Posted on 02/21/2019 8:44:43 AM PST by ebb tide
Editor's note: An international group of lay Catholics held a public demonstration in Rome yesterday just outside the Vatican, demanding that Pope Francis and the world’s bishops address homosexuality during the upcoming abuse summit as the major cause of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. The following statement was given by Prof. Roberto de Mattei during a press conference at the event. Read all statements here.
February 20, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – If the summit of the presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences of the world gathered by Pope Francis limits itself to addressing only the abuse of minors, as the title of the summit indicates, without addressing, for example, the question of homosexuality in the Church, it will be a meeting destined to fail, because it will not address the true causes of the problem.
It would be hypocrisy to limit the scandal to pedophilia, ignoring the plague of homosexuality, which is not only a vice contrary to human nature but also forms the basis for a structure of power within the Church. And it would be hypocritical to limit itself to only denouncing moral scandals, without addressing their doctrinal roots, which stem from the years of the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar period.
It seems instead that ecclesiastical authority is interested in crimes such as pedophilia or rape, not because they are a most grave violation against divine and natural law and thus constitute an offense against God, but only because they are an example of violence against our neighbor and thus are legally crimes in modern secular states. But the modern secular states which condemn pedophilia promote homosexuality, and today the men of the Church are afraid of being called out as “homophobes”.
In recent days, this has been displayed in the media campaign to launch the new book of Frédéric Martel, Sodoma, which asserts that every churchman who condemns homosexuality is a homophobe and every homophobe is a repressed homosexual. Thus the true sin is said to be the hypocrisy of those who do not publicly declare themselves homosexual.
This book represents an attempt to exercise menacing media pressure on the bishops who are gathering in Rome in order to reduce them to silence. We are here today to break down this wall of silence. Silence may be broken with words, as we are doing in this press conference, but also by symbolic actions, such as we have done in our demonstration in Piazza San Silvestro. Speaking does not mean only murmuring words, and thus a public demonstration can express a message more strongly than verbal language.
St. Gregory the Great in his Pastoral Rule defines wicked pastors as “mute dogs, incapable of barking” (Isaiah 56:10). “ For a pastor, what is the fear of speaking the truth, if not turning his back on his enemy with his silence?” Our appeal is made to the Presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences gathered in Rome, and to the bishops of the world, asking that someone among them will have the courage to stand up and break the silence, as Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò did.
If this does not happen, our testimony will remain as an admonition against those Pastors of the Church who, with their sepulchral silence, are in fact disowning Catholic faith and morals. But Our Lord Jesus Christ has told us that He will confess or deny before God whoever will have confessed or denied Him before men (Mt 11:32, Lk 9:26, 13:8-9).
Ping
Captain Obvious sez: “Duh, perhaps it’s because 99.999999999% of the participants are gay?”
The problem is not primarily of pedophilia (sexual desire for PRE adolescent children), since most of the abuse occurs against TEEN boys.
The problem is that there are a number of gay priests who cannot control their sexual urges. This problem may be inherent in their homosexuality. In any event, there can be no solution which does not also involve purging these people from the priesthood.
Hopefully, it can be done without involving millstones.
But the Catholic beliefs in a Eucharist and that half of truth comes from church tradition winds up making regular Catholic members believe they can't get all of Jesus somewhere else. So if it's not a Eucharist unless a Catholic priest blesses the elements for Communion (so the belief goes), then you can't touch Jesus attending another church like you can attending a Catholic mass. Likewise if you want to know the whole truth and don't believe in sola scriptura -- the belief Protestants have that scripture alone tells us all the truth about God.
So every time Catholic church members demand real reform from their leaders, both the leaders and the members know the leaders don't have to reform because most leaders won't leave the church anyway regardless of what the leaders continue to get away with. There are other things I disagree with Catholics on. But IMHO these two beliefs are the ones that keep good Christian Catholics from getting the necessary reforms in a slipping church.
Dan Simmons wrote a story a few years back titled “The Time Traveler”:
https://www.dansimmons.com/news/message/2006_04.htm
An element of the story was what was called “Category Error”, a concept that if you don’t accurately describe a problem, it can’t be solved.
That concept seems to be disturbingly applicable here.
Does anyone doubt that the fact that gay seminarians are not consistently denied admission has caused this problem?
The faithful HAVE been leaving liberal parishes in droves, in preference for more traditional, conservative Catholic parishes.
It's worse than that. There have been elements in the church actively driving away heterosexual applicants for the priesthood, and they've been at it for a while.
but the premise is entirely not only possible, but probable because there was a huge change in our church in the 60's......
Controlling urges vs actively encouraging and recruiting for homosexual activity. It’s been known and reported that many Catholic seminaries are infested with gay cultures of sex. It will be hard to purge something that is endemic.
That and the fact the liberal harpies at the seminaries find a way to get rid of the straight guys.
The Catholic Church has lots of problems. One of them is the tares thing. As in the parable of the Wheat and the Tares.
An even bigger problem is that Catholics have an un-Biblical view of absolute truth. They think that the Pope has absolute authority to speak for God. Now some of you hardcore Catholics will try to tell me otherwise, but it will be incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo and double-talk worthy of a first-rate criminal defense lawyer. But go ahead and tell me where I am wrong.
Anyway, if Catholics had a true and deep respect for the Bible they would be better off. Once you spend serious time in the Gospels and the New Testament epistles it just gets harder and harder to stay in the Catholic church system. Maybe that is one reason why Satan works so hard to keep people from reading God’s Word.
How about you?
I had a similar issue with the United Methodist Church when I learned years ago that part of our offering plate money was going to pay for abortion lobbyists and gay agenda lobbyists. My local conference, the North Alabama conference, was leading the way in trying to reform us from that (good for them). However, that didn't change the fact that part of the offering I gave to my local church went to the regional conference, and part of that had to go to the general conference ---> which they were putting some of their money to the abortion and gay lobbyists.
I bet much of how the RCC operates is the same way. Even if you have good local leaders you're still financially supporting the leaders who won't do the necessary reforms in the general church. The UMC no longer gets my donations or my volunteer hours, another church does. The same with many people who left the UMC for that reason. Will it reform? Perhaps. Will the RCC reform? Perhaps, but less likely to if they know their members aren't prepared to leave if that's the only way to serve God and not Ashtaroth. However, if enough good Catholics are able to tell their leaders they're leaving the RCC entirely if they don't reform I'm betting the RCC will reform.
Question #1: Are there enough RCC members willing to do that?
Question #2: Does the Eucharist belief and the belief of half of truth coming from church tradition keep the RCC leaders holding members by the gonads? I guess we'll see by whether or not enough RCC members demand reform. I hope the good guys win and the RCC, whom I consider a potential powerful Christian ally in an evil world, goes back to being into Jesus more than they're into kids or into letting Communists pick the leaders.
I can sum up the real reason more quickly.
The summit won’t touch homosexuality because the pope is (at worst) a faggot or (at best) a faggot enabler.
It is inherent. If they cannot want what is natural, how can they develop natural control?
Seminaries today are generally but annexes of The Frankfurt School.
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