The Church is out of step? It's time to give these folks their walking papers.
Looks like the bishops doesn't know or refuses to obey what the Vatican and the Church are saying!
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I find it very difficult to believe that the majority of American Catholics are in favour of promoting this kind of thing.
So, are they proclaiming and supporting the call to chastity for those with same sex attraction disorder? Didn't think so. Are they proclaiming the need to avoid sinful homosexual activity and the near occasions of sin? Didn't think so. At most there will be a tacit silence on these points with a nudge and a wink, I'm sure. At worse, such activity will be approved and celebrated.
What authority does the diocesan bishop have over a Jesuit facility? The head of the Jesuits used to be known as the "Black Pope" and was answerable only to Rome.
What's the situation now? Can the bishop rat this group out to Rome?
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I should think that the Roman Catholic Church already has many programs in place to guide sinners toward repentance. Why do they need another one tailored to just this group?
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.