Should Liberals Leave the Catholic Church?

The Boston Globe ^ | March 5, 2006 | Joan Venocchi

[Jim Noble]

THE RED CARDINAL'S hat on its way to Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley sends a clear message to liberal Catholics who still hope the Catholic Church will shift their way: It isn't shifting....

Last week, seven members of the board of Catholic Charities of Boston announced their resignations. They were protesting the effort by Massachusetts bishops to prohibit gays from adopting children from their Catholic social service agencies. The seven who quit said the prohibition ''threatens the very essence of our Christian mission."...

But the Roman Catholic Church, the institution seeking the prohibition, holds a drastically different view.

Church doctrine states that allowing children to be adopted by same-sex couples ''would actually mean doing violence to these children." Gay adoptions are ''gravely immoral."

If you agree with those principles, you are, according to the Vatican, a Catholic in good standing...

If you don't, you're not.

Liberals raised as Catholics refuse to accept this reality. We think we can be prochoice, pro-gay marriage , pro-gay adoption, and in favor of married and female priests and still call ourselves Catholic. The people who make the rules say we don't meet the criteria....

The church in Rome thinks in centuries, not in news cycles. It isn't budging.

Will liberals in America ever get the message?

[bourbon]

Do like Mrs Don-o - when you catch a bishop doing right, let him know that you noticed.

excellent idea.

"One drop of honey attracts more bees than a barrel of vinegar." -- St. Francis de Sales

[TheGunny]

They are encouraged to become better educated on the deposit of faith and to understand Catholic teaching.... They disagree with the Church's teachings on ....

Thats the problem with Catholicism, all church no bible, no Christ! Its all about Church teaching, and tradition. Thats why I am a recovering catholic.

[Mrs. Don-o]

You wrote: "No one single cleric was more blind to this tolerance than Cardinal Law and he was promoted to Rome."

I can't say I'm certain about this, and I'm not into Chancery/Curial politics AT ALL, but my impression is that Law was essentially "kicked upstairs." He was given charge of a -- oh, I can't remember the exact term --a historic church with lots of tourists and little congregation, in which Law has little or no preaching and teaching role. He gets some ceremonial duties (nice if you like brocade) but he has no authority over anyone.

Like with that loony Archbishop Milingo of Lusaka who was tansferred to the Vatican Department of Gift Shops or something. They're keeping him under observation and out of circulation.

[x5452]

Quite. One can where Catholic attire, and walk into a Catholic building but that doesn't make one Catholic.

[johniegrad]

Thats the problem with Catholicism, all church no bible, no Christ! Its all about Church teaching, and tradition. Thats why I am a recovering catholic.

Hard to know even where to begin with such naive statements.

[TheGunny]

Why dont you give it a try johnboy? I essentially left the church when I became born again...and my eyes were opened to the heresy that is the "universal church".

[Teófilo]

From the pages of Vivificat!

Boston liberal columnist despairs of change in the Catholic Church

Boston Globe's Joan Vennochi muses about leaving the Church in protest

Folks, Joan Vennochi wrote a very depressing (for Liberals), yet defiant column yesterday in the Boston Globe, entitled, Should liberals leave Catholic Church?, in which she made the following wistful statements:

Church doctrine states that allowing children to be adopted by same-sex couples ''would actually mean doing violence to these children." Gay adoptions are ''gravely immoral."

If you agree with those principles, you are, according to the Vatican, a Catholic in good standing.

If you don't, you're not.

Liberals raised as Catholics refuse to accept this reality. We think we can be prochoice, pro-gay marriage , pro-gay adoption, and in favor of married and female priests and still call ourselves Catholic. The people who make the rules say we don't meet the criteria...

...We also believe our views are the enlightened ones and Rome's represent the neanderthal; eventually we will get a pope who understands that.

Obviously, Ms. Vennochi is getting the message loud and clear, to the effect that the Church is not going to change her moral teaching to mollify a few people who believe that the best Church is one that gives little moral guidance, while they pursue the widest libertinism possible that a situational ethics foreign to the Gospel would permit.

It takes a lot of chutzpah to say that one can be, in Ms. Vennochi's words, "prochoice, pro-gay marriage , pro-gay adoption, and in favor of married and female priests" and still call oneself "Catholic." Ms. Vennochi ability to reach these conclusions and hold them proudly and defiantly illustrates her complete misunderstanding of the origin and nature of the Church and of the Church's Founder.

