Minneapolis Archbishop Condemned for Giving Catholic Teaching on Homosexuality

His column harshly criticized for "spiritual violence" and "persecution" toward homosexuals

November 19, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a recent column in the local diocesan newspaper, Minneapolis/St. Paul Coadjuter Archbishop John C. Nienstedt concisely explained the Church's teaching regarding both a homosexual's obligation to chastity and the Church's obligation to support and encourage such a chaste lifestyle. The column has caused a backlash of harsh criticism from the 'homosexual community' in what has until recently been known as a notoriously liberal Catholic diocese.

Archbishop Nienstedt's column in the diocesan paper 'The Catholic Spirit' was authored as a sequel to a previous column, written by the paper's editor, Joe Towalski. That article had, according to Archbishop Nienstedt, "addressed the issue of the church's teaching on homosexuality" and "the reason why those who promote homosexual activity or a homosexual lifestyle are not permitted to speak at Catholic institutions."

Both columns stemmed from a recent incident at a local Minneapolis Catholic parish when a scheduled speaking engagement by an openly lesbian woman and her father was cancelled after diocesan officials learned of it. The woman involved, Carol Curoe, is the author of a book entitled 'Are There Closets in Heaven? A Catholic Father and a Lesbian Daughter Share Their Story."

Nienstedt began his column referring to the document issued by the US bishops just prior to the 2004 election. "The second to last point of that document was our collective resolve that Catholic churches, colleges and other institutions should not give "awards, honors or platforms" to persons who, whether Catholic or not, held public positions contrary to the church's defined teaching. To do so would cause scandal, leading Catholics to be confused about what is right and wrong according to the teachings of the church, prompting them to endorse or even to commit immoral behavior."

Nienstedt concluded that the explanations laid out in the 2004 document explained the reasons why Curoe's talk at a Catholic parish would not be appropriate.

The archbishop went further, as very few American bishops have dared in recent years, to explicitly detail the logical consequences due any Catholics who act against this matter of serious Catholic moral teaching. He wrote, "Those who actively encourage or promote homosexual acts or such activity within a homosexual lifestyle formally cooperate in a grave evil and, if they do so knowingly and willingly, are guilty of mortal sin. They have broken communion with the church and are prohibited from receiving Holy Communion until they have had a conversion of heart, expressed sorrow for their action and received sacramental absolution from a priest."

While many critics harshly criticized Archbishop Nienstedt's column for what they referred to as "spiritual violence" and "persecution", most seemed to totally neglect the fact that Nienstedt was simply giving Catholic teaching that any Catholic bishop in the world is also obligated to present and defend.

Also seemingly ignored was the fact he called attention to a more recent USCCB document entitled "Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination: Guidelines for Pastoral Care." As previously reported by LifeSiteNews.com, the document clearly elucidates Church teaching on homosexuality but calls all Catholics to treat homosexuals with "respect, compassion and sensitivity."

Nienstedt also drew attention to and provided contact information for two already established faithfully Catholic support groups that offered practical and spiritual guidance to both individuals with a homosexual inclination and their families.

Despite the archbishop's admission that he was instrumental in establishing two such homosexual support groups in a previous diocese and that, through such ministry, he had "met many impressive and, I would say, heroic individuals through that movement", critics such as Mary Lynn Murphy of Catholic Rainbow Parents, condemned the archbishop's column as "extreme talk" that should be considered offensive to all Catholics because it "gives license to hatred and violence against us all."

Murphy lectured the bishop stating, "The new archbishop should apologize, begin to educate himself on the topic of sexual orientation, and be the prophetic voice for the much-needed reform of the church's understanding of homosexuality."

In an interview given near the time of his installation as coadjutor archbishop who will fully succeed current Archbishop Harry Flynn in 2008, Archbishop Nienstedt explained his understanding and respect for the responsibility of his pastoral vocation. "I do not come as a politician but as a priest, as one who sees his life as being a bridge between God and his people. I do not come as a CEO, but as a pastor, as one who intends to teach the truth, to celebrate the sacraments, and to shepherd the people of God in the ways of Jesus Christ so that they might one day inherit eternal life."

