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Catholic girls’ prep school invokes Gospel to justify adding same-sex unions to alumnae magazine
LifeSite News ^ | May 15, 2019 | Calvin Freiburger

Posted on 05/15/2019 7:34:37 PM PDT by ebb tide

Catholic girls’ prep school invokes Gospel to justify adding same-sex unions to alumnae magazine

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 15, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, a Catholic girls’ high school in the nation’s capital, has spurred controversy by announcing it will begin highlighting same-sex “marriages” among other news in the school’s alumnae magazine.

“The Church is clear in its teaching on same-sex marriages. But, it is equally clear in its teaching that we are all children of God, that we each have dignity and are worthy of respect and love,” Sister Mary Berchmans, president emerita of the school, wrote in a letter early May, the Daily Caller reported. “As I have prayed over this contradiction, I keep returning to this choice: we can focus on Church teaching on gay marriage or we can focus on Church teaching on the Gospel commandment of love.

“We know from history – including very recent history – that the Church, in its humanity, makes mistakes,” she argued. “Yet, through the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, it learns and grows. And so, we choose the Gospel commandment of love.”

The Archdiocese of Washington responded with a statement that it “was not made aware of the discussion of Catholic identity or the recent decision of the school to communicate the change for their alumni publication until after the letter announcing the decision was distributed to the wider Georgetown Visitation community,” WTOP reported. “Catholic Church teaching on marriage is clear, and it also does not conflict with the Gospel message of love.”

Catholic News Agency reported that the decision appears to be partly the result of discussions with a handful of pro-LGBT activists and homosexual alumnae who formed a private Facebook group called Georgetown Visitation Alumnae for Equity. In the group, members shared communications to Berchmans and retiring Head of School Dan Kerns, as well as a reply from the former.

One email to the two from a former student and “proudly gay alumna” complained about the magazine’s refusal to publish another student’s same-sex “wedding” announcement, and lectured the school that “when you talk about the teachings of the church, I want you to remember all of the teachings of the church.” The poster later shared a reply in which Berchmans said the school was working “towards a solution.”

CNA noted similar language between Berchmans’ announcement letter and the appeals to her. “I want you to remember to Live Jesus,” the poster told her (a phrase that’s “part of our Salesian charism and a deeply engrained part of who we are as a community of faith,” according to the school), and Berchmans went on to write that she had been “reflect(ing) upon what it means to Live Jesus in relationship with our LGBTQ alumnae.”

A Georgetown Visitation spokesperson declared that feedback to the new policy has been “overwhelmingly and heartwarmingly positive,” but CNA noted that a member of the pro-LGBT Facebook group wrote that Berchmans was “struggling from the amount of negative pushback from members of the Visitation community,” and that one mother of a current student told CNA that many parents object but are afraid to speak out.

Another parent alleged that Georgetown Visitation students face pressure to support “so-called LGBTQ values,” such as the same-sex “marriage” of a teacher. “All the parents felt like we had to support this teachers ‘marriage,’ and we didn’t really know how to deal with it,” the parent said. “You worry about soft discrimination against the children...A’s become B’s very quickly, and you do not want to have a reputation as one of the ‘angry parents,’” another mother warned.

“It is far more comfortable to acquiesce in the wisdom of the age than to courageously rebel against it,” Father Carter Griffin lamented at the National Catholic Register. “And it is not compassionate to approve, even implicitly, sexual behavior that imperils the immortal souls of so many of our brothers and sisters.

“Sanctimonious allusions to love untethered to the truth of human flourishing, unmoored from virtue and holiness, do not help souls but rather lull them into a dangerous state of complacency,” he argued, “especially when such claims are advanced by those with greater responsibility, such as venerable religious sisters.”


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Moral Issues
KEYWORDS: francischurch; homos
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“Sanctimonious allusions to love untethered to the truth of human flourishing, unmoored from virtue and holiness, do not help souls but rather lull them into a dangerous state of complacency,” he argued, “especially when such claims are advanced by those with greater responsibility, such as venerable religious sisters.”
1 posted on 05/15/2019 7:34:37 PM PDT by ebb tide
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To: ebb tide

Its intresting the USA field when Christ comes back is gonna be roughly 50% wheat and 50% weeds.


2 posted on 05/15/2019 7:38:19 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not Averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: ebb tide

“Love” has been utterly perverted as a concept. That is the work of Satan and his minions. They are running amok in what’s left of our culture.


