Posted on 05/24/2014 3:42:57 PM PDT by BlatherNaut
ROME, May 16, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pope Francis raised eyebrows earlier this month by concelebrating Mass with and kissing the hand of a leading homosexual activist priest campaigning for changes in the Church’s teaching on homosexuality. On May 6, Francis received the 93 year-old priest who has cofounded the homosexualist activist organization, Agedo Foggia, that is opposed to Catholic Church teaching.
Fr. (Don) Michele de Paolis concelebrated Mass with Pope Francis at the Domus Santa Martha and then presented the pontiff with gifts of a wooden chalice and paten and a copy of his most recent book, “Dear Don Michele - questions to an inconvenient priest”.
In a previous book, Don Michele wrote, “homosexual love is a gift from (God) no less than heterosexual.” He also disparaged the idea of homosexual couples not having sex.
Francis closed the meeting by kissing the priest’s hand, a gesture that the far-left newspaper L'immediato called one “revealing the humility of a great man to another of the same stature.” De Paolis described the unusual papal gesture himself in a post to his Facebook page, saying that he asked Francis for an audience with the priest’s other organization, the Community of Emmaus: “Is that possible?”
He said that the pope replied, “Anything is possible. Talk to Cardinal Maradiaga and he shall prepare everything.”
“And then (unbelievably) he kissed my hand! I hugged him and wept,” de Paolis concluded.
The gesture has made something of a sensation in Italian media and ‘blogs since de Paolis is a well-known figure in Italy as a leading clerical apologist for the homosexualist ideology. He ostensibly met with Francis in his capacity as the founder of Emmaus Community in the southern Italian city of Foggia that assists the poor and those suffering from AIDS.
But it is for his cofounding of Agedo Foggia, an “association of parents, relatives and friends of homosexuals” (Associazione di genitori, parenti e amici di persone omosessuali) – that campaigns to promote the homosexualist and gender ideology in Italian society and the Church – that he is best known in this country.
LifeSiteNews asked Vatican spokesman Fr. Frederico Lombardi for clarification as to the nature of the encounter but received no reply by press time.
In addition to support from the City of Foggia, Agedo Foggia is funded by and working with the UNAR, the Italian government’s National Antidiscrimination and Racism Office (Ufficio Nazionale Antidiscriminazioni Razziali) that has issued documents threatening journalists with prison if they fail to portray homosexuality in a positive light.
The website of Agedo Lecce carries an extensive quote from one of de Paolis’s books to help readers “get out of the quagmire of biblical precepts”. He wrote, “[W]e must overcome the letter of Scripture. It is the same St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:6 who says, ‘The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.’”
“That this biblical letter,” de Paolis wrote, “killed and continues to kill, unfortunately, at times, not only morally but also physically, is a fact. The Bible ‘is’ not the word of God; the Bible ‘contains’ the word of God.”
“Instead of wasting energy in endless controversy the Church aims to build a Christian spirituality of joyous acceptance of self, gratitude to God in the knowledge that homosexual love is a gift from Him no less than heterosexual. A spirituality in which we dialogue and we compare to all, but obey God alone.”
Church people, he said, “completely ignore the phenomenon of homosexuality, which science has now clarified unequivocally: the homosexual orientation is not chosen freely by the person. The boy or girl will discover that it is an approach deeply rooted in personality, which is an essential aspect of his identity: it is not a disease, it is not a perversion.”
He lamented the “insensitivity” shown to homosexuals by the Catholic Church, saying, “Some church people say, ‘It’s okay to be gay, but they should not have sex, they can not love each other.’ This is the greatest hypocrisy. It’s like saying to a plant that grows, ‘You must not flourish, you must not bear fruit!’ Yes, it is against nature!’”
“We must have patience with our Mother Church,” he continues. “Her attitude towards homosexuals will change.” He praised the “numerous initiatives” that have already been founded throughout Italy in which “groups of homosexual Catholics have occasional contact with the diocese, usually marked by cordiality.”
De Paolis is a prominent member of an Italian clerical subculture on the extreme, Marxist-informed left that sprang up after the Second Vatican Council. One Catholic writer, Giuseppe Nardi, wrote that de Paolis is a promoter of the “anarcho-Catholicism” of the extreme left that has been dominant in the Church in Italy, as well as in the South American Church, since the 1970s.
De Paolis founded Agedo Foggia with the late Gabriele Scalfarotto, the father of the Italian Deputy Ivan Scalfarotto who sponsored the Italian parliament’s “anti-homophobia” bill that has been denounced by family activists as an attempt to shut down any moral criticism of the homosexual lifestyle. Recently pro-family and Catholic activists in Italy sought to secure Pope Francis’s aid in opposing the bill.
And the point is....?
I wonder how many heterosexuals are influenced to commit homosexual acts by this attitude of practicing Roman Catholics.
Why hasn’t de Paolis been excommunicated?
Dear Mr. Pope,
I don’t believe anything in the Bible has changed.
It’s the same ideology keeping Nancy Pelosi from being excommunicated. How many babies are aborted daily because of her and her politics? There isn’t enough time left in their lives to spend in a confessional for what they do advocating homosexuality and the slaughter of babies. Yet, from the bishops, cardinals and pope - crickets.
Good question. And why is Fr. Stefano Maria Manelli, co-founder of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, and spiritual son of Padre Pio and Maximilian Kolbe being persecuted and the order he built being smashed by the Apostolic Commissioner authorized by Pope Francis?
The gift of a wooden chalice is so telling. It seems like a symbol of modesty, being a simple material available to a carpenter. But it precludes the presence of Christ within it as it is not a noble material. Try to find a wooden passover wine cup; they do not exist.
The Pope needs a blood test
Jesus took the hand of the adultress in John 8. He didn’t endorse her adultery.
Jesus supped with the tax collector Zaccheaus. He didn’t endorse his thievery.
Jesus had an audience with Nicodemus. He didn’t endorse his hypocrisy.
Jesus called Matthew to be his disciple. He didn’t endorse his illegal actions as a tax collector.
Jesus calls you and I to “leave our nets” and follow Him. He doesn’t endorse our sin—He wants us to LEAVE OUR SINFUL LIVES BEHIND.
I am not even Catholic, and I can see that. Francis, I presume, is reaching out to the lost soul who endorses sodomy—Francis is not endorsing sodomy.
Pray he doesn't use it.
It's Francis' sacred duty to STOP this priest from publicly endorsing sodomy, both for his own sake and to prevent him from leading other souls astray. "But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea". There have been no reports of this priest publicly repenting for leading little ones astray. The Pope kissing his hand will be widely interpreted as a sign of affirmation.
It’s telling, all right. It tells of a direct challenge to authority, defiant disobedience masquerading as humility. Uriah Heep in clericals — both of them.
Agreed...Jesus loved the sinner, not the sin.
Perhaps by those who think like those who criticized Jesus, right?
While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
The Pope has not endorsed perversion by reaching out to someone who is perverted.
How about kissing the hand of an activist homosexual priest and celebrating mass with him?
That's a little bit different from merely "reaching out."
All of your examples turned away from their sin. Did this homosexual priest repent from his sin and heresy?
“On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.””
Please show me where the pope has called them sinners.
Followed by: “What the Pope really meant to say was (fill in the blank).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.