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Why do Catholics in America support homosexuality proportionately more than the general population? Two reasons: lack of authentic Catholic teaching regarding homosexuality, and the Church omitted one of the clearest Bible verses on homosexuality from the lectionary. One of the very unfortunate results of the New Lectionary is that verses that might be deemed offensive have been omitted from our liturgical celebrations. (I've written about how three "offensive" Psalms were removed from the Liturgy of the Hours after 1971 here.) Verses against Homosexuality Omitted from Current LectionaryAn example of the silence of offensive passages is from the readings of last...

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky, October 19, 2015 (LifeSiteNews)—There was a time when Church and State cooperated – when governing powers welcomed the influence of Judeo-Christian values and sought to harmonize its laws with morality. But since the radical secularization of Western society, Christians have been forced into an adversarial, politically incorrect role, much like the early Church in times of persecution. Since a "culture of death" began to dominate the West, genuine Christians have become counter-cultural. The leader of America's largest Protestant denomination, Dr. Albert Mohler, applies this Christian counter-culturalism to the latest politically correct trend in society: the approval of sodomy...

President Obama says we must embrace the cultures of Islam: Must we then accept rape of childre or rape and abuse of young girls? Is this really the United States we were meant to be? I find the path in which we are headed becomes more perverse every day I read the news. The latest? A Green Beret is dismissed from the Army because he confronted a child rapist in Afghanistan! Since when does the United States accept the rape of children during war-time an acceptable activity? What if the activity is happening on military bases? The New York Times...

A prominent politician in the Australian state of Tasmania has lodged a formal complaint against a pamphlet on marriage produced by the Catholic Church, saying that it causes “immeasurable harm” by arguing against acceptance of same-sex unions. Martine Delaney, the anti-discrimination commissioner of Tasmania’s state government, called for an investigation of the Australian bishops’ conference which issued Don’t Mess with Marriage. The pamphlet was distributed to 12,000 families with children in the state’s Catholic schools. Delaney charged that the publication denigrated the rights of homosexuals.

Appeal comes in briefing paper sent to English bishops attending family synodGay Catholics have sent a briefing paper to the two English bishops attending the family synod next week, urging them to reject “harsh” language about homosexuality. The LGBT Catholics Briefing Paper resulted from a reflection day, sponsored by the LGBT Catholics Westminster Pastoral Council, held in June 2013. The briefing paper is addressed to Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, and Bishop Peter Doyle, Bishop of Northampton and chairman of the bishops’ conference Committee for Marriage and Family Life, who will be at the synod which opens on Sunday....

July 16, 2015 (BreakPoint) -- The world is leaving us and our values behind. If we don't get with the times, we may soon find ourselves isolated and irrelevant. If you think I'm talking about Christians and the recent Supreme Court decision on same-sex “marriage,” think again. Of course, if you don’t read international and Christian news sources, you probably didn’t know that last week the UN Human Rights Council passed The Protection of the Family resolution. Not surprisingly, the mainstream U. S. media ignored the story. The resolution, approved by a vote of 27 to 14, urges member states...

The Supreme Court’s abuse of its authority in the decision redefining marriage as an institution based on feelings rather than fact and sanctioning deviancy as a civil right was expected, but the surprise was its sentimental substitution of nihilistic narcissism for jurisprudence, expressed in an amorphous substitute for English diction. This passed a death sentence on Christian culture, just as Roe v. Wade sanctioned the deaths of millions of infants. As Christ rose from the dead, so can our nation, but only the cynic and the naïf will deny that the next steps will be attacks on Christ himself in...

June 4, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- Unlimited access to the internet and 24-hour news cycles would give one the impression that extensive information is being conveyed to the public regarding the crucial issues of our day. But in large part, the same old uninformative stuff gets regurgitated over and over again. The gatekeepers, intent on presenting a one-sided portrayal of one of the most coordinated and funded social movements of our day, are fine with misrepresenting the news. This is “Pride” month for a community that enjoys the most protection of any people group by news organizations. There’s no journalistic objectivity,...

Concerns are arising among Christians and online commentators after a homosexual activist recently told a national publication that churches “must be made ‘to take homosexuality off the sin list.'” Mitchell Gold is the founder of Faith in America, an organization that aims to “end the harm to LGBT youth and families from misguided religious teaching.” He served on the board of directors for the Human Rights Campaign for seven years, and was named on of the “Top 50 Most Powerful Gay People in America” in 2007 by Out Magazine. In an article written by Frank Buni of the New York...

Yes, Ireland has entered a new era of equality – but not the positive kind.The most striking thing following the Irish referendum on gay marriage is how few people are talking about gay marriage. Amid the near-global cheering that greeted the vote in favour of instituting gay marriage, there was barely any commentary on the institution of gay marriage. Sure, there was a handful of on-air marriage proposals in Dublin as the news cameras rolled, and the tailend of a BBC TV report informed us when the first gay marriages in Ireland would take place (Autumn). But given that this...