Read Archbishop's Nienstedt's entire column:
http://thecatholicspirit.com/main.asp?SectionID=14&Subse...

Read previous LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Proposed US Bishops Document on Homosexuality Encourages Love the Sinner but Hate the Sin
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/oct/06101907.html

New Catholic Bishop Expected to Bring Orthodoxy and Opposition to Homosexual Agenda to Minneapolis
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jun/07060507.html

The extraorinary thing is the way the homosexuality enthusiasts have "centered" gayness, not as a behavior, but as an identity; hence, one cannot oppose it without being the equivalent of a Ku Kluxer.

That's true. I think we don't help when we accept their "sexual orientation" theories and try to separate the desire to sin from the sin. Obviously society addresses only the behavior. But the church has to see the desire as sin also, or we end up essentially on their side even though we might try to parse it and say that we don't see "orientation" the same as "identity." Everyone else sees it the same. We don't go around telling child molesters "child sex orientation is not a sin." Nor do we tell rapists "sex-by-force orientation is not a sin." "Homosexual desire" or "homosexual lust" would be more appropriate terms. Sinful behavior comes from a sinful desire from a sinful heart. Someone can struggle with homosexual desire. That keeps it in the behavior category. If someone has homosexual orientation, well then it seems to move outside the behavior/personal responsiblity category. It makes the person a victim instead of a responsible-for-his-own-thoughts-and-actions human being.

We lost this battle back when we started adopting their terms and throwing out "I love you" all over the place in response to their false accusations of hate. Now the term "sexual orientation" is written into a bunch of anti-discrimination laws. So now to call it sin is to be guilty of persecution and spiritual violence. No other perverted sexual desire is treated in this way. Though they all could be, what with the use of that vague term "sexual orientation." It turns all sexual perversity into an identity to protect.

This is an excellent point!

As various Christian denominations cave to the whims of contemporary society and readjust their messages to embrace "our homosexual brothers and sisters", the attacks on the Catholic Church will grow in intensity. Up until only recently, the USCCB has been populated by a good sized group of left wing bishops (some of whom are gay), that either downplayed or simply ignored the documents emanating from their organization. This was their answer to inclusiveness. Now, as these bishops approach retirement and are being replaced with others who are more orthodox in their teaching, I fully expect we will see more rants like that of this woman along with more 'in your face' demonstrations inside Catholic Churches such as we see each year with the Rainbow Sash group.

God bless this Archbishop for his defense of Catholic teaching and resistance to outside pressure. Let those who disagree with the Catholic Church, pack up their gunnysacks and leave. The womenpriests and active homosexuals can take their purple and rainbow colored stoles to those Christian churches which are more sympathetic to their cause.

Thanks for that insight. I hadn't thought of it in that way, but it makes perfect sense.

Sandy, this is the heart of the whole matter. Leftists are primarily and above all followers of the German pantheist Hegel,who believed the universe was creating G-d rather than the other way round. History does this by means of the dialectic: a "thesis" pushes history forward, while an "antithesis" pushes back. The result is a "synthesis" which is somewhere between the two but which always results in history being pushed somewhat "forward."

Marx was a Hegelian for whom the "thesis" was the proletariat/workers and the "antithesis" the bourgeoisie/ capitalists (ironically, in the earlier French Revolution the bourgeoisie had been the "thesis"). But much of Marx (with his economism and doctrine of classes) has been jettisoned by the Left and more Hegel than Marx remains. One reason for this is that the working class stubbornly refused to permorm its great "historical mission."

So the "Marxists" on the Left replaced the working class as the "thesis" with a new cast of characters: Blacks, Hispanics, women, gays, moslems, etc. Their counterparts as antitheses are whites, Anglos, males, "straights," Israelis, etc. It is the Great Historical Destiny of the "oppressed" groups, by continually clashing with their "oppressors," to push history ever forward until "G-d" is fully realized at the "end of history."

