Posted on 06/18/2020 5:52:30 PM PDT by ebb tide
LEXINGTON, Kentucky, June 18, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, has released a “Pride Month” video greeting in which he laments “white privilege” and says he is sorry “that the Church has not been as welcoming as it should be in many cases.”
“I hope to continue to learn from you, and continue to make our church more welcoming, more inclusive, and more justice-oriented,” he said.
In the video, the bishop also appeared to buy into the concepts of systemic racism and “white privilege.”
“At this moment of great division and suffering in our country, I especially greet the LGBT community of African Americans and other minorities,” he said. “As painful as it is, I’m glad that the time has come that we’re beginning to confront, and really it is just the beginning, our white privilege, and the other ways in which a dominant culture has oppressed those of a variety of minorities.”
“I’m happy to greet you during this Pride Month, and happy to say a word of gratitude to you for the way that you strive to integrate your faith and your identities as people of God, children of God,” Stowe began, before he started to apologize for the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and gender confusion.
“I’m sorry that the Church has not been as welcoming as it should be in many cases,” he said. “I’m sorry that the issue of sexual orientation has become so divisive in our Church, in our community, rather than expressing the compassion of Jesus and recognizing how he always
reached out to those who were on the fringes and on the margins.”
Stowe did not mention that Christ, in the Gospels, called those on the fringes to “go, and do not sin again.”
The bishop recounted that four years ago, the Orlando homosexual nightclub shooting took place, leading to the creation of “this form of [LGBT] ministry in our diocese.” Stowe did not mention the Pulse nightclub survivors who have since left sexually sinful lifestyles and given their lives to Christ.
Following the shooting, the leader of the pro-homosexual movement within the Diocese of Lexington, JR Zerkowski, had “hosted a evening of song and prayer uniting the whole community, and people of different faith traditions, right there at St. Paul’s church. And he was deeply moved and really had to share with me what he experienced from so many members of the LGBT community who said that they had not stepped into a Catholic church for a long time.”
Instead of that evening being a single event, Stowe said, Zerkowski “saw that as a possibility of reaching out to a whole segment of our Church community, a whole segment of our family that has been alienated.”
He praised how the advocates of accepting homosexuality within the Church “put their rainbow flag outside” of one of his diocese’s churches. “The rainbow banner welcoming all people. [They] have achieved some spotlight both locally and nationally for their message of inclusion.”
In 2018, Stowe had refused to condemn one of his parishes flying a rainbow banner outside the church. Instead, a spokesperson for the Diocese of Lexington said that “making this kind of statement is a decision … up to each parish.”
Stowe also praised Zerkowski for attending “gay pride events,” offering “a listening ear, a compassionate face, and an outreach.”
He then said practicing homosexuals and those living as a person of the opposite sex are “part of that body of Christ,” which is the Church.
“I’m sorry that you’ve not always been made to feel that way,” he added. “We do value you. I’m glad that you’re taking your faith seriously and striving to grow in it.”
The bishop did not explain how contradicting Church teaching both in word and in action amounts to “taking your faith seriously.”
In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is very clear on homosexuality.
“Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,’” the Catechism points out. “They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.”
While emphasizing that people with homosexual tendencies “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity,” the Church calls them to chastity, instead of living an active homosexual lifestyle.
The Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education pointed out in a 2019 document that the concept of “gender” is “often founded on nothing more than a confused concept of freedom in the realm of feelings and wants, or momentary desires provoked by emotional impulses and the will of the individual, as opposed to anything based on the truths of existence.”
The “oscillation between male and female,” as expressed by advocates of transgenderism, “becomes, at the end of the day, only a ‘provocative’ display against so-called ‘traditional frameworks’, and one which, in fact, ignores the suffering of those who have to live situations of sexual indeterminacy. Similar theories aim to annihilate the concept of ‘nature’, (that is, everything we have been given as a pre-existing foundation of our being and action in the world), while at the same time implicitly reaffirming its existence.”
In the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 2003 document, Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (who later became Pope Benedict XVI) wrote: “In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection.”
Bishop Stowe has a long track record of embracing both homosexuality and transgenderism.
In 2017, two years after he was made a bishop by Pope Francis, Stowe spoke at a New Ways Ministry conference, even though the nominally Catholic group advocates for homosexual “marriage” and has been condemned by the Vatican and the U.S. bishops.
“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,” the bishop claimed at the time.
In 2019, Stowe led an “LGBTQ retreat” at the University of Notre Dame, once a bastion of Catholicism in North America.
Last year, he also issued a “prayer” card celebrating homosexual “pride.” The card featured an image of a crucifix with rainbow colors coming from it. It was produced to be distributed at pro-homosexual events.
Stowe is one of several bishops who endorsed pro-homosexual Jesuit Father James Martin’s book on “the Catholic Church and the LGBT community.”
“Keep the faith,” the bishop ended his “Pride Month” video.
Last year, he also issued a “prayer” card celebrating homosexual “pride.” The card featured an image of a crucifix with rainbow colors coming from it. It was produced to be distributed at pro-homosexual events.
Stowe is one of several bishops who endorsed pro-homosexual Jesuit Father James Martin’s book on “the Catholic Church and the LGBT community.”
Ping
Now we just need a month for each of the 6 other deadly sins. Over half a year devoted to sin.
Stowe reamed the Covington kids and never apologized.
Romans 1:18-32
... needs repeating over and over....
Obviously a “Bishop” of The Nine Suggestions.
Hey Bishop: It seems that most gays are white. If they’re white, aren’t they also privileged?
I have had enough of the anti-white racism of the Catholic church.
JoMa
Oh Dear God. Can we apologize any more???
I don’t think so. So sick and tired of all.
Fed up as many of us must be.
There will be a reckoning very soon. Count on it. Americans have weapons and they are not afraid to use them.
That is why I love my country. We have no fear.
No kidding. The Pope is not infallible.
What are the odds the bishop is a [rhymes with bag] himself ?
“I hope to continue to learn from you”
Do we dare speculate as to what he has already learned?
Even Steven?
Are there no men left in Kentucky? Why do you allow this evil in your state and in your congregation? Even the contentious letter to the Galatians says
“Don’t you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” You are allowing this evil man and his friends to destroy the souls of your children. The Law of God will never change. It will fall like a Rock in the Judgement and slam down on those who refuse to repent. And it will grind them to dust. God is not mocked.
Aren’t white countries the ones legalizing gay marriage and whatnot? How many countries in Africa or the Middle East have done so? Last I read, Taiwan is the only east Asian country that has legalized gay marriage.
Hey Stowe. Excommunicate me for not going along with your lie. I don’t care. Since you use your position to promote sinful behavior by any Christian standard, I consider your authority meaningless. You only seek to destroy the church and Christianity as a whole.
Last I checked, it was a majority the was on the road to perdition, or to use the language of AC/DC, the Highway to Hell
LOL
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