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To: Mrs. Don-o
It seems to me you are playing semantics.

Are there any other inclinations that are "objectively disordered" which your pope has publicly announced "is not the problem" and those who have the disordered inclination "should be integrated into society"?

Or is this the first type of "disordered inclination" that he has treated in this manner?

224 posted on 07/29/2013 9:57:20 AM PDT by nitzy (You can avoid reality but you can't avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.)
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To: nitzy
"Are there any other inclinations that are "objectively disordered" which your pope has publicly announced "is not the problem" and those who have the disordered inclination "should be integrated into society"?

Some examples --- which I am personally and painfully familiar with as a RCIA teacher --- would be unmarried couples who are cohabiting, or divorced, remarried people, Christian but not Catholic, who want to enter the Catholic Church.

If we (the RCIA teaching team) become aware that we've got a cohabiting couple on our hands, we'd tell them they shouldn't be living together, encourage them to live apart and cease sexual relations, and tell them that after they enter the Church, if they love each other, they should marry in the Church.

The alternative, harsher approach would be just to blast filthy fornication; but the more encouraging approach would be better. And knowing they probably can't make that decision instantly, we'd encourage them to keep taking the RCIA classes (we wouldn't kick them out) but tell them that when the Easter Vigil comes, they can't receive Baptism-Communion-Confirmation unless they cease this objective condition of sin.

Jesus didn't take the occasion, with the woman about to be stoned, to verbally blast adultery (although He was clearly against adultery); rather, He showed mercy, explicitly avoided "condemning" her ("neither do I condemn you"), and told her to sin no more.

A similar situation is where a Christian-but-not-Catholic divorced/remarried married couple wants to enter the Catholic Church. While their first spouses are still alive, such people cannot be received into the Church unless and until their first marriage is found "null" --- which it may or may not be. A "finding of nullity" can take months or years --- especially if they have multiple failed marriages in their past --- and even then, the Tribunal might uphold the Bond, i.e. no annulment.

In these situations, the couples are to be given every encouragement to live a Catholic life as well as they can (attend Mass, teach the Catholic Faith to their children, become involved in parish life )while pursuing an annulment that may or may not ever happen.

That is: instead of constantly smacking them for living in second marriages which are (at least technically) adultery, they are just encouraged to patiently attend the RCIA classes, pray like Catholics, live like Catholics to the extent they can, and trust God (until their previous spouse dies, or the Tribunal grants an annulment.)

Are these examples somewhat clarifying? They're as close as I could come to analogous, off the top of my head and from my own experience.

373 posted on 07/29/2013 2:09:54 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("Justice and judgment are the foundation of His throne." Psalm 89:14)
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