Posted on 01/31/2016 10:01:53 PM PST by detective
God, what are you calling me to do here, prayed the priest. Come out, or stay in the closet ?
After 23 years in Chicago parishes, the question had pushed its way to the surface.
He weighed his options. He thought about his parishioners. Many, he knew, were accepting of gay people, even of same-sex marriage, but others - less so. He had grown up in a large Catholic family; he understood what people's faith meant to them. He didn't want to harm his flock, or the Catholic Church.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Sources?
Putting aside for the moment his status as a Catholic priest......
It is impossible for a Christian to be a homosexual (stay with me for a bit here).
In order to be a Christian one must repent of (turn away from) one’s sins and follow Jesus. To follow Jesus you must accept what He tells you is true and do your best to do it.
A person who claims “I’m a homosexual” is identifying himself as his sin, a behavior that GOD explicitly states is sin and abomination, not as a follower of Christ. How can someone be a follower of Christ if they are publicly and blatantly celebrating their sin (which Christ hates!)? They cannot.
It is possible to be a Christian and struggle with same sex attraction disorder. Just as it is possible to be a Christian and suffer from any other form of lust. But once someone chooses to give into that lust and publicly celebrate it, they have turned their back on Christ and are no longer a Christian (if they ever really were).
As I understand it, to be a Catholic (according to Catholic doctrine, please leave the inter-faith squabbling for a different time) one must be a Christian (follower of Christ). So this “priest” is not a Christian, and therefore not a Catholic. Since he is not a Catholic, he cannot be a priest.
And all this we can tell the instant he states “I’m a homosexual”
Your source for that one?
They have broken their vows. They have repeatedly sinned and not only not repented but have bragged about their sins proclaimed them to the world. They have been a bad influence on young people. The have renounced and undermined church teaching.
They are not priests in the true sense of the world and should be defrocked and expelled from the priesthood.
Fair Warning?
“It is impossible for a Christian to be a homosexual.”
It is very possible for a homosexual to follow the teachings of Christ and be a Christian. But God teaches that sex is for a committed relationship between a man and a woman. Like you said, a proclaimed homosexual defines himself by his sins. Homosexual sexual acts are sinful.
A person with homosexual tendencies who lives a holy and chaste life can be a Christian.
The instances of abuse peaked in the late 70s/early 80s and dwindling down to almost nothing. The majority of abuse happened and stopped happening long before the media tuned in on the story. I don’t think it was anything the Church did about it either, besides not giving in on things like civil divorce and remarriage and bc within marriage.
I bet that gay men becoming priests has declined at the same rate as the abuse did, as the gay priests that molested boys died and weren’t replaced by more gay men joining up. By the early 70s there were whole communities of openly homosexual men living together, something that never happened on that level before, at least in the modern era. They could get jobs, and in some of them they were celebrated, acedemia, fashion, politics—they were on TV and in popular culture more and more. The 80s were more extreme, the following decades more so and on to what we have today.
Now they don’t need to hide anywhere, they can get married in every state, in many areas it is against the law to ‘discriminate’ against them. If they want to get into religion, there are many faiths that will now happily put them in positions of leadership where they can be openly gay in relationships, and never have the Church’s unchanging plain teaching as concerns homosexual acts hurt their feelings. I mean, how likely is a group that still doesn’t accept civil divorce and remarriage, as well as birth control within marriage to go ahead and accept homosexual relationships? Just a theory.
Freegards
Yes, I know and have meant exactly this.
Little attention has been paid to the efforts of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict in attempting to combat the homosexual network that had infiltrated the church in the 1970’s.
Catholic parishioners became aware of homosexual priests in the 1980’s and 1990’s and fought to get them removed.
But the network of homosexual priests still exists and they still work to promote and protect one another.
Most priests are good and dedicated men. One of the greatest tragedies is that their good work is ignored and they are smeared by the evil that permeates the hierarchy.
If he’s celibate, it shouldn’t matter. BEING gay isn’t the sin, it’s committing the acts that the Bible condemns. I don’t think it says anything about simply being gay. A gay priest around teen boys is about as safe/unsafe as a straight one around teen girls.
“A gay priest around teen boys is about as safe/unsafe as a straight one around teen girls.”
Someone who defines himself as a homosexual or gay defines himself by sexual acts that are sinful. Many Catholic boys have had bad experiences with homosexual priests beyond homosexual rape/seduction. Homosexuals teach and encourage a value system that is contradictory to Christ’s teaching.
Regardless of how they “define themselves,” the Bible doesn’t say anything about that. Only the act.
The have renounced
If you mean those who claim that practicing homosexuality is compliant with the catholic teaching, then yes. Those, who practice it secretly, don't.
They are not priests in the true sense of the world
What is the "true sense of the word"? I meant the sense from the Catholic Cathehism :
VII. The Effects of the Sacrament of Holy Orders
1582 As in the case of Baptism and Confirmation this share in Christ's office is granted once for all. the sacrament of Holy Orders, like the other two, confers an indelible spiritual character and cannot be repeated or conferred temporarily
1583 It is true that someone validly ordained can, for a just reason, be discharged from the obligations and functions linked to ordination, or can be forbidden to exercise them; but he cannot become a layman again in the strict sense,75 because the character imprinted by ordination is for ever. the vocation and mission received on the day of his ordination mark him permanently.
1584 Since it is ultimately Christ who acts and effects salvation through the ordained minister, the unworthiness of the latter does not prevent Christ from acting.76 St. Augustine states this forcefully: As for the proud minister, he is to be ranked with the devil. Christ's gift is not thereby profaned: what flows through him keeps its purity, and what passes through him remains dear and reaches the fertile earth.... the spiritual power of the sacrament is indeed comparable to light: those to be enlightened receive it in its purity, and if it should pass through defiled beings, it is not itself defiled.
The pedophiles the Catholic chuRich let in nearly destroyed the church.
If the priest had any knowledge of Biblical Christianity, he would know that God is calling him to repent.
Sick and disgusting fruits of priestly celibacy.
WAS a priest, hopefully.
My point seems to have sailed right over YOUR head.
The writer said that attacks on male children were “dishonestly labeled as child abuse” when it was really homosexual priests seducing young boys. Well, it’s still child abuse, no matter who is doing it for whatever reason.
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