Jesuits to host forum about gay Catholics (despite bishop's ban)

A Jesuit retreat house in Manhasset is hosting a workshop about gay Catholics and the church that had been barred from diocesan property last year by Bishop William Murphy of the Diocese of Rockville Centre.

The workshop on building bridges to gay people comes just as the Vatican is about to release a document restating its prohibition barring gay men from the priesthood.

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, the organization leading the workshop, said yesterday that the program does not challenge church orthodoxy.

"Our mission is simply to try to help Catholic institutions learn more about the reality of gay and lesbian Catholics," DeBernardo said. "We focus on how you develop programs at a local level so that gay and lesbian people will feel welcome in a Catholic parish."

He said that the pending Vatican document has made his group's message even more urgent - and tougher to sell.

"It makes it more difficult to help people see that there is a tradition in the Catholic church of acceptance of lesbian and gay people," he said. "And it also shows that the thinking of the Vatican's leaders on homosexuality is very much out of step with what American Catholics, not to mention scientists and social scientists, think about homosexuality."

The executive director of St. Ignatius Retreat House said he was unaware of the bishop's objections,...

Yea, right. I believe that (not).

... but noted that the Jesuits were renting space to the group, not sponsoring the content of the workshop.

The old, tiresome political game of plausible deniability. The Bishop does not have direct control over the space that the Jebbies rent out, and the Jebbies aren't directly sponsoring the event, which is lead by laity.

Eventually it will all wash out in the end - even if that end is the end of time. The media attention is what is most important for this group. As has been pointed out, only several dozen people are registered including several Priests and Nuns.

The Bishop most certainly DOES have control over ordering them not to attend. Bishop Thomas Olmsted in Phoenix, several months after arriving, was in a position to exercise his episcopal duties by ordering several Priests to withdraw their names from a document they signed concerning similar issues and written up by a coalition of various "liberal" churches, ecclesial communities, and synagogues.

Bishop Olmsted did not shrink away from that holy duty.

Thanks for the info..Appauling...Here is some more on this guy. The Following below is some text from an article titled 'Are Jesus and Buddha Brothers?' on "catholic.com". By the way, is that even a Catholic website??..In addition to their cheery view of a merged Christianity-Buddhism, it also had some other article about pagan roots of Chrisitanity...sheesh!

Some Text from the Article->>

"When you are a truly happy Christian, you are also a Buddhist. And vice versa." So concludes best-selling author and Buddhist monk Thich Hhat Hanh near the end of his popular book Living Buddha, Living Christ.

Some Catholics agree. For example, Jesuit Father Robert E. Kennedy, a Roshi (Zen master), holds Zen retreats at Morning Star Zendo in Jersey City. He states on his web site: "I ask students to trust themselves and to develop their own self-reliance through the practice of Zen." The St. Francis Chapel at Santa Clara University hosts the weekly practice of "mindfulness and Zen meditation." Indeed, the number of Buddhist retreats and workshops being held at Catholic monasteries and parishes is growing.
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Self-reliance? What about 'trusting in God and God alone!! What ever happened to that?

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