality.
Posted on 03/18/2015 1:40:58 PM PDT by NYer
Arthur Fitzmaurice criticized the Church’s 'poor and dangerous theology' on homosexuality.
LOS ANGELES, March 17, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- A speaker at the Archdiocese of Los Angeles annual conference for religious educators on the weekend denounced the Church’s teaching on homosexuality, saying the Catechism’s language on the issue is “abusive” and “gravely evil.”
Speaking at the conference of 800 catechists from the U.S. and Canada, Arthur Fitzmaurice, the resource director for the Oakland-based Catholic Association for Lesbian and Gay Ministry a former co-chair of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles' Catholic Ministry with Lesbian and Gay Persons, criticized what he called the Church’s “poor and dangerous theology” on homosexuality and its practice of firing homosexual employees when they came “out.”
LifeSiteNews.com made several attempts to the contact the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, but did not hear back by press time.
Fitzmaurice spoke at the event, which is often criticized for its dissident speakers and liturgical abuses, despite the fact that the Catholic Association for Lesbian and Gay Ministry has crossed swords with its own bishop in Oakland. Shortly before his appointment as archbishop of San Francisco, then-Oakland Bishop Salvatore Cordileone issued an ultimatum to the group, saying that after a year of talks he would declare it “not authentically Catholic” if it refused to endorse traditional Church teaching on sexuality.
At the Los Angeles conference, Fitzmaurice told the assembly that the references to homosexuality in the Catholic Catechism are hurtful to homosexuals, especially young people, and drive them from the Church. “The paragraph on homosexuality, which describes it as ‘intrinsically disordered’ while also demanding respect for gays and lesbians, is placed in a section of the catechism paragraphs condemning ‘pornography, prostitution, and rape,’” he said. “To keep this abusive language in the Catechism and other Church writings is, in itself, gravely evil.”
Fitzmaurice also condemned the dismissal of homosexuals from Church and parochial school jobs and the denial of sacraments to homosexuals. These “reinforce the false message that being born LGBTQ is shameful” and “communicates the sentiment that we are beyond God’s abilities and unreachable by God’s love and grace.”
The spectacle of a conference of Catholic religion teachers being subjected to a condemnation of Church moral teaching was directly linked by one former catechist to the “sloppy talk” and “confusion” emanating from the Vatican on morality.
Barbara Nicolosi, an author, teacher, Hollywood screenwriter, and blogger at church of the masses, said the invitation to Fitzmaurice to address catechists “speaks to the confusion within the Church” because of the Vatican’s increasingly informal communications practices and its transmission of messages that undermine doctrine. “Ever since the Pope said ‘Who am I to judge?’ (when asked about homosexual priests) everyone has been wondering what is that supposed to mean for us in the Church now, with many people trying to get out ahead of it.”
The Church’s traditional teaching that homosexuality is “gravely disordered” is consistent with Her overall teaching on human nature and sexuality, Nicolosi said: to break with that would be incoherent. Unfortunately, Pope Francis’ practice of making casual statements on important doctrinal matters “is hard for orthodox Catholics who’ve been trained to take what the Pope says very seriously. Orthodox Catholics, especially those trained in theology, don’t downshift that fast.”
Nicolosi said the current Vatican practice of “just throwing comments out and then kind of backtracking” has happened too often to be accidental. “It has to be willed,” she said. "I have no idea what the purpose of this would be as Magisterial strategy, but I suspect it is just all part of the liberal nonsense that downlplays intellectualism as elitist and thinks any kind of dialogue is in itself redeeming. For the record, dialogue isn't redemptive. Truth is redemptive."
Nicolosi stopped teaching adult catechism last year because of the confusion caused by what she calls “sloppy talk” from the Vatican. “Students kept saying, ‘But how can you say the Church teaches homosexuality is wrong when Pope Francis said this?’ Or ‘how can you say abortion is wrong when Pope Francis said that?’”
“We have one thing going for us,” Nicolosi added. “Homosexuality really is by its nature gravely disordered. It has terrible effects in the lives of those who embrace it and no rhetorical strategy is going to overwhelm the obvious tragedy of it.”
Amen to that, said recovered homosexual Joseph Sciambra at his website. Noting that Fitzmaurice has previously “vehemently stood by the CALGM’s position that “being gay is a gift and a grace,” he observed that, “On a personal note, I found nothing in the gay lifestyle that would even remotely confirm that my homosexuality was a ‘gift’ or a ‘grace.’ If it was anything, it was an unbelievable burden – a wound that wouldn’t heal; and why would it not heal? Because the trauma of my childhood got attached to the modern notion of the homosexual orientation; what ‘being gay’ caused was an absolute stagnation in my ability to heal and an incapacity to receive God’s healing Grace.”
The wounds were not merely spiritual. Sciambra relates sadly sitting in doctors offices in the 1990s with homosexuals young and old infected with HIV AIDS by anal sex. “Natural law has proven to be cruelly accurate, but unkind; I discovered this first hand, after only a few first experiences with gay male sex; it became abundantly clear, that the anus was not analogous to the vagina.” Hence, he said, 78 percent of new HIV AIDS cases occur among the four percent of the population who are male homosexuals.