It seems that a little girl wasn't paying too much attention during catechism class. It shows today in the adult woman.

By the same logic, one can worship both God and Mammon, be a Christian and a Pagan simultaneously, be a saint and a debauch, and pay lip service to Christ's moral demands while doing whatever we wish. We can hold on to these contradictions as some sort of ideal, and still be Catholic. Ms. Vennochi's ideal Church will never tell us what to do, how to behave, how to distinguish between good and evil. Is just there to makes all feel good and to give us a place to socialize, and nothing else.

Ms. Vennochi asks if Liberals should leave a Church that is not interested in enacting her point of view, but she never answered the question. Personally, I would not want Liberals of Ms. Vennochi's kind to leave the Church because, as long as they persevere within her, they'll have a chance for conversion and reconciliation. But, Ms. Vennochi if you leave because you disagree with the Church's moral stance on the issues you mentioned above, well, watch out for the kneelers on the way out less you trip, as well as for that swinging door behind you.

The door will remain unlocked for you to open it and come back in the day you decide to return to the Lord's obedience in his Church.

Thank you Dom Bettinelli from Bettnet.com for the heads up on this column.

-Theo

[RKBA Democrat]

Yeah, really. Get out the popcorn.

In answer to the question asked by the article, no. If for no other reason than it's exactly what the anti-Catholic extremists at the Globe would like to see happen.

I think we forget at times that our Lord Jesus Christ didn't register a party preference, or a political preference in any case.

[SirKit]

ping!

[SuziQ]

They are narcissistic enough to believe that they are so brilliant, that the Church will someday see the light and agree with them.

[SuziQ]

The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual behavior is a sickness and that exposing children to this behavior does violence to them.

The Church does not consider homosexuality a "sickness", but a disordered behavior, the PRACTICE of which IS sinful. Raising children in that sinful atmostphere will do violence to their souls.

[SuziQ]

And what about homosexuals and the other services Catholic Charities of the Boston Archdiocese provides? Are homosexuals barred from those as well? How will the archdiocese know?

Catholic Charities provides many services which are dispensed without any discrimination at all toward the recipient. Adoption, however, involves more people than just the recipient; it involves the raising of children, which Church teaching takes very seriously.

[Torie]

A church as large and diverse as the Catholic Church will always these little tensions. It comes with the territory.

[SuziQ]

homosexuality is not mentioned in any of the 10 Commandments. Wouldn't that be an indication of the gravity of the sin?

The practice of homosexuality is considered a sexual sin; it is sexual relations outside of marriage, and is included under the 6th Commandment.

[Tench_Coxe]

"The church in Rome thinks in centuries, not in news cycles. It isn't budging."

Yes it does, Ms Vennochi. Which is why one just might pause to consider what the Catholic Church is saying, rather than the whims of a columnist.
It must be irritating that the Catholic Church doesn't change with the whims of the current fad. Then again, it's been around for over 2000 years.

[SuziQ]

This week should be interesting. We are covering life and sexuality issues.

Give it to them undiluted. On the week we were covering sexuality, the Youth Minister had invited three people who were HIV positive from a local 'AIDS Project'. Two were homosexual men, and one was a female drug addict.

One of the men sat in with my group as I was teaching. I told the kids that the Church teaches that sexual activity outside of marriage was sinful, but that the practice of homosexuality was also disordered because that type of sexual activity was not life giving. I also pointed out that the Church teaches forgiveness for sins. This is the hope that Jesus gave us by His dying and rising. We know that if we are truly sorry for our sins, repent of them, and ask for forgiveness, that they will be forgiven.

[Non-Sequitur]

Adoption, however, involves more people than just the recipient; it involves the raising of children, which Church teaching takes very seriously.

In some cases apparently. Not in the case of adultery.

[SuziQ]

I have no idea how Catholic Charities treats the marriage situations of its prospective families. But the Church rules SPECIFICALLY against homosexual partners because it is a public sin; it is obvious that they are violating a natural law, whereas most would never know if a typical married couple was 'living in sin' or not.

[tacomonkey2002]

I would have thrown holy water on her just to see what happened.
;p

[tacomonkey2002]

A church as large and diverse as the Catholic Church will always these little tensions. It comes with the territory.]]]]


yeah...it's a total miracle it's lasted for over 2000 years! People are always trying to destroy it!
:)
Tom