Replies

Sipe is a pervert. No need to study this. Excommunication is intuitively obvious as a more fruitful endeavor. BTW, If things are that bad, then great, get it over with and lets move on.

You are so ill-informed on the subject of homosexuality in the priesthood that anything you say is suspect.

I'm sorry, but I really don't have much respect for people who dedicate their lives to researching homosexuality in the clergy.

Your "respect" is beside the point; these people do, in fact, know whereof they speak. The Church has a serious problem, and Navarro-Valls (who is not a priest) complicated it with his buffoonish statements about the validity of ordination of gays.

Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Walls is a medical doctor and press spokesman for the pope. Of course, he is not the pope. If he, in fact, made the comment that ordination of gays might be annulled, I would like to hear the rest of what he thinks on the subject because I tend to agree with you that the Sacrament of Holy Orders is not likely to be annullable. We do hear of priests being disciplinarily defrocked but I would think that to be disciplinary and prudential rather than a claim that the permenent character of Holy Orders has been removed from the soul. If by annulment, we mean a recognition that Holy Orders was not, in fact, conferred upon one who otherwise appears to have been ordained because of emotional immaturity (a live possibility as to this particular problem), or because the individual was, for some reason, not eligible for ordination or whatever, one would like to hear from someone in actual authority as to whether Holy Orders may be annulled.

That having been said, the festivities in Boston and elsewhere well merit a thoroughgoing purge.

The practice of moving these pederasts from parish to parish in the vain hope that they will reform is a forsaken hope. Church authority is well-justified in weighing the damage done by these predators and stripping them of any and all further involvement with Church authority, clerical or lay, and likewise the bishops and other clerical authorities whose only offense is sheltering them. You live near Dallas. You know what Fr. Klass's (sp.?) perverse career has cost that diocese in terms of money, which is, after all, only money. How many will be so scandalized by his behavior and the similar behavior of others as to despair of salvation?

Your argument for allowing a married priesthood because it will expand the number of eligibles from which to choose is certainly a better argument (as I would expect) than the arguments of those less knowledgeable. If the pope should decree that at any time, I would not object. Nonetheless, no bishop need choose ANY unsuitable candidate because of mere numbers. In fact, he must not. It would never be right to knowingly ordain a practicing homosexual to the priesthood any more than it would ever be permissible to ordain a practicing heterosexual to the priesthood, at least so long as the vow of celibacy continues to be required generally. To violate the vow of celibacy is also to violate the vow of obedience, i.e. both of the vows taken by diocesan priests.

Even if the rule of celibacy were relaxed or abolished, as certainly it can be, it will never and can never be so relaxed or abolished as to allow for a romantic relationship with physical expression of intimacy between Father Bruce and his pal Lance, nor a marriage between them, particularly if Lance happens to be 10 years old. A priest involved in heterosexual fornication with 10 year old Suzie, would not seem particularly mature enough in a psychological sense to be practicing his priesthood, either.

Since marriage is not possible biblically between Lance and Fr. Bruce or others similarly situated, and since procreation does not seem to be even a theoretically likely end of such a relationship, and since there is nothing about homosexuality that makes it any more acceptable as a means of fornication than the heterosexual kind, the Church deems the practice of homosexuality to be "intrinsically disordered." That is not going to change. We are Catholics. Our Church is truth. Truth does not change.

Assuming that we have saints whose internal disposition made them incline toward homosexual or lesbian desires with or without indulgence at any time, this would not be news. God is wonderful. He can do anything. We have alcoholic saints, a saint who murdered St. Maria Goretti for not giving in to his rape attempts, Saint Augustine of Hippo (not only a doctor of the Church and a brilliant Church Father but a man intimately acquainted with a wide range of misbehavior before he chose to follow Christ), St. Peter who cuts off the ear of a servant, St. Thomas who doubted Christ's resurrection, St. Paul who marytyred St. Stephen and others, etc., etc. We honor them, not for those sins, but because of their heroic virtue in resisting temptation. Countless anonymous others with forgiven sins as grave or worse populate heaven along with our sinless Blessed Mother.

Just as Judas suspected that his authority was at an end, however, Cardinal Law must understand that withdrawal from the practice of authority so misused, is necessary. So must the other bishops who exposed their flocks to the predators knowingly. So must the predators withdraw one way or the other. May they live saintly lives in the future OUTSIDE of the active priesthood. Let the purge begin as soon as possible. May God have mercy on their and our souls.

Let me save you some trouble, I'm not only suspect,.. heck, I'm guilty as all get out. My only redemption is through Him and having faith in Him.

As for my information, I find this to be fairly straight forward.

1stCor 6:9-11

9 Don’t you know that evil people won’t have a share in the blessings of God’s kingdom? Don’t fool yourselves! No one who is immoral or worships idols or is unfaithful in marriage or is a pervert or behaves like a homosexual

10 will share in God’s kingdom. Neither will any thief or greedy person or drunkard or anyone who curses and cheats others.

11 Some of you used to be like that. But now the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the power of God’s Spirit have washed you and made you holy and acceptable to God.

I applaud the statement of the Catholic Church, considering it's pedantic and should be shouted at any follower who even considers wandering astray of the admonishments. Of course there is no room for homosexuality amongst those who follow Christ, let alone leaders amongst the Church. There's no need to even discuss it. If somebody wishes to come to Christ, the door is open, not for a bartering session on the impact on the Church unless we sortof ignore sins which specifically are outlined in Scripture for us to resist.

God isn't so weak that He must rely on a portion of the Church, if it slips away in order for Him to fulfill His plans. However, the Church as a group might be in for some serious Divine Discipline which otherwise might only be reserved for the unrighteous, if we continue to acquiesce to homosexuality in such a luke warm fashion.