Some of our deepest challenges as believers involve dealing with the sins of others, particularly those whom we love. Whether it is a relative struggling with addiction, a best friend unfaithful to his spouse, or a loved one embracing sexual perversion we often feel caught between our genuine love for the sinner and our genuine revulsion at the sin. The bromide “Hate the sin, love the sinner,” while at least infused with a touch of wisdom, doesn’t typically answer all the hard questions. When confronted with tough moral calls it’s often wise to slow down and define our terms. First,...

The day after the same-sex marriage referendum revealed an Ireland overwhelmingly in favor of legalized sodomy, the Primate of Ireland, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, said to the press: "I appreciate how gay and lesbian men and women feel on this day. That they feel this is something that is enriching the way they live. I think it is a social revolution." His words echoed that of Leo Varadkar, Ireland's first openly gay Health Minister, who said the referendum was "almost like a social revolution." Shortly before the referendum, Martin had said he wouldn't tell Catholics how to vote. Although...

Ireland, for so long the most overtly Catholic state in Western Europe, has voted for gay marriage by a stupendous margin – 62 per cent. Never before has a country legalised the practice by popular vote. It would be naive to ask: how could this happen? Hatred of the Church is one of the central features of modern Ireland, thanks not only to the paedophile scandals but also to the joyless quasi-Jansenist character of the Irish Church, which was handed complete control of education in the Free State after partition in 1922. (Many of its priests were outstandingly holy and...

Why do so many young adults paint absurd caricatures of Christians who request government protection of their religious freedoms, arguing their true goal is to ban gay men from sitting at the local lunch counter? Why do they spread falsehoods about legislation, insisting that bills like the one recently signed by Indiana Gov. Mike Pence will unleash a Republican-led Jim Crow revival aimed at the LGBT community? Why do so many people, Gen Xers and younger, invent a monster of anti-gay bigotry and keep screaming the monster is real despite a mountain of contrary facts standing before them? The answer...

Atheists and homosexual-rights activists in Ireland are threatening protest marches. A local government in the overwhelmingly Catholic country has fined a homosexual baker in the village of Inch (County Clare) for refusing to produce a wedding cake featuring, on its icing, the inscription, “A man shall . . . hold fast to his wife — Gen. 2:24.” The baker, Robert O’Riordan, says that he considers the inscription to be an implicit rebuke of his own domestic living arrangement and an imposition on his right as an atheist to refuse assent to “any material endorsement of religious ceremonies.” Mr. O’Riordan regularly...

When was the last time anyone heard a sermon that condemned the evils of fornication, or adultery, or cohabitation, or divorce, or bearing children outside wedlock (let alone homosexuality)? Controlling these sins is a core Christian value. At one time a preacher could be expected to devote extended attention to these sins. And he could be expected to condemn them unequivocally. Yet today, even as the social and economic fallout from precisely these practices becomes ever more glaring and serious, pastors and priests seem ever more determined to avoid discussing them.Of course, the dowdy old parson long ago became the...

From its inception Christianity was a marginalized not a culturally powerful or influential religion. With the death of the mainlines we’re witnessing the last gasp of the informal Constantinianism in America, the gathering of cultural elites in the narthex of tall-steeple PCUSA congregations. The informal coalition of cultural and political power brokers in and with the mainline is dead. The WWII generation was probably the last to care to identify with the mainline or to seek the approval of the mainline. Now that the culture has got what it wanted, capitulation, even the NYT will ignore it. There is no...

The senior pastor and elders of City Church, the largest evangelical church in San Francisco will no longer require members to abstain from homosexual practice, so long as the homosexual activity occurs in the context of marriage. According to a letter written by senior pastor Fred Harrell on behalf of the Board of Elders, “We will no longer discriminate based on sexual orientation and demand lifelong celibacy as a precondition for joining. For all members, regardless of sexual orientation, we will continue to expect chastity in singleness until marriage.” “Our pastoral practice of demanding life-long ‘celibacy,' by which we meant...

[Editor’s note: The Elder Board of City Church in San Francisco, formerly in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and now in the Reformed Church in America (RCA), released a statement on changes of how it will minister to those who are considered a part of the LGBT community. This is a response to this statement; the full statement follows the response.] Dear friend, I’m so sorry. Thanks for forwarding this letter from City Church this morning. You’ve been a good friend and I want to speak to you plainly. This stuff breaks my heart. The letter makes it sound...

The Elder Board of San Francisco's largest evangelical church, City Church, has announced that the megachurch will end its practice of preventing LGBT people from becoming members if they are unwilling or unable to practice lifelong celibacy. "Our pastoral practice of demanding life-long 'celibacy,' by which we meant that for the rest of your life you would not engage your sexual orientation in any way, was causing obvious harm and has not led to human flourishing," Sr. Pastor Fred Harrell writes in a letter "on behalf of the Board and for the Gospel." The pastor cites social science research, saying...