Posted on 11/17/2019 4:37:44 PM PST by ebb tide
A gay Irish Catholic priest has told a meeting in Dublin that as women and gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual and non-binary people we remain part of the church in order to give witness to the face of God.
Fr Bernárd Lynch said, We live in a world that is not only misogynistic, erotophobic and homophobic, but God-phobic. It is a world where sexuality and spirituality are seen as not only split, but in continuous and consistent conflict.
Addressing a meeting of We Are Church Ireland at Trinity College Dublin on Monday, he said: I believe through my work with people with the [HIV] virus, that sexuality and spirituality are the one energy, the same pure water of the uncreated life of God. This is the greatest gift as I see it to our broken society and culture. That is the gift of an integrated sexuality and spirituality as experienced by many people with the virus, he said.
Sexuality, he said, is not a distraction from the spiritual. It is total, ecstatic self-transcendence. The sacredness of sexuality, the holiness of sexuality, the mystery of sexuality speaks to the fact that we are one body and one spiritual experience.
Fr Lynch, who is from Co Clare and now lives in London, is to receive the Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad from President Michael D Higgins on November 21st. Fr Lynch joined the Society of African Missions in 1965 and was ordained in 1971. He is best known for his work with Aids victims in New York and for coming out as a gay priest.
In February 2017 he and his husband, Billy Desmond, were guests of President Higgins at a private audience in Áras an Uachtaráin following their marriage in Co Clare the previous month.
He recalled last night how although indeed Irish, I grew up in New York spiritually and sexually in the fabulous gay 70s. When Aids hit us like a nuclear holocaust in the early 80s, I witnessed first hand the decimation on an entire generation of young gay men my own age.
As priest and theological consultant to Dignity New York, the largest then known homophile group in the United States, I saw person after person fall prey to this unknown, ignominious disease.
Six hundred of our membership had passed on in less than 10 years. As their brother and priest, I organised the first ministry to people with Aids in the city, and very soon was brought on to the newly formed mayors task force on Aids.
There was no HIV test. People got sick and died. Everyone who was gay, haemophiliac or an IV drug user thought they had it, as there was no way of knowing how it was contracted. Peoples lives ran wild with fear and paranoia, he said.
People were diagnosed on a Wednesday and dead on a Sunday. Hospital orderlies and nurses refused to do their job, even refusing to take food to patients in their sick rooms. They were afraid that they would get it.
Churches, synagogues and funeral homes closed their doors for the same reasons. Camuss The Plague was reality. I flew to Ireland in the summer of 1982 to tell my parents that I would be dead by the end of the year.
By the end of the year, three of my closest priest friends had already died. We took bodies in body bags from hospitals to crematoriums. More ashes of more people went into the Hudson River at Christopher Street, Greenwich Village, than I care to remember, he said.
Ewwww...
And more sad news from the Emerald Isle:
Irish Seminary Leaders Defy Vatican Ban, Welcome Gay Men Called to Priesthood
What will Francis do?
They equate hedonism with sprituality.
It is the opposite of Christianity, which celebrates sex only in marriage.
And no, marriage is not between people of the same sex.
That is to radically change the meaning of the word after thousands of years of usage.
Oh. I get it.
God fearing Christians are not moral people.
They’re “erotophobic”
That is really pagan.
Wonder how long it will be before he starts calling for "holy prostitutes"?
Ever see a commie drink a glass of water father?
He used “phobic”.
Red flag.
Idiot indicator, idiot indicator.
Danger, Will Robinson.
“It is a world where sexuality and spirituality are seen as not only split, but in continuous and consistent conflict.
What is this asshole talking about?
Bernard loves dat dirty water
Bernard loves dat dirty water
I don’t get it. If you want to be a hedonistic sex-maniac the world is full of communities and opportunities.
Why is it so important to join one of the few institutions that still clings to traditional concepts of sexual morality and destroy its essence so that it matches the depravity of everything else?
The nature of evil is to destroy.
Evil does not ‘coexist’.
How is he still an active Catholic priest? I don’t mean because he is an open homosexual. That evidently isn’t an impediment. I mean because he claims to be married.
Catholic priests can marry as long as they marry a dude? WTH?
Much of the clergy and laity greased the skids to usher in homosexual marriage by supporting no fault divorce.
That was not a move made in ignorance, as many who had come out of sexually deviant lifestyles explained the what, why, and how of homosexual marriage following on the heels of that decision.
It was an act of defiance against a holy God on the part of God’s people.
That was not a move made in ignorance, as many who had come out of sexually deviant lifestyles explained the what, why, and how of homosexual marriage following on the heels of that decision.
It was an act of defiance against a holy God on the part of God’s people.
They thought they were gods.
They claimed intact families were not necessary to civilized society.
We have learned differently.
Just look at the ghettos concentrated with the sons of unwed mothers.
Crime, murder, the human predator run wild.
So how does the gay father spin “Thou shall not lie with a man as with a woman. It is an abomination”, I wonder?
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