Posted on 04/28/2002 8:40:47 PM PDT by Diago
I don't know, but it had a pointy, streamlined head that was probably largely hollow.
From Frequently Asked Questions at Courage Website
Here are some answers to questions that Courage gets asked frequently. If you have questions you would like answered, feel free to send them to the webmaster at webmaster@CourageRC.net
We would be glad to answer your questions and they may end up on this page too.
Q. Why doesn't Courage use the terms "gay" and "lesbian"?
A. Courage discourages persons with same-sex attractions from labeling themselves "gay" and "lesbian" for the following reasons:
1) The secular world usually uses those terms to refer to someone who is either actively homosexual or intends to be. When a person decides to "come out" and say "I am gay" or "I am lesbian", the person usually means "this is who I am - I was born this way and I intend to live this way. I have a right to find a same-sex partner with whom to have a romantic sexual relationship." To "come out" as being "gay" or "lesbian" doesn't usually mean "I have homosexual attractions and I have a deep commitment to living a chaste life".
2) By labeling someone, we discourage those who may wish to try and move beyond homosexual attractions. Some people, especially young people, are able to further their psychosexual development with spiritual and psychological aid. If we labeled them "gay" and "lesbian", they might think there's no possibility of moving beyond these attractions.
3) There is more to a person than one's sexual attractions. Even if one experienced same-sex attractions for most of one's life, he or she is first and foremost a child of God created in His image. To refer to that person as "gay" or "lesbian" is a reductionist way of speaking about someone. We are even trying now to avoid using the term homosexual as a noun, or as an adjective directly describing the person (i.e. homosexual person). Although it takes more words, we prefer to speak of "persons with same-sex attractions". Fr. Harvey has said that, if he could, he would rename his first book "The Homosexual Person" to something else like "The Person With Homosexual Attractions".
There are people within the Catholic Church who might argue that those who label themselves "gay" or "lesbian" aren't necessarily living unchastely. That's true, but the implications of the terms in today's society don't commonly connote chaste living. Furthermore, they are limiting their own possibilities of growth by such self-labeling, and reducing their whole identity by defining themselves according to their sexual attractions. At Courage, we choose not to label people according to an inclination which, although psychologically understandable, is still objectively disordered.
Q. Why are homosexual attractions considered "objectively disordered"? Isn't that a harsh term?
A. The term "objective disorder" is a philosophical term. It is used to describe homosexual attractions because such attractions can never lead to a morally good sexual act. It is objected that if a man lusts for a woman or vice versa, this too is an objective disorder. This latter example is not an objective disorder, because, if the man or woman controls this natural attraction, and wills to express it in the natural state of marriage, it is a good thing. The term "objective disorder" may strike some of us with same-sex attractions as being harsh, because we feel that we never asked to have homosexual attractions and we fear that this term is in some way condemnatory or derogatory. It is important to remember that "objective disorder" is a philosophical term which describes a particular inclination - it does not diminish our value and worth in the eyes of God.
It is psychologically understandable that certain people struggle with homosexual attractions. The Church recognizes this and does not condemn people for simply having these attractions; however, the Church also teaches that homosexual acts are always immoral, and therefore, one must also accept that the inclination to engage in such acts is, philosophically speaking, objectively disordered.
Above all, we must keep in mind that homosexual inclinations do not make up our true identity as rational or Christian persons. We are first and foremost men and women created in the image of God - we are exceedingly precious in God's sight and we have been given the gifts of intelligence and free-will. We can live a life of union with Christ, through prayer, and we can know the peace of interior chastity. This is God's desire for us, and He continually gives us the grace to live it.
Domestic Church ... now I understand why someone can't be "gay" or "lesbian" and a practicing Catholic.
Bishop to preside at Dignity prayer service by Doreen CudnikCleveland - The Most Rev. Anthony J. Pilla, bishop of Cleveland, [Pilla was past president of the National Conference of Bishops] will preside at Dignity Cleveland's 25th anniversary prayer service, to be held in the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist downtown.
