On the contrary, I thought giving up an evil for a good...was a good thing.Just read that statement again:
He may be choosing the good, but...he's giving up what the church considers an aberration, a moral evil.
Strange that a Catholic cardinal would condemn someone who gives up something bad for something good. So what is the celibate homosexual to do? Go out and kill himself?
Bevilacqua's strange theology is contradicted by Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, who said "how will we know who is homosexual and who is not, if they are celibate?"
Fr. Donald Cozzens is close to the truth when he says there are 30-50% of priests who are homosexual. Only, you won't know, because they are celibates.
Bevilacqua's position may be adopted in his diocese, but it won't be part of the statement coming out of Dallas in June.
Logically, such a definition is the antithesis of the sacrifice of carnal love (celibacy) and dedication to service of others that is required of the priest -- for the good of the faith, and the faithful, he is called to serve and protect.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered" and "contrary to the natural law," while urging tolerance toward gays and saying they are "called to chastity."
This "call to chastity" is a prohibition not to commit acts "contrary to the natural law." It is not an affirmation that homosexuals, since they are called to chastity should be admitted to the priesthood.
Also try the Bible. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. Maybe believing in a church won't effect such a miracle. But trusting directly in Jesus Christ for one's eternal life, will.
God Bless
Mel
Purge the seminaries of pederasts, pedophiles, homosexuals and enablers and protectors (liberal or conservative, normal or homosexual). End all experiments in AmChurch heterodoxy and heresy. Restore order. Get pushy parishioners out of positions of governance. Expect, according to Canon Law, priests not "eucharistic ministers" to distribute the Eucharist at Mass. End the narcissistic practice of "communion in the hand" to thwart theft of the Eucharist by satanists. Remove from the priesthood and any position of authority anyone who acts so as to undermine the truth of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Nuke any nervy bishop or archbishop like the Mad Monk of Milwaukee Rembert Weakland at the first instance of willful disobedience. Just for starters. AND stop kowtowing to every fashionable and politically correct trend of the week and of the weak. Anyone who finds actual Catholicism too much of a challenge to their morally flabby attitudes can just get out. There are plenty of less rigorous churches.
Instead of having to put up with lavender priests, lavender bishops, heretical priests, heretical bishops and the enablers of them all, Roman Catholics who actually ARE Catholic have a right to a Church led by leaders who are in communion with the Holy See. The Church is not, thank God, a democracy and it ought not to behave as though the iron rule of 50% + 1 is any trustworthy guide in moral matters.
This just in: Pope John Paul II has announced that he will retire from the papacy effective upon the convening of a conclave to determine the policy of his successor and the election of his successor. The pope said: "My heart is broken by the condition of Holy Mother the Church in the United States and a few isolated locations elsewhere where notions of "progress" have replaced the truth of Jesus Christ. Twenty years ago, armed with the information that has recently come to light, I would have eagerly embraced the responsibility as universal pastor to remove the offenders from their positions in the Church and find worthy successors to reverse the damage they have done."
"I am, unfortunately old beyond my years and broken by the infirmity of my health. The circumstances require that I lay down the wonderful but crushing burdens of serving the servants of God while my faculties remain and I am able to do so. The Church in this hour of crisis must have a pope, not only thoroughly orthodox in belief but thoroughly vigorous in his exercise of authority to root out the evils which are choking the Church of Jesus Christ, compel the obedience of the rebellious in the ranks of clergy and hierarchy and set the Church firmly on the path of genuine renewal according to the Teaching Magisterium and wisdom of all who have gone before us."
"I trust the members of the Sacred College of Cardinals, most of whom it has been my privilege to raise to that honor, to enact a strict and effective policy to deal with disobedience as well as sexual profligacy and dereliction of hierarchical duty, and to elect as our successor one who has the capability, determination, and doctrinal spine to confront for the foreseeable future this latest coordinated effort within and without by those who would exercise their enmity toward the Mystical Body of Christ."
"Make no mistake. We will govern firmly and decisively until that conclave. We will resume our status as cardinal upon our papal resignation and we exempt ourself and any future resigned pontiff from the age restriction on participation and voting imposed by Pope Paul VI.
"We have ordered the formal excommunication of a list of individual members of the clergy and hierarchy because of their respective roles in the current crises of disobedience and disordered sexual abuse. The list will be provided later today. The lifting of these excommunications, should that ever occur, is reserved to the Holy See alone.
"We have also accepted the resignations of Roger Cardinal Mahoney, Bernard Cardinal Law, Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop Rembert Weakland, Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk, Bishop Thomas Daily and 43 other diocesan ordinaries in the United States. The full preliminary list will be announced later today, together with the names of their successors. Those of them who have been cardinals will no longer serve as such and will be ineligible for conclave. Their priestly faculties are hereby suspended pending further investigation and until further notice. The successors of the resigned cardinals will themselves be simultaneously designated as cardinals before any ceremony may be held to enable them to participate in conclave.
"We hereby order the abolition of the American seminaries, their replacement by four regional seminaries to be administered from the Vatican by Dario Castrillon de Hoyos and the Sacred Congregation for Priests until a new archdiocese of American seminaries is established and its ordinary appointed. There will be no faculty or administrative tenure and, due to the abolition of the existing seminaries, none will be honored. Cardinal Castrillon de Hoyos knows our mind and will carry out this reform immediately. The newly appointed archbishop for American seminaries will also be responsible for enforcing Ecclesia Dei and compelling within that nation obedience and submission by theologians and institutions of higher education claiming to be Catholic.
"We hereby reinstitute the disciplinary measures imposed in Pope St. Pius X's 1907 encyclical Pascendi Domenici Gregis and all of the provisions of administrative discipline ordered therein to combat the modernist heresy. Any papal act since 1907 to the date hereof cancelling or suspending those measures is or are hereby removed and abolished.
"Be not afraid."
[I am sure that I am not adept at papal cadence but I have no doubt of the outcome, if that were the essence of a resignation message or that his successor would make his enemies long for the "good old days" when he served.]
Strange that a Catholic cardinal would condemn someone who gives up something bad for something good. So what is the celibate homosexual to do? Go out and kill himself?
I had that thought, too. It may just be something he didn't quite think through all the way or one of those things that don't quite sound in words the way they "sounded" as an unspoken thought (I've had that happen often enough).
HAD he done what you, falsely, asserted he had done, that would have been strange.
The only "strangeness" involved here is your misinterpretation of his words.
Whoa! He should stay celibate (or maybe try the therapy) instead of entering the seminary. This is a practical issue. The heterosexual seminarian is not advised to live in one building with the nuns - the homosexual seminarians living in close proximity to other young men will be exposed to the great temptations and many of them will fail. Such situation is not good for them and is not good for the Church.
If a person with uncurable homoseuxal tendencies wants to live more religious life he can follow some semi-monastic rule under good supervision and guidance (like Tertiary or Third Order for example).
I understand Francis Cardinal George is in charge of the largest seminary in the United States, located northwest of Chicago in the town of Mundelein.
Among local residents this multi-diocesan seminary has the reputation of having a quite large and conspicuously gay seminarian population. Do you or any other Freepers have any information on the seminary at Mundelein?