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Ex-Archbishop Speaks About Catholic Church and Homosexuality [Weakland]
The New York Times ^ | 5/14/09 | Laurie Goodstein

Posted on 05/15/2009 8:44:25 AM PDT by marshmallow

In spring 2002, as the scandal over sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests was escalating, the long career of Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland of Milwaukee, one of the church’s most venerable voices for change, went up in flames one May morning.

On the ABC program “Good Morning America,” the archbishop watched a man he had fallen in love with 23 years earlier say in an interview that the Milwaukee archdiocese had paid him $450,000 years before to keep quiet about his affair with the archbishop — an affair the man was now calling date rape.

The next day, the Vatican accepted Archbishop Weakland’s retirement.

Archbishop Weakland, who had been the intellectual touchstone for church reformers, has said little publicly since then. But now, in an interview and in a memoir scheduled for release next month, he is speaking out about how internal church politics affected his response to the fallout from his affair; how bishops and the Vatican cared more about the rights of abusive priests than about their victims; and why Catholic teaching on homosexuality is wrong.

“If we say our God is an all-loving god,” he said, “how do you explain that at any given time probably 400 million living on the planet at one time would be gay? Are the religions of the world, as does Catholicism, saying to those hundreds of millions of people, you have to pass your whole life without any physical, genital expression of that love?”

He said he had been aware of his homosexual orientation since he was a teenager and suppressed it until he became archbishop, when he had relationships with several men because of “loneliness that became very strong.”

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Ministry/Outreach; Moral Issues; Theology
KEYWORDS: aposty; celebratesin; homosexualagenda; lavendermafia; weakland
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To: Alex Murphy
I'm assuming that we're conversing here in good faith and that your amazement is real and not faux.Think back to the '70s for a moment, Alex. When Weakland got the job, the Church was in turmoil. The papacy of a suffering and very saddened Paul VI was reaching its end. Rebellion, novelty and confusion were everywhere.

To me, it would be amazing if he hadn't been given the job. Numerous bishops of dubious orthodoxy were appointed at this time. The papal emissary , Archbishop Jean Jadot (the guy doing the "interviews") was responsible for some awful appointments. There's a school of thought which lays the blame for much of the chaos in Catholic America at his door.

21 posted on 05/15/2009 9:58:08 AM PDT by marshmallow ("A country which kills its own children has no future" -Mother Teresa of Calcutta)
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To: Alex Murphy

Archbishop Jean Jadot was mostly responsible for suggesting the names of that batch of bad bishops. He died just a few months ago. Here is his obituary from the NY Times which gives a general overview of what he did in the 1970s:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/world/22jadot.html


22 posted on 05/15/2009 10:08:36 AM PDT by Chesterbelloc
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To: marshmallow

People I wish would shut the heck up:
Meghan McCain and Bishop Weakland


23 posted on 05/15/2009 4:12:03 PM PDT by sockmonkey
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To: marshmallow

I think the Bible had something to say about “bishops” like this....

“In the last times some will turn away from the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and demonic instructions” 1 Timothy 4:1

“For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine,but,following their own desires and insatiable curiosity,will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth and be diverted to myths” 2 Timothy 4:3-4

“Therefore,God is sending them a deceiving power so that they might believe the lie,that all who have not believed the truth but have approved wrongdoing may be condemned” 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12

“There will be false teachers among you,who will introduce destructive heresies and even deny the master who ransomed them,bringing swift destruction on themselves.Many will follow their licentious ways,and because of them the way of truth will be reviled” 2 Peter 2:1-2

“For even Satan masquerades as an angel of light.So it is not strange that his ministers also masquerade as ministers of righteousness” 2 Corinthians 11:14-15

“In the last days scoffers will come to scoff,living according to their own desires” 2 Peter 3:3

“These people are complainers,disgruntled ones who live by their desires;their mouths utter bombast as they fawn over people to gain advantage: Jude 1:16


24 posted on 05/16/2009 5:31:21 AM PDT by massmike
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To: marshmallow

Why do they have to dig up the ones we are better off without?


25 posted on 05/16/2009 5:35:36 AM PDT by Desdemona (Tolerance of grave evil is NOT a Christian virtue. http://www.thekingsmen.us/)
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To: Terabitten
How does anyone who believes that ever become an archbishop to begin with?

Jean Jadot. He died recently, but we are still seeing the fruits of his placements 25+ years later.

26 posted on 05/16/2009 5:37:17 AM PDT by Desdemona (Tolerance of grave evil is NOT a Christian virtue. http://www.thekingsmen.us/)
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To: Kolokotronis
To this it must be answered that God neither rejoices nor grows angry

I'm not sure if you meant your post to be in agreement or opposition to mine, Kolokotronis my brother. The idea that God neither feels joy nor anger is utterly unsupported by Scripture. God's joy and wrath are themes found throughout Holy Scripture - often from His own mouth.

