Close -- it was 15:
Posted on 09/27/2014 12:04:33 PM PDT by steve86
GREAT FALLS, Mont.
A Roman Catholic bishop says a central Montana parish is about evenly divided over a new priest's decision to prohibit a gay couple from receiving Communion unless they divorce, live separately and write a statement affirming that a marriage is between a man and a woman.
Bishop Michael Warfel of the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings met Saturday with about 300 parishioners of St. Leo the Great Catholic Church in Lewistown, where he also led a Mass. About half the parishioners supported the Rev. Samuel Spiering's decision, while the other half were very angry, the Great Falls Tribune reported.
"There obviously is polarization, and certainly what I want to do is try to effect some healing," Warfel said Saturday. "At the same time, as a Catholic bishop, I uphold our Catholic teachings."
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
Half don’t seem to be biblical Christians
Email: Warfel has an opportunity to demonstrate true role of the church
The most recent incident involved two gay men who recently got married. Read more
On Aug. 6, four days after the Rev. Samuel Spiering arrived as the new administrator of St. Leo the Great Catholic Church in Lewistown, he met with parishioner Paul Huff to ask him if he and his partner, Tom Wojtowick, had gotten married.
After Huff confirmed the fact, the priest asked to meet with the two men the next day. At that second meeting, Spiering dismissed the pair from their volunteer posts in the church and told them they could no longer receive Communion, a sacrament at the core of a believer’s faith.
Wojtowick and Huff were stunned and stung by the action. It sprang from the Catholic Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage and its belief that homosexual behavior is a sin.
The issue has caused some people to leave the parish and stirred up controversy in the small central Montana town. To address all that has happened, Bishop Michael Warfel of the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings plans to meet with parishioners at the church Saturday night.
Wojtowick, 66, and Huff, 73, lifelong Catholics, have been partners for more than 30 years. The two men, both members and active at St. Leo’s and the community, married in Seattle in May 2013 to have the legal rights of spouses in their later years.
Lewistown is Wojtowick’s hometown. The two men lived in Seattle for nearly 20 years before they moved to Lewistown in 2003 and started attending St. Leo’s.
Wojtowick, who recently retired as executive director of the Fergus County Council on Aging, is chairman of the Lewistown Public Library Board of Trustees and involved in a number of other organizations.
Huff is chairman of the Fergus County Fair Board, a member of the board for Cowboy Poetry and a retired board member of the Lewistown Art Center.
At the church, Wojtowick is an organist, an accompanist and sings in the choir. Huff sings in the choir and is a cantor.
In a timeline provided by Wojtowick, the same day the couple met with Spierling, Wojtowick spoke with Warfel by phone. The bishop asked a number of questions and said he would call again.
Wojtowick and Huff talked with Spiering and Warfel and other diocesan officials in a conference call on Aug. 25. Out of that, Wojtowick said, came an agreement that Wojtowick and Spiering would write a restoration statement, that in part, would support the concept of marriage between a man and a woman, which Wojtowick and Huff were willing to do.
“It was not our intent to challenge that (concept), but to have the rights of civic protections in our old age,” Wojtowick wrote.
When Spiering and Wojtowick met to write the statement, Wojtowick said the priest told him they would also have to set up a timeline for the two men to separate and divorce, which Wojtowick said he and Huff did not agree to.
Though they provided the timeline of events, Wojtowick and Huff are refraining from further comment on the issue until they have heard the bishop speak on Saturday night.
In a telephone interview from Great Falls on Thursday afternoon, Warfel said he knows Wojtowick and Huff “to be good people.”
“This is not animus against someone who happens to be a homosexual; this issue is the same-sex marriage,” he said. “A lot of people put those two together, and obviously there’s a connection, but it’s not the same thing.”
Warfel called same-sex marriage “the issue of our era,” acknowledging that in the U.S., polls show that support for it has edged higher than those who oppose it. But the fact remains that stands in conflict with Catholic teachings.
“As a Catholic bishop I have a responsibility to uphold our teaching of marriage between one man and one woman,” Warfel said. “And I think there’s very solid scriptural teaching on it and our sacred tradition is very strong on it.”
Those teachings leave him little choice, he added.
“Either I uphold what Catholic teachings are or, by ignoring it or permitting it, I’m saying I disagree with what I’m ordained to uphold,” Warfel said.
He has gotten a number of letters on the issue. Some people said that a song sung in Catholic churches titled “All are Welcome” needs to be changed to “Some are Welcome.”
“Everyone is welcome to the journey of conversion,” Warfel said. “But there are certain convictions, beliefs or behaviors that are in direct contradiction to what we believe and teach, and this would be one of them.”
He said his understanding is that Wojtowick and Huff did not publicize their marriage in the community. But once it became publicly known, it had to be dealt with publicly.
Warfel, who sees the Saturday evening meeting as a private one with parishioners, said he’s hoping to find a solution to Wojtowick’s and Huff’s situation. But, saying it is a pastoral matter, he declined to speak further about it.
No substantive changes have resulted from a meeting Saturday between Bishop Michael Warfel, leader of the Catholic Diocese of Great Falls – Billings, and parishioners of St. Leo the Great Catholic Church regarding the suspension of church privileges for two gay parishioners in Lewistown.
Following a meeting with roughly 300 parishioners in Lewistown, Warfel said the following:
“The comments from the parishioners were probably 50 – 50. In balance, those were both supportive of what the pastor had done in his decision, and then some who were very angry and non-supportive of that decision.
“There obviously is polarization, and certainly what I want to do is try to effect some healing.”
Warfel said that in the immediate timeframe he has to ponder the issue and reflect upon the comments that he heard.
“At the same time as a Catholic bishop I uphold our Catholic teachings,” Warfel said.
