The stronger bishops are just going to have to chart their own course. I wish to God the Knights of Columbus would start a national Catholic youth organization similar to the Scouts. They're the only ones I can think of with the numbers, the resources, and the parish connections to do it.
Great idea.
Time to break with them.
My take on this would be that there is no such thing as a GAY pre-teen...
The issue has always been the scout leaders.
I’m pulling my boys out.
I may have to put up with some things at work but I’ll be damned if I’m putting up with it at home with my children.
I hope they guys at Onmyhonor.net can come up with something good. I really wanted my boys to learn all the other things the Boy Scouts had to offer.
IMO the Boy Scouts are done for.
It’s a damned shame, but they just voted themselves out of business.
My advice is put your scouting stuff on Craigs list fast, while you can still get rid of it.
Catholic mother here. My son is currently in second grade in public school and happens to be transferring to a good Catholic school in the fall. I had planned to have him join the Boy Scouts (Cub Scouts) next year, as well, but that won’t happen now. He’ll still go to Catholic school, but won’t join the Boy Scouts.
Bingo! 'Knights-in-training'
Contact your local KOC and have them nationally spread your idea.
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They’re inside the tent, now. The BSA is over.
c_h
Eagle Scout
1963
I think the Bishop needs to be seen to be making a considered decision. But there’s not much doubt what that decision has to be.
It was already the policy of the Boy Scouts not to question whether a boy privately thought he might be gay, as long as he kept it to himself. A young boy would not normally be set in his ways, and might learn that he didn’t really want to be gay after all. After all, one of the things Scouting teaches boys is how to be a man. Or if a boy still felt inclined that way, as long as he shut up about it and didn’t show it to the other boys in his pack, OK.
Now, the policy is evidently that scout masters are supposed to tell all the boys in their care that “gay is good.” They’re supposed to encourage it. The other boys are commanded to “tolerate” it. Anything else would be considered “bullying.”
Well, one of the principle ends of scouting is to teach the boys to behave morally, and to teach them manly social behavior in part by interacting with each other. But now, their leaders are required to teach them that immoral behavior is good.
That simply cannot be reconciled with scouting as it has been up to now, or with Catholic teaching, or more broadly with Christian belief and practice, or with any kind of genuine, traditional moral behavior, courage, and manliness.
United States Christian Scouts
Christian Boy Scouts of America
There already is one: the Columbian Squires.
More information can be found here:
It troubles me that His Grace sees a need of a "consultative process". I think it is clear that BSA has deliberately placed itself outside of the pale of the acceptable.
Now if Bishop Loverde would pull out of his diocese’ support of illegal aliens and the groups that support them.
So the BSA says they will deny admittance to homosexual boy scout leaders, but will accept homosexual boy scouts. Have we, as a society, gone so far that 11 and 12 year old boys are now “coming out”? I know that we read about an occasional case here and there in the news, but is this a regular occurrence? I wouldn’t think so, but maybe it
is.
But what’s puzzling to me about Bishop Loverde’s statement, is simply this: just what is his complaint? Does he fault the BSA for taking the same position that the Catholic Church has always taken on homosexuals? The Church, rightly so, does not condemn or reject the homosexual; they condemn the sin of homosexual behavior. The BSA has not said that they’re okay with homosexual behavior, but just that if a 10 year old boy concludes he’s a homosexual (that’s still way beyond belief for me) that he will be admitted to scouting. Quite frankly, even if a 10 year old boy (who generally isn’t even interested in girls at that age) does believe he is a homosexual, I would think it would be an opportunity for scouting to open up his eyes (and perhaps those of his parents as well) that homosexual behavior is sinful and should not be practiced, regardless of one’s feelings.
So here is Loverde, casting aspersions against scouting because they appear to be agreeable in embracing the sinner and not the sin, while Loverde (and most every other bishop and priest) won’t even condemn homosexual behavior from the pulpit. Indeed, they won’t even say the word “homosexual”. They dance all around it when they argue against same sex marriage, but they never tell us homosexual behavior is a mortal sin. No wonder the Church is in serious trouble. The bishops, quite clearly, have about as much courage as those Brits who stood by and watched those to muslims slaughter that British soldier on the streets of London. But unlike the weak-kneed Brits, God will demand an accounting from the bishops.
I can't see our diocese allowing them to use the church faciities. Just too much of a risk.