Dignity invites all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Catholics, their families and friends to join them...
The service is set for Friday, December 4, at 7 pm at the Cathedral, located on the corner of E. 9th and Superior Ave.
The prayer service will be followed by a reception with Bishop Pilla at 8 p.m. in the Rappe Room of the Catholic Center located on the Cathedral campus.
There will be a meeting on November 22, following Dignity Cleveland's monthly celebration of the Eucharist at the 10:30 a.m. Mass at Our Lady of Peace church at E. 125th Street & Shaker Boulevard, to discuss ways to make the December 4 prayer service a successful and spiritually moving event.
The big flaw with this statement -- and the crack that has opened the door to homosexual promotion not only in the Catholic Church but throughout our society -- is that homosexuality is something one "discovers" about oneself.
If a sinful propensity to commit homosexual acts is something one "discovers" about oneself, then that must mean one was "born" homosexual and therefore "is" homosexual and therefore should be allowed to engage in homogenital acts.
The false idea of "being" gay as opposed to "having" a sick and sinful inclination has opened the floodgates of perversion in the Church and all other facets of our society. The antidote to this widespread error in thinking is to recriminalize homosexual acts.
From the Official Diocese of Cleveland Website - the Gay Pride Rainbow Triangle
Send an e-mail to Bishop Pilla Here 
Click Here to Go to the official Diocese of Cleveland website and see the Gay Pride Rainbow Triangle
You are absolutely right; in fact, that was the message of this evenings mass at the USCCB. We were reminded that Jesus sought out the sinners whereas the sick were brought to him. On one occasion, a sick man asked to be cured, at which Jesus responded: "Your sins are forgiven." Afterwards, he cured him.
Would that such a program be established in the gay community with an expected outcome of abstinence along with a return to the church and its sacraments. Unfortunately, with the exception of Dignity, most of these diocesan programs are self serving. Take for example the Rainbow Sash movement, born in the Rochester diocese. Like the Cleveland program, it began with a positive intention but has now been caught up in the "homosexual agenda".
Members of the international Rainbow Sash Movement wear the sashes while seeking to receive Holy Communion. In some cases, they have been denied communion.
Joe Murray, a Chicago resident who is national spokesperson and U.S. convener for the RSM, said sash-wearers believe the "gift of sexuality is just that, it is a sacred gift. How we individually express that gift is up to the individual and their conscience," he said.
Murray, who has been with his lover 22 years and considers himself a practicing Catholic, acknowledged that church teaching maintains that any sex outside of heterosexual marriage is sinful.
"We want to see that teaching developed," he said, "so gay sex within a loving union would be permissible."
Nevertheless, Murray asserted, "our issue is not sexual activity per se." It is church conservatives, he said, who "can only look at an openly gay person in sexual terms."
"We’re proclaiming our orientation," he said. "We do have people who are lovers, we do have people who are celibate."
Last Nov. 13, a group of sash-wearers showed up for Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington during the annual meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. When the group sought to receive communion, they were turned away.
Sister Maryann Walsh, speaking for the bishops, said the sash-wearers were rejected for communion because "they were using the occasion to express public disagreement with the teaching of the church" on homosexuality.
The decision was made, she said, by Cardinal James Hickey, head of the Archdiocese of Washington.
Officials in Rome have been made aware of this by a very holy and well connected priest in the Cleveland Diocese . But I would still encourage everyone to help publicize and bring an end to this blasphemy.
I am waiting for the Bishops to proclaim:
"Gay priests homosexually molesting teen boys HAS NOTHING to do with homosexuality."
As I stated in my e-mail, they may be getting away with their open hostility towards the pope and Roman Catholic Church (NOT American liberlal pseudo-pious church) in this lifetime, but they will have a lot to answer for in the next.
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