Freegards
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Anglicans and all of Christianity in western Europe has fallen into non-religious standards, that is due to socialism. Western Europeans seldom go to church even though they identify themselves as Christians they do it just barely.
The reason liberal clergy want standards as we now have them is because of a hope of increased membership and attendance at church. The churches are dying, the membership and worst of all donations are drying up. If everybody was welcomed they assume membership would go up, it doesn't. It may briefly but eventually believers stop coming and all that is left is the non-believers who wanted legitimacy. Once the believers stop coming the legitimacy is lost.
In the east because there were few freedoms people held on to things they could not have and admired standards that were even sometimes illegal.
The one thing that Celibacy gives a homosexual is legitimacy. Many parishioners know their priest is either gay or effeminate but they don't know if he is practicing his homosexuality or just dealing with it and remaining celibate. They hope for the latter.
Some people have a legitimate attraction for same sex. Other people have a real attraction for children. There many attractions that humans have to deal with and most do successfully deal with it. The problem is that sexual attraction and desire are overpowering feelings that require satisfaction at some point and even then return. I have some feelings of sadness for people who have these problems just like I have for some people that have other incurable diseases. There is a difference though, the person with the incurable disease can do nothing about it, the person with same sex attraction can and most usually do satisfy themselves with a heterosexual relationship. It may not be as satisfying as a homosexual relationship but it leads to a “happy” life with natural children and “normal” life.
I have much admiration for people with same sex attraction that lead normal, heterosexual lives. I believe that acting on feelings that will end up causing harm is stupid. We don't allow the pedophile to act on his feelings for any number of reasons, in my opinion it should be the same for homosexuals and has been for most of mankind's existence.
It used to be called “queer” and “unnatural”, it is queer and unnatural to act on same sex attraction. It is even more queer for those who represent God to do so.
Celibacy only potentially gives homosexuals legitimacy if the broader culture thinks they are in some way illegitimate. They don’t need to hide as priests now, and haven’t for decades. I think older homosexual priests died and weren’t replaced with other homosexual men, and that this is reflected in the peak of instances of abuse in the late 70s.early 80s and then the steep decline per the John Jay report, long before the media broke the story nationwide in the early 2000s or any sort of Church discipline did anything about it.
Now the only group that are invariably for doing away with the discipline are liberals. In fact, they absolutely hate it.
Why do you think the groups that are the most liberal, that have already accepted abortion and ‘gay marriage’ haven’t come out for the Catholic Church to keep the discipline? They all invariably want it to end, not continue.
Freegards