Warfel was in Lewistown to lead a Mass and to listen to people’s concerns about the church’s recent disassociation of two gay parishioners who have been told they cannot receive Communion or fully engage in their life in the church because they were married in a civil ceremony more than a year ago.
On Aug. 6, four days after the installation of a new parish priest, longtime St. Leo’s parishioners, Tom Wojtowick, 66, and Paul Huff, 73, were asked to attend a private meeting to discuss concerns of the Rev. Samuel Spiering. Huff and Wojtowick had just returned from a trip out of state, and had not met Spiering, 27, or attended a Mass over which he presided.
Huff and Wojtowick had been married in a civil ceremony 15 months earlier in Seattle, Wash. They have been in a committed relationship for more than 30 years.
At a meeting the following day and in telephone conversations between Spiering, Warfel, Huff and Wojtowick in the days thereafter, the two parishioners were told that they would no longer be allowed to participate in fundamental Catholic religious observances or ministry programs.
To restore their position within the Catholic Church, Huff and Wojtowick must obtain a divorce, discontinue living together, and write a restoration statement defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Wojtowick and Huff have thus far declined to do so.
According to information provided by Wojtowick and Huff, as many as 40 parishioners have since left regular attendance at St. Leo the Great Catholic Church.
Huff and Wojtowick have both historically been active in their community and in their church. Huff is a two-time past-president of the local Kiwanis Club, chairman of the Fergus County Fair Board, board member of the Lewistown Art Center and formerly served as an organist and cantor in the St. Leo’s church choir.
Wojtowick recently retired as executive director of the Central Montana Council on Aging, and has served as either a board member or chairman of the Lewistown Public Library, Lewistown Art Center, and as an adviser to the Central Montana Medical Center Home Health and Hospice Program. Wojtowick is a four times elected representative of the Fergus County Community Council.
Speaking in an interview with the Billings Gazette last Thursday, Warfel said he knew Wojtowick and Huff to be “good people” and stated that the decision of Spiering was not “animus against someone who happens to be homosexual,” but an issue that stands in conflict with Catholic teachings.
“As a Catholic bishop, I have a responsibility to uphold our teaching of marriage between one man and one woman,” Warfel told the Gazette. “And I think there’s very solid scriptural teaching on it and our sacred tradition is very strong on it.
“Either I uphold what Catholic teachings are or, by ignoring or permitting it, I’m saying I disagree with what I’m ordained to uphold,” Warfel told the Gazette.
That's right. Most Catholics don't know their faith.
It is not supposed to matter what I,you, or what Adam and Steve say; what does the Bible say.
When did parishioner opinion begin to have ANY effect on the Word of God?
Half of the members seem to believe they get to vote on doctrine.
I’d recommend they vote with their feet -— and LEAVE!
I’m confused. The Catholic church doesn’t recognize civil marriages of heterosexuals, yet homos have to get a divorce to be Catholic? (not that I think practicing homos should receive communion, “married” or not)
Well, isn’t that how Moses settled what would be in the Ten Commandments? He brought down 20 suggestions from Mount Sinai and had the Israelites vote on them. The 10 they accepted became the Ten Commandments. You always have to be democratic about these things.
Warfel is taking a principled stand for truth. I am not by any means Catholic, but I applaud him for standing for what is biblical in this case.
**“At the same time as a Catholic bishop I uphold our Catholic teachings,” Warfel said**
Then it appears no pondering is necessary.
The CINOs who support homosexuality perhaps need to find a new home.
Close -- it was 15:
Actions like this should have been taken against people like Ted Kennedy years ago, but they weren’t.
The Holy Bible clearly condemns same-sex sexual relationships as evidienced by Romans 1:25-27. And not only does Matthew 18:15-17 show us that Jesus taught that a church is not to tolerate unrepentant sinners sinners in its congregation, but 1 Corinthians 5 is an example of an unrepentant sinner who should have been expelled from that congregation.
Given the Bible’s clear stance against same-sex sexual practices and intolerance with respect to having fellowship with such people, I question if the half of the church that knows that something is wrong with homosexuality has even read the Bible.
evenly divided?
That’s sad
I don’t know what the big problem is. If the LBGT crowd wants a “CHURCH WEDDING” let them start their own church. There, problem solved. Why do they want to continue creating a problem where a problem didn’t exist before.They know the rules of the Catholic church, and the Catholic church isn’t going to change their rules, no matter what or how these LBGT crowd groan and moan.
Personal experience: in the early 1980s I was the music director for a PCUS congregation, which later became part of the PCUSA. The organist left as part of a planned church split-off (amicable, to form a second congregation a few miles away). We were interviewing for a replacement; the best-playing organist came from about 200 miles away, with his same-sex partner. I discussed the situation with the pastor, and we agreed that it would be incorrect to hire an unrepentant homosexual in a music ministry role, just as it would be to hire, say, an unrepentant philanderer. The prospective organist heard of the pastor’s and my concerns, and pulled himself out of the running. The Session spent the next year trying to find some cause so they could get me fired because I had supposedly ruined their best chance at good organ music, but they could not find any cause, so they figuratively said the hell with it and fired me anyway. The church split in two (having the nearby new congregation made it easier), the pastor ended up leaving soon after; the congregation has gone through half a dozen pastors, and is presently being led by an interim female pastor.
They have: it's called the Metropolitan Community Church.
Thius makes it different from private, secretive homosexuality relations. That's a sin as well, but since the church does not conduct household surveillance, there's no way to know it's happening unless they do something public, e.g. put it in the papers or put a video on YouTube. Ecch.
Come to think of it, they did put it in the papers.
The undoing of this scandalous sign would be the divorce and the positive statement which the bishop required. Good on the bishop.
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