Sciambra added, “The language in the Catechism was far from ‘abusive.’ It was liberating,” and ultimately offered him freedom. Fitzmaurice, on the other hand, wanted “to create a new Church: one where there is no possible escape from the hell of homosexuality.”
To communicate respectfully, contact:
Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Office of the Archbishop of Los Angeles
3424 Wilshire Boulevard, 5th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90010-2241
Phone: (213) 637-7534
Fax: (213) 637-6510
E-mail: [email protected]
Ping!
I assume his partner’s name is Maurice Fitzarthur.
Or maybe its not and Arthur Fitzmaurice just disagrees with it.
Most freepers know this but at every Catholic wedding which is a sacrament, the priests asks the bride and groom whether they are open to having children. IVF is not allowed by the Church because it results in dead embryos and there are other reasons but that’s the main one. God has control of creation, not man. Sex outside of marriage is forbidden. So your kid who is living with his girl friend has the same problem as a same sex couple. So its not like a person coming up for Communion has to answer a set of questions before he/she receives communion but if he/she goes back to the sacristy before Mass and demands Communion in spite of living with someone to whom he/she is not married, then the priest has to refuse Communion. This is for Catholics, the Body and Blood of Christ. So there may have to be some priests who go to jail. We’ll see.
“Catholic teaching on homosexuality is ‘abusive’ and ‘gravely evil’”
No, I would venture sticking your Johnson in (ahem) is the evil act here.
Where was Maurice Fitzarthur?
If I found that my desires conflicted with scripture, I would not conclude that God’s word was evil. I would look in a mirror to find the error and resist my personal desires based on the superior guidance of the ultimate expert. It’s sad that someone so shallow and self-centered has a role in Church education.
Every year, somebody asks me if I am going to the Religious Ed. Congress. Every year I say no. I just don’t get how people can let the wolves into the sheepfold, and they think they are perfectly safe— really just a misunderstood breed of sheep.
Please Lord— thy kingdom come== sooner rather than later.
Maybe those Folsum street irregulars should vote with their feet and move to NYC and let Dolan laugh at their perverse antics. When the Irainan’s A bomb NYC problem solved.
Let me say in all sincerity that I believe you, Arthur Fitzmaurice, are gravely Evil...
I used to cringe when FReepers would post that the Church was filled with homosexuals; now I just accept that as truth - mainly because there never seem to be repercussions when some freak has a public outburst like this.
Will somebody please be so kind as to tell me what the Catholic teaching on homosexuality is? (Note that the Church’s teaching should be what the Holy Bible indicates about the issue.)
On one hand, we have people like Cardinal Doland seemingly condoning homosexuality.
On the other hand, gay activist Arthur Fitzmaurice, who seems to be unfamiliar with Holy Bible passages which clearly condemn homosexuality, is condemning the Church’s teaching about homosexuality.
Regarding Cardinal Dolan’s open arms for LGBT, Luke 12:51 shows us that Jesus explained that he did not come to bring peace on earth but division.
Regarding the gay agenda, the Holy Bible condemns same-sex sexual relationships as evidenced by Romans 1:25-27.
And speaking of how Jesus “welcomed” unrepentant sinners, Matthew 18:15-17 shows that Jesus taught that a congregation is ultimately supposed to give unrepentant sinners the boot. (Matthew 23 also shows Jesus “welcoming” the Pharisees.)
Also, 1 Corinthians 5 is an example of a congregation getting repremanded for not complying with Jesus’ teaching where sexual offenders are concerned.
Note that 1 Corithians 5:11 teaches Christians not to even eat with unrepentant sinners.
A group of some 150 black pastors, the National Baptist Fellowship of Concerned Pastors...
Every human being is called to receive a gift of divine sonship, to become a child of God by grace. However, to receive this gift, we must reject sin, including homosexual behavior—that is, acts intended to arouse or stimulate a sexual response regarding a person of the same sex. The Catholic Church teaches that such acts are always violations of divine and natural law.
Homosexual desires, however, are not in themselves sinful. People are subject to a wide variety of sinful desires over which they have little direct control, but these do not become sinful until a person acts upon them, either by acting out the desire or by encouraging the desire and deliberately engaging in fantasies about acting it out. People tempted by homosexual desires, like people tempted by improper heterosexual desires, are not sinning until they act upon those desires in some manner.
Read it all at Catholic Answers
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/homosexuality
When did this "conference" begin and who was the bishop at that time?
I don’t know. It was already a fixture here in LA in the early 90s, when I moved to LA. It had controversial speakers back then, too, like the guy who told kids at the Youth Day part of the conference that being in gangs was ok.
My reply to him: tough tacos (in polite language)
Only thing abusive will this sodomite’s rectum when he comes down with rectal cancer. The average age of death from sodomites is 45. Either from some form of cancer, usually cancer of the anus, or suicide. So go right ahead and live out your short perverted, immoral life. Personally I would suggest you get right with the Lord for the few short years you have left.
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