Sadly, the failure of Latin hierarchs to deal forcefully and effectively with these situations is one of the reasons the Orthodox laity have little or no interest in communion with the Latin Church, the interests of our own hierarchs to the contrary notwithstanding.

I am still none the wiser as to what the St Joan of Arc church actually did to attract this opprobrium — obviously it was something fairly serious?

The TRUTH is that the disgrace is for any church that claims Christ to dishonor His name or His teachings. Nothing against holding up moral virtue, recognizing a person as role model; but the standard for all behavior & attitude is Christ Jesus. Whatever this church did, it was an offense to the Lamb of God.

I just tried maidofheaven, and the website of stjoan also. Then, after finding nothing informative, I tried google. St. Joan’s site pages referring to GLBT issues are washed clean in the cache.
Finally after trying Google news and this: http://www.stjoan.com/feature3/reaction.htm

I gather St. Joan’s is very gay-friendly (”inclusive”) and they were going to have a gay person deliver the homily; the archbishop nixed that and so the pro-gay people had the event on the street instead.

If that is not correct, correction is appreciated. The church site also had some dead link to a gay picnic but I don’t think that’s the subject of the controversy.

Thanks for that. So, to the best of what we can determine, the church calls Sinners to Repentance? If so, it is difficult to see the problem with that...

I have no idea what SJOA did this time. It's actually a venerable old parish. My parents were married there. The thing of it is is, for about a generation or a generation and a half, this parish has invited speakers and attracted parishoners, the most public of whom find the boundaries that make one a Catholic to be entirely too restrictive.

My guess is nearly every parishoner there are also the kookiest of the kooky of the Democratic Party. I know liberal Democrats that left SJOA because they found it entirely too insane.

I try to ignore SJOA stories as much as possible. Therefore I don't know what caused this response. I suspect it would make practicing Catholics shudder.

>> the church calls Sinners to Repentance

Perhaps this particular church wasn’t calling very clearly. And these sinners consider themselves innocent, and their sin merely a different form of love. One supporter writes that “I am not Gay, but I know Jesus welcomes all into His fold.” (That would be the same Jesus who trashed a temple because of the vendors infesting it.)

Another writes, “Well, I thought, any gay male has to feel welcome in a church with a mirrored ball hanging from the ceiling.”

Another: “At Saint Joan of Arc we are proud of the large number of GLBT members we have...”

Ad nauseam: “We are all children of God. In God there are no outcasts.”

(All these quotes are from www.stjoan.com/feature3/reaction.htm)

As a Catholic, I must say this is not my understanding of things. Outcasts there certainly are, for example those who persist in certain grave sins, not to mention those who call it virtue.

Incidentally, this mantra of all-God’s-children is the same that excuses those who violate immigration law. The message is becoming so blatant, one almost expects to read it on the side of a bus: Tolerate Evil!

The world is being morally disabled by such “God’s children.”

St. Joan was smack dab in the middle of my old ‘hood. In fact, I delivered morning papers there. Most of my boyhood friends went there, too. Fortunately, most devout families had the number of first apostate, Father Harvey (?) way back when and left the Parrish for Mass elsewhere. Harvey was nothing but a liberation theology hack and a Marxist activist - it almost goes without saying that he always got facetime and good ink in the leftist Minneapolis Star and Tribune. At the height of the feminist frenzy, Gloria Steinem and other noted radicals spoke from the pulpit. St. Joan has been a boil on the butt of the Roman Church for at least 40 years.

Bulldoze the facility. Salt the earth. Build a Walmart.

SJOA has been a leftist cesspool for decades. In the day, all Parrishes were pretty much sound, but Father Harvey led the way in heresy and apostacy.

All you need to know...if you know what you need to know:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Father+Harvey%2C+St.+Joan+of+Arc&btnG=Google+Search

You said: Sadly, the failure of Latin hierarchs to deal forcefully and effectively with these situations is one of the reasons the Orthodox laity have little or no interest in communion with the Latin Church, the interests of our own hierarchs to the contrary notwithstanding.

And that, of course, is a scandal and sin against God. Scandal causes division and those who cause such scandal are the cause of disunity within the Church we love so dearly.

The rest of us, Catholic and Orthodox, have no choice but to honor our Lord’s wishes and continue to work toward unity and drive the demon from amongst us.

“The rest of us, Catholic and Orthodox, have no choice but to honor our Lord’s wishes and continue to work toward unity and drive the demon from amongst us.”

BOF, what you say is correct, but the danger of infection by this sort of spiritual corruption is too great for us Orthodox right now. The hierarchy have the luxury of presiding over big operations and deciding big issues. It is apparent that many Latin hierarchs simply ignore corrosive heresy within their dioceses and in the Latin system, the laity have no power to do anything. In Orthodoxy, we would be bound to deal with heretics like these showing up in our parishes to spread their poison. Our hierarchs might well take a pass on dealing with these types for fear of offending their new Latin partners. In any event, I can just hear my own Metropolitan telling me that I and the council know what to do.

BOF, we have enough problems of our own. You and your hierarchs need to crush these movements once and for all lest the Latin Church in No. America end up like the Episcopalians.

You said: we have enough problems of our own.

Yes, I know. I expect that unity will come in the future, probably not in our lifetimes. But I do know that we will, together, celebrate the Divine Liturgy/Mass in Heaven, and that will be an unknown delight beyond our current comprehension. Holy Mary, pray for us.

Do I ever get that!

It's amazing to me as well. One role we converts have is to remind the lifelong Catholics of the treasure they have.

I'm so blessed in my current congregation and pastor that it's hard to remember that out there there are a lot of priests and not a few bishops trying to make it sort of Unitarianism with vestments.

Thanks for that clarification — I had missed all of that.

> As a Catholic, I must say this is not my understanding of things. Outcasts there certainly are, for example those who persist in certain grave sins, not to mention those who call it virtue.

As a Catholic-in-training, I still have alot to learn.

St. Joan’s was going to hold a gay pride prayer service last Wednesday which is what triggered my letter. A good article about what has been happening can be found here:
http://www.startribune.com/local/22700439.html?location_refer=Style%20+%20People