This dualism between thesis and antithesis explains the otherwise maddening hypocrisy of the Left with regard to the "rights" and "freedoms" they allegedly defend. The Left supports no right as an end in itself, or for everyone. To the Left "freedom of speech" exists only for the thesis, and its sole purpose is to push history forward to its conclusion. Hence Leftists support the rights of the groups that make up the thesis while demanding the suppression of the freedoms of those groups that make up the "antithesis." For a Leftist advocating free speech for gays but not for opponents of homosexuality, or defending the right to burn the American flag while advocating the criminalization of the burning of the homosexual "rainbow" flag as "hate," is not contradictory at all. Freedom exists only for the purpose of enabling the "thesis" to perform its "historic mission." Any such freedoms for the "antithesis" are "self-evidently" wrong.

Another side-effect of this thesis/antithesis dualism is that all groups on the side of the "thesis" are considered satisfactory just as they are. There is no need for illiterate peasants from the Yucatan or Fundamentalist African-Americans to alter their religious beliefs, and the Left makes no such demands. They are sufficiently "subversive" just as they are. Hence there are no conflicts (according to the Left) between Blacks and gays, or moslems and gays. All groups on the side of the "thesis" sort of merge into a single figure. The fight for "gay rights" is simply the natural successor to the anti-slavery movement, and to oppose "gay rights" is identical to advocating slavery. To halt, much less reverse, the teleological course of history will inevitably result in the return of slavery, the inquisition, serfdom, the whole schmeer. To the Left a victory for Blacks is a victory for "gays" and a victory for "gays" is a victory for Hispanics and a victory for Hispanics is a victory for women. It's all one big happy family. After all, you'll never have to confront the Devil if you're marching side by side with him, will you?

The replacement of economic classes with ethno-nationalist groups (and women and "gays" are treated as "ethnic groups" by the Left, make no mistake about it) leads to even more interesting "contradictions." The Left basically advocates what we recognize as "leftism" for the antithesis--pacifism, self-criticism, universalism, etc. For the "oppressed" it basically advocates right wing extremism--national sovereignty, militarism, ultra-patriotism, even the "indigenous" religion. Blacks are sold on a "blood and soil" pan-African nationalism that sounds like it came straight out of Austria. Ditto for Hispanics. And what is "gay pride" but "right wing nationalism" for homosexuals? Thus the "commie wimp" exists only among the guilt-ridden members of the "antithesis." Commies among the favored groups are anything but wimps.

So yes, the whole point of the Left's campaign is that rights exist only for the "thesis" and opposition to any of the Left's "chosen peoples" is identical to the Holocaust (the Jews were the thesis back then, but they have since been replaced).

There is nowadays an interesting contradiction between the every forward progress of history and the Left's current mania (adopted from the nineteenth century romantic German right) of environmentalism. On this issue the Left literally advocates "turning back the clock;" deindustrializing, reintroducing formerly exterminated species to their previous habitat, and generally making the air as clean as it was in the days of slavery and the inquisition. How the Left exempts these "backward steps" from their dire warnings about the inevitable return of the Dark Ages is a mystery. However, they apparently believe that they can "turn back the clock" ecologically without doing so sociologically. Whether or not this is possible is yet to be seen. But it is interesting to note that there are to this day "palaeoconservatives" who advocate a similar "return to the land" even as they advocate sociological "regression."

I hope this helps explain things. At least I hope it explains how I interpret these phenomena.

My apologies for any mistypes and errors in this post.

Good analysis, although I have one quibble: Hispanics, per se, should not be included in the “thesis.” What the left is trying to do is create a brand name, so to speak, and also to refine the idea of Hispanic so that it refers not to someone with Spanish (i.e., European) roots, but to someone with South American Indian (”idigenous peoples”) roots. They haven’t quite figured out how to get around the Spanish part of it, but they’re working on that. People like Chavez and Garcia go on and on about how they are really products of some indigenous group, and in Bolivia, the government has even revived a native llama-worshiping religion. The Catholic Church is rejected and, as we see in Mexico, even attacked, and the Spanish language is also rejected. Many rural Mexicans cannot speak Spanish because the left has been insisting on reviving the indigenous languages and trying to restrict instruction or education in Spanish.