3 posted on 05/15/2019 7:38:53 PM PDT by cdcdawg (If white, western culture makes you feel out of place, THAT IS BECAUSE IT IS NOT YOUR PLACE!)
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To: ebb tide

The Devil can (and does) quote Scripture. Almost always, it is out of context and very selectively chosen each time.


4 posted on 05/15/2019 7:39:26 PM PDT by alloysteel (The difference between real life and fiction? Fiction has to make sense and follow some logic.)
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To: ebb tide

“We” are not all children of God.


5 posted on 05/15/2019 7:39:47 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: ConservativeMind; Al Hitan; Biggirl; Coleus; DuncanWaring; ebb tide; Fedora; Hieronymus; ...

Ping


6 posted on 05/15/2019 7:42:01 PM PDT by ebb tide (We have a rogue curia in Rome)
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To: ebb tide

The good sisters must’ve skipped Romans: 1 in the convent.

CC


7 posted on 05/15/2019 7:43:11 PM PDT by Celtic Conservative (My cats are more amusing than 200 channels worth of TV)
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To: ebb tide

Celebrate the sin!!!


8 posted on 05/15/2019 7:45:37 PM PDT by gogeo (Liberal politics and mental instability; coincidence, correlation, or causation?)
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To: ebb tide

Would they show “respect and love” to a serial rapist?


9 posted on 05/15/2019 7:48:03 PM PDT by Yogafist
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To: ebb tide
we can focus on Church teaching on the Gospel commandment of love.

I see reading the Bible is not on her list of things to do.

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

I John 2:15 and 16

10 posted on 05/15/2019 7:52:42 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (Human beings don't behave rationally. We rationalize our behavior.)
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To: ebb tide
Apparently the Catholic church (like all mainstream churches in the USA) is lost. I wonder what choices Catholics have if they want their children to get a Catholic education.

My own opinion, all denominations are in the same boat—a church hierarchy which has abandoned Christianity and the Bible.
 

11 posted on 05/15/2019 7:55:53 PM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie
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To: ebb tide
“And it is not compassionate to approve, even implicitly, sexual behavior that imperils the immortal souls of so many of our brothers and sisters.

This is the money quote.

All these people that silent permit this to continue are leaving these LBGT people to blithely walk down the road to eternal damnation.

The Father is correct it is not compassion to stand by, smile and say “Isn’t their homosexual love beautiful?”

It is cowardice. It is wrong and it certainly is not how one should treat their brother or sister in Christ.

When you see your bother marching hand in hand with the enemy towards the gates of heel you should warn them that they are in mortal sin and beg them to repent.

You should not smile, wish them well and go about your own life hoping that no one sees that you really disapprove.

12 posted on 05/15/2019 8:08:54 PM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit)
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To: ebb tide

I remember Sister Mary Elephant and Sister Rosetta Stone.


13 posted on 05/15/2019 8:18:19 PM PDT by kaehurowing
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To: Secret Agent Man

Actually I think weeds is up to around 80%.


14 posted on 05/15/2019 8:18:56 PM PDT by kaehurowing
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To: kaehurowing

15 posted on 05/15/2019 8:19:28 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” I John 5:3


16 posted on 05/15/2019 8:21:31 PM PDT by kaehurowing
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To: kaehurowing
Yep.

You have to not be looking to miss all of the verses that show she is wrong.

17 posted on 05/15/2019 8:25:04 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (Human beings don't behave rationally. We rationalize our behavior.)
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To: Governor Dinwiddie

This is liberal BS from liberal Georgetown university. The Jesuit school lost the faith years ago. MOST Catholic schools abide by the doctrine of the faith. Jesuits quit being Catholic years ago. Even liberal Jesuits would not have tried this nonsense before JESUIT Bergoglio became Pope. They do now because they know they have his support. Bergoglio will go down in history as the worse pope in the last 1000 years. He is not a Catholic.


18 posted on 05/15/2019 8:28:07 PM PDT by NKP_Vet ("Man without God descends into madness”)
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To: NKP_Vet

Just remember that Buttwipe is the mayor of the city that contains Notre Dame University, he never would have been elected without the support of Notre Dame’s Faculty and Students.


19 posted on 05/15/2019 8:45:39 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

People confuse “love” with uncritical acceptance. St Thomas said that love was a voluntary choice to pursue the authentic good of another. Since illicit sex is gravely sinful, it cannot qualify as pursuing the authentic good of those involved. Catholic nuns ought to know this; it’s basic stuff.


20 posted on 05/15/2019 8:58:55 PM PDT by Campion ((marine dad))
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