27 posted on 05/16/2009 6:04:13 AM PDT by Terabitten (Vets wrote a blank check, payable to the Constitution, for an amount up to and including their life.)
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To: Terabitten; kosta50

“The idea that God neither feels joy nor anger is utterly unsupported by Scripture. God’s joy and wrath are themes found throughout Holy Scripture - often from His own mouth.”

“Very often many things are said by the Holy Scriptures and in it many names are used not in a literal sense... those who have a mind understand this” +Isaac the Syrian in Homily LXXXIII

And +Basil the Great says that the Scriptures say such things because “...fear edifies simpler people,...” and as +Gregory the Theologian sermonized in his 5th Theological Oration,

“For according to our own comprehension, we have given names from our own attributes to those of God.”

The Scriptures speak to us in terms we, as fallen creatures in a fallen world, can comprehend and so bring us to at least an appreciation, if not a complete understanding, of those things which exceed our nature.


28 posted on 05/16/2009 6:35:46 AM PDT by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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To: BraveMan
>ping<

Just a FYI bub as I'm sure you couldn't have missed the disgrace resurfacing to shill his shameless life story which *somehow* in his shameless mind, justifies all.

Don't recall hearing whether or not the pathetic chicken hawk's been thrown out of the church, or not.

If he hasn't, the shame's now Rome's.

29 posted on 05/16/2009 6:41:38 AM PDT by Landru (Arghh, Liberals are trapped in my colon like spackle or paste.)
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To: marshmallow

>> how bishops and the Vatican cared more about the rights of abusive priests than about their victims; <<

So this guy rapes a boy,
joins a “lavendar mafia” of boy-rapists to pervert the teachings of the church,
gets busted and ousted by the church,
defends his predatory lifestyle,
and complains the church did not do enough about the boy-rapists???


30 posted on 05/17/2009 6:39:48 AM PDT by dangus
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To: starlifter

Read it again. This satanic pervert referred to “genital love.”


31 posted on 05/17/2009 7:02:06 AM PDT by dangus
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To: dangus
Love the sinner, hate the sin...
32 posted on 05/17/2009 7:53:48 AM PDT by starlifter (Sapor Amo Pullus)
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To: Alex Murphy
You got that one right, actually. There was a strong notion in the 1970s that the entire Church was going to be further radically altered, and all sorts of doctrines would be amended. In essence, the Catholic Church would cease being Catholic. Many clergy figured if they agitated openly for specific changes, they wouldn't happen, but that if they cultivated the fields for changes, the Church might "evolve" their position. So, in the American church, all sorts of outrages took place, and the congregations were "cultivated" with all sorts of nonsense.

I've heard all sorts of varying reports as to the health and mental faculties of Pope Paul VI, who did not commit heresy, but absolutely horrifically failed to oppose such abominations. But these modern critics of John Paul II seem to have no sense of how far he brought the barque to being righted, or how bad things were before he came in. I also think he took some time in office to realize the extent of how bad things were, coming as he did from Communist Poland. For one thing, he admits he was too slow to respond to the sexual abuse crisis at first, because the Communists used slanders about homosexuality as a means of silencing political opposition. Nonetheless, by the early eighties, sexual abuse incidents were lower than they were at the conclusion of Vatican II, and by the late 80s, they were reduced by over 90%.

Almost all of the sexual abuse ended by 1990, before the American news media picked up on the story. And 80% of the sexual abuse was homosexual acts with adolescent men. True paedophilia was virtually unknown. So John Paul largely solved the problem before it was even known.

33 posted on 05/17/2009 8:09:19 AM PDT by dangus
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To: Kolokotronis; Terabitten
The anthropomorphic OT concept of a God who is "insulted" and "hurt" and "upset" is so primitive it doesn't even belong in serious theology. But it serves a very pragmatic purpose for an average Joe or Jane.

OT passages where God has to "come down" and "see" what's going on in order to "know" is part of that same mindset. Naturally, all references to the OT God should be takes allegorically and not literally, lest we all succumb to an idea of a deity that resembles Zeus more than Christ.

34 posted on 05/17/2009 1:05:56 PM PDT by kosta50 (Don't look up, the truth is all around you)
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To: starlifter

Rebuke the sinner. Be ever willing to forgive, and welcome him back. But if he leads others into stray, condemn him as the demon he is.


35 posted on 05/17/2009 2:12:55 PM PDT by dangus
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