So I think rather than “white,” you’d have to say that the antithesis is European. In the case of Latin America, this is difficult for leftists to achieve, but they have whipped up enormous hatred of all Spanish symbols or historical figures associated with Spain, such as Columbus and the Spanish explorers. And of course, to the left. one of the great evils the Spanish brought was the power of the Church to convert people and overcome the native religions, which had all those charming cultural features such as human sacrifice, cannibalism, etc.

The left really has only two hatreds, and of these, one is greater than all the others: It hates European culture and history, but it hates them specifically because they project Christianity. Anglo-Saxon is not the key word. The left would be perfectly happy to bring back delightful Anglo Saxon cultural practices such as burning people in wicker baskets or painting oneself blue. The thing it really hates more than anything else is Christianity, and it will ally with anything it perceives as an enemy of Christianity.

I think you could say that German romanticism - which you have accurately identified as the source - was visible not only in the thought of Marx, but that of Hitler as well. And Hitler wanted to get back to a pre-Christian German “identity,” trying to dream up practices that expressed the glories of the (pre-Christian) German peoples and basically trying to start his own nature-worshipping, old-gods Germanic religion, which would supplant his arch-enemy, the slave religion of Christianity.

This is most interesting indeed. I of course am not familiar with the situation in Latin America, but have long observed that here in the United States Spanish seems to have been re-classified from a European colonial language to an "indigenous" language. American media and education are inundated with Spanish in the name of multiculturalism while truly non-European and exotic languages (Mongolian, Armenian, even Arabic) are ignored. And Columbus is not treated as a Spaniard but a "gringo!"

I did not attribute German romantic nationalism to Marx but to the post-Marxist Left who replaced the "toiling masses" with "oppressed peoples." And I must point out that the Left not only does not oppose, but actually celebrates (seemingly without critique) the chr*stianity of its beloved "oppressed peoples." This is most obvious in the case of American Blacks but applies also to the Catholicism of the Hispanics (in the US). Ironically, as far back as the nineteenth century Irish Catholicism (as the religion of an "oppressed people") was exempted from Marxist critique and Irish Marxists were often devout Catholics.

The whole "going back to ancient paganism" thing certainly seems to fly in the face of the Left's eternal mantra of "progress," just as does its environmentalism. But consider that the Left condemned Bob Dylan in the Sixties for moving beyond the purity of acoustic folk music to electric instruments. So, what was that about "progress" and "reaction" again???

Hmmm . . . so the Left is working to exterminate Spanish in Latin America and to impose it on Anglo-America. Interesting. And crazy, of course.

I don’t know where you got the idea that the left “celebrates” the Catholicism of Latin Americans in or outside of the US. It doesn’t, and in fact it constantly attacks it, trying to present “santaria” or even Islam as the true religion of Latin America. It may take advantage of a few leftist Catholic priests or bishops (mostly Anglos, btw) to try to use the Church to advance the leftist agenda, but fortunately these people, remnants of the Latin American “liberation theology” movement condemned by the Vatican, are dying out.

I think you’ll find the same thing with blacks. The left is also working to encourage supposedly authetnic ethnic things like Kwanzaa and ancestor worship, and because Black Chritianity is frequently an emotional, doctrine-free version of Protestantism, it is easy for them to create their own syncretist cult. And of course, the non-Pentecostal type black Protestant churches were taken over by the Democrat party decades ago, so they are simply platforms for the left now and have little to nothing to do with Christianity.

For your amusement, here’s something I just read:

” Speaking of King Juan Carlos of Spain, Hugo Chavez said that he could understand the king because he could not stand Indians in power.” (in this post: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1929506/posts)

Hugo Chavez is some Indian! But that’s what the left is trying to do in Latin America, and it’s succeeding quite nicely.

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