Forgot to check the box that the above is an excerpt. Click on the link to read the entire article.
Celibates are the new flagellates in the Catholic church. Whatever makes you feel holy and gives you joy. After all, we only get one life to live and all happiness occurs between the ears. Make of it what you will.
From the article:
“When Pope Francis said he wouldn’t judge gay priests he unwittingly undermined clerical celibacy.”
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I disagree....as even priests can misinterpret what took place.
A more accurate take is made by Rev. Mark A. Pilon, S.T.D.
“Nothing the pope said was new or different from what his predecessors have said on this issue. He distinguished clearly between orientation and homosexual acts, he spoke of confession and repentance, and he repeated the Church’s teaching that homosexuals not be marginalized because of their sexual orientation. None of this is revolutionary.
But the press picked up and focused on a single sentence, “Who am I to judge them?” Taken in the context of everything else the pope said in that interview or elsewhere many times, there is absolutely nothing new or surprising.
The press, however, in large part, especially in the United States, chose to interpret that statement not in the context of the pope’s broader comments but in the context of the “non-judgmentalism” and relativistic morality in our society.
In the contemporary world, not judging people translates as not judging their actions, and the press took this as an opening for the Church to reconsider its moral condemnation of homosexual relationships and activity. It doesn’t matter what the pope said before or after this statement; the press chose to portray him as opening the door to a new moral attitude.
This is the danger in off-the-cuff interviews today. What the press is interested in are simply sound bites and controversy. Complex issues like homosexuality and homosexuals in the priesthood cannot be discussed with the media “swine” in this manner without constantly having to correct their misinterpretations and reportorial sensationalism.
By and large the press is not interested in the Church or her true mission, but only in the scandals and controversies surrounding the hot issues of contemporary culture and how the Church fits into these issues.
No one who has followed this pope and understands his deep faith and the weight of Church teaching and tradition in his approach to any of these hot issues could really think that he is going to make any substantial changes.”
More information:
Just a constant attack on the church....no attacks on fags or killers or perverts....just the church and its principles.
Maybe bears don’t crap in the woods anymore.
Is it possible that you mean “chastity” when you write “celibacy”? People often confuse these two concepts.
I admire Francis more than any other Pope in recent history, but I never forget he, like all the others, is a flawed human being who needs the Blood of Jesus as much as any other, even the basest, that walks the Earth.
“Because of this the church has tried to screen out homosexual persons from the priesthood. The all-male environment of seminaries and the ordained priesthood afford a safe-haven for homosexuals. Men with same-sex attraction, under the cover of celibacy, can easily “date” and engage in couple type activities without raising an eyebrow.”
I that explains the instances of abuse peaking in the late 70’s/early 80’s and dwindling down to almost nothing. It hasn’t raised any eyebrows in the greater culture for a long time, at least in some places. I bet that gay men becoming priests has declined at the same rate as the abuse did, as the gay priests that molested boys died and weren’t replaced by more gay men joining up. By the early 70’s there were whole communities of openly homosexual men living together, something that never happened on that level before, at least in the modern era. They could get jobs, and in some of them they were celebrated, acedemia, fashion, politics—they were on TV and in popular culture more and more. The 80’s were more extreme, the following decades more so and on to what we have today.
Now they don’t need to hide anywhere, they can get married in 13 states with several others recognizing those marriages, in many areas it is against the law to ‘discriminate’ against them. If they want to get into religion, there are many faiths that will now happily put them in positions of leadership where they can be openly gay in relationships, and never have the Church’s unchanging plain teaching as concerns homosexual acts hurt their feelings. I mean, how likely is a group that still doesn’t accept civil divorce and remarriage, as well as birth control within marriage to go ahead and accept homosexual relationships? Just a theory.
Freegards