Posted on 05/10/2017 12:17:49 PM PDT by ebb tide
Bishop John Stowe of Kentucky has made good on his controversial promise to speak at a New Ways Ministry conference, even though the Catholic group advocates homosexual “marriage” and has been condemned by the Vatican and the U.S. bishops.
The 51-year-old Franciscan, who was ordained the bishop of Lexington in May 2015 by Pope Francis, gave two Gospel reflections at the April 28-30 symposium, which was called “Justice and Mercy Shall Kiss: LGBT Catholics in the Age of Pope Francis.”
Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, where the event took place, has not publicly commented on the symposium, nor on Bishop Stowe’s speaking there.
“Christian morality is more concerned with the well-being and dignity of the person than with rules, norms or commandments. Jesus seems to teach this on many occasions," Stowe told the 300 or so participants at the conference in a reference to Matthew 12:1-14, reported the National Catholic Reporter.
Members of New Ways Ministry have shown “a valuable expression of mercy” by calling the Catholic Church “to be more inclusive and more Christ-like, despite being given so many reasons to walk away,” Stowe told the NCR during the conference.
He faced a backlash after news broke in December that he would attend the New Ways Ministry symposium, said the bishop.
“The flack has been enormous and continues on the blogosphere,” and from “self-righteous strangers online and those who subscribe to these feeds,” Stowe said, adding that some posts and emails were “vicious.”
Stowe had earlier defended his decision by pointing to Pope Francis’s call to mercy.
“I think Pope Francis has signaled that we need to take another look at those things (homosexuality),” he said in December on the Mike Allen Radio Show, an online Catholic program out of Lexington.
Moreover, Catholic teaching on homosexuality is not “immune from ever changing,” Stowe said then.
“Our usual way of thinking is that justice and mercy are incompatible,” Stowe told the NCR, but Pope Francis has asked Catholics to be open to each other.
"We all still require [mercy]; it's about the need for a conversion of attitudes for both the institutional church and for all its members.”
New Ways Ministry, which lobbies for the Catholic Church’s acceptance of homosexual relationships, including “marriage,” was condemned in 2010 by the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, and in 2011 by Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl, USCCB chairman of the Committee on Doctrine.
“In no manner is the position proposed by New Ways Ministry in conformity with Catholic teaching and in no manner is this organization authorized to speak on behalf of the Catholic Church or to identify itself as a Catholic organization,” George wrote.
Moreover, in 1999 the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith “permanently prohibited” the group’s co-founders, Sr. Jeannine Gramick and Fr. Robert Nugent, “from any pastoral work involving homosexual persons,” after ruling their teaching was “erroneous and dangerous” and “doctrinally unacceptable.”
Nugent, who died January 1, 2014, generally followed the Vatican order, but Gramick did not, and left the School Sisters of Notre Dame for the Sisters of Loretto over the matter.
Indeed, the 75-year-old religious was front and center at the symposium, and introduced Sr. Simone Campbell, who rose to fame as pro-abortion leader of the “Nuns on a Bus” campaign.
Executive director of the social justice group NETWORK, Campbell is widely regarded as undermining the abortion concerns of the U.S. bishops during the Obamacare debate.
She preached at the pre-symposium’s optional retreat.
“Let us pray as Jesus taught us: Our Mother, Our Father … ” intoned Campbell during the retreat’s opening prayer service, which included a “reading” from Pope Francis.
“Don’t get bogged down in your own limited ideas and opinions, but be prepared to change or expand them. The combination of two different ways of thinking can lead to a synthesis that enriches both. The unity that we seek is not uniformity, but a unity in diversity, or reconciled diversity. Keep an open mind” was the papal text, although the source document was not cited.
The speakers included Fr. Bryan Massingale, who teaches moral theology at Fordham University in New York and is a priest for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, where he was at one point spiritual director of seminarians.
“I don’t believe in a vengeful God, I really don’t, but there are times when I hope that someone has to account for the spiritual damage that’s being done that leads people to walk away” from the Catholic Church, he told the symposium.
The bishops must know that LGBT Catholics are involved in church ministries, observed a participant before asking how the bishops are “reckoning” with that.
Massingale replied that “there is more going on in our church than is sometimes reported,” but that the Catholic Church is not the bishops.
“We have to stop this dysfunctional dance to ask Father to baptize our every opinion,” Massingale said. “The church is us.”
The symposium also featured, on a loan from a sympathetic priest, a collection of relics of saints who New Ways ministry director Frank DeBernardo said “are known or thought to be LGBT people.” He named Perpetua and Felicity, Sergius and Bacchus, Joan of Arc, and Aelred of Rievaulx.
Conference sessions included "Lesbian Nuns: Gift to the Church," "Gay Men in Priesthood and Religious Life," and "Transgender & Intersex Identities and the Family."
Conference sessions included "Lesbian Nuns: Gift to the Church," "Gay Men in Priesthood and Religious Life," and "Transgender & Intersex Identities and the Family."
He apparently has been reading his Bible upside down all this time.
There is no dignity in anal sex.
There’s a quote that has occasionally been attributed to St. John Chrysostom (c. 349 – 407): “The floor of hell is paved with the skulls of rotten bishops.”
Twenty years ago, most of us would have dismissed anyone who suggested that we would be seeing this perversion supported by priests of any station.
Twenty years ago, most of us would have dismissed anyone who suggested that we would be seeing this perversion supported by priests of any station.
“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” - John 8:4-11
It's interesting how perverts and sinners love to quote John 8 but they always omit Jesus' command to, "Go and sin no more." Sorta reminds me of how Fake News never gives context to what's being reported but edits to satisfy its own agenda.
Once done the Left, their lbgtbltlsd snowflakes and their mohammaden overlords...err... I mean "brothers" will live in harmony under socialism and sharia.
The Catholic church is clearly infected with social justice at the detriment of actual truth and justice.
This and pedophilia are destroying the Church’s moral authority.
It isn’t possible to engage in deviant sex and claim dignity. It is pointless, stupid and beyond animalistic.
Matthew 19:4-5 - "Have ye not read, that he who made man from the beginning, Made them male and female? And he said: For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh."
Tell me one thing that the Bible considers sinful that doesn’t come with worldly consequences.
It’s the consequences of behavior that make something sinful. This can also be “dying alone”, which is the result of many LGBT choices. The concept of “building a life” isn’t just about you, it’s about everyone else - their choices revolve around their own self, resulting in all the consequences that follow.
Guess the bishop missed the part that says “Render unto Cesar’s that which is Cesar’s and render unto God that which is God’s’’.
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