Posted on 08/30/2003 7:36:40 AM PDT by I_Love_My_Husband
A Matter of Common SenseGay Pride Parade Features Catholic Parish/PriestBy Phil Sevilla
For the past 33 years, "gay" pride parades have distinguished San Francisco as the epicenter of the homosexual movement in America. On June 29, I was present to videotape and document with a small group of Catholic and pro-family journalists the parade and events at the Civic Center rotunda. I witnessed frontal nudity, lewd conduct, simulated acts of sodomy, and even profane slogans and caricatures mocking the pope and bishops. I filmed at least one Catholic priest, Father Edward Phelan, and members of his parish in the parade, advertising their affiliation with Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church (San Francisco.) A 15-year-old student at Mercy Catholic High School in Burlingame, Marina Gatto, daughter of a lesbian couple, trumpeted her pride in participating in the parade as a grand marshal. The sisters of perpetual indulgence drove by on a float with the sign, " Weapons of Ass Destruction," with characters dressed as the pope and a cardinal. The character dressed up as the pope was enclosed in a cage. Beside them was a missile named "Cheney" (for Vice-President Cheney) made up as a phallic symbol with a character with a Bush mask riding the missile. One transvestite paraded a sign that said, "Sodomize me. It's legal." Another sign read, "I had sodomy for lunch!" It was curious to see representatives of the Church marching between leather-bound, bare-bottomed advocates of sodomy, sex toy shops (good vibes.com), and black-winged, bare-chested devils in leathers, dancing on a float decorated with hell fire. I contacted the archdiocese of San Francisco to inquire about the participation of a Catholic parish and pastor in his clerics in a gay pride parade. Although no one returned my call, I corresponded by e-mail with the director of communications, Maurice Healy to ask if the Catholic Church in San Francisco was giving, at least, tacit approval to the San Francisco Gay pride parade by allowing Father Phelan to participate in it. Mr. Healy responded on July 2 saying the archbishop was out of town but that my message would be forwarded to him when he returned. In part he wrote: "As a matter of common sense, I think it would be wrong for you to assume that all marchers agree with or approve of the raunchy examples you cite." In response, I wrote that the spectacle in San Francisco was not only raunchy but pornographic and the parade conveyed a serious, political message with hundreds of identical signs proclaiming, "Support AB205 Domestic Partner Rights" (a reference to the "gay" marriage bill winding its way through Sacramento) and "We All Deserve Freedom to Marry." These signs were placed all along the parade route. I asked Healy, "can there be any justification for a Catholic priest and his parish to participate in a blatantly pornographic public display? Would German Catholic bishops and priests have marched with the National Socialists and saluted Hitler in 1939, or Lot and his family cavort with the perverted and decadent people of Sodom?" I received no response. |
Consider yourself to have just voted for Bustabutt then.
Not at all.
I am equating the ignorance of those who say, "If only the Pope knew" to the ignorance of those who said, "If only Stalin knew".
What do you think-that the Vatican does not hear these things on a daily basis from the faithful in the United States? Do you seriously contend that the problem of blatant, open promotion of homosexuality by Catholic religious and some bishops in the United States is unknown in Rome?
Is that what you think the explanation is?
Nope, most Catholics only know what they hear on the news as well, and that is the biggest problem. They barely make it to Mass once a week, and don't avail themselves of the opportunities that exist to learn about their rich Faith.
The media distorts the teachings of the Church, sometimes out of malice, but most of the time because the journalists are not Catholic and don't understnad what's behind the teachings. In the most recent events, the media has made it seem like MOST priests are abusers and that is just NOT the case. Most priests are faithful men who are stuggling with the work they do with Catholics who are more and more secularized each day. Some priests find it hard to preach the tough things that need to be said. They don't want to be thought ill of, and they'd catch hell from folks who want to do their own thing but still consider themselves Catholic.
The biggest problem in the Catholic Church in America is that the 60's saw the idealists getting into Chanceries to try to 'make a difference' after Vatican II. Unfortunately, their changes bore little resemblance to what Vatican II actually said, they just wanted change for change's sake. Those folks are getting older and close to retirement, Thank heavens, and there is a new generation coming up that is scaring them to death. These younger folks have been educated in Catholic Colleges which are rooted in solid Catholic teaching, not the touchy feely, New Age stuff that's been taught at too many nominally Catholic colleges over the last 30 yrs. These new folks will bring some sanity back to the running of Diocese's and folks in the pews will begin to see the differences in the next few years.
Not in faithful orthodox parishes/dioceses we're not. St. Patrick's is cheek-to-cheek in the pews, standing room only, crowded out into the vestibule at almost every Mass. I can't speak for the 7:30 am, but the other 5 have always been jammed. Someone who attended RCIA when Father Scalia taught it said there were EIGHTY people in the class.
I don't think I could stand even to visit the SF diocese, let alone live there.
One problem that the Church has had for many years is that of 'collegiality'. Priests tend to stick up for each other and help each other out when they can because that is their support group. I don't know about before the 60's and 70's, but during that time of Vatican II reforms, the Chanceries began to rely on the Psychologists and Psychiatrists who set themselves up to 'help' those priests who had drinking problems, or problems of sexual nature. Dioceses would send priests who had been accused to get 'treatment'. These 'clinics' would pronounce him cured and send him back.
The problem came about when the priest would repeat his offense, and the Diocese would send him back to the clinic. The Bishops were tying to be supportive of their fellow priests as they always had, when they should have chucked them out on their butts! The abusers knew that the Bishop would do everything he could to try to help the priest, and these men took advantage of that. A lot of it has to do with the 'corporate culture' of the Diocese, which is the body responsible for the priests within it. The Pope won't get involved in the day to day workings of the Dioceses because he just can't. He doesn't have the time or energy for that. His job is to direct the Church, as a whole, and guide her in helping her members attain salvation. The Bishops do the day to day stuff, making appointments to parishes with the recommendations of their Personnel boards, and trying to encourage vocations within their Dioceses
Bishops are the ones who decide which seminaries their priest candidates will attend. Many got into the 'reforms' of Vatican II, and started accepting all kinds of new things at the seminaries. One of the biggest problems in the last 15 yrs. or so have been the boards that decide if a young man is ready to enter the seminary. These boards seem to be heavily populated by liberal Catholic laypeople, radical nuns and priests who tolerate (or worse) homosexual activity. Because of this, it has been difficult for a conservative man to get into the seminary in the first place, and if he does, he could be subject to propositions from the active homosexual seminarians. My brother-in-law is a priest, and has had to go to the local seminary and teach the Rector of the place how cows eat cabbage on behalf of a couple of the young men he has sponsored. He tells the young men not to put up with that crap, so they call him if there is a problem cause they know he'll back them up. He has the support of his new Bishop, that wasn't always the case with the old one. I don't believe the problem of homosexuals in the seminaries and the active priesthood is as bad as some would have you believe, but frankly I think one active homosexual priest is too many.
There is a new crop of Bishops who are as not into the 'collegiality' that the old ones were. They will not go along to get along, and I think we're gonna see some major changes over the next 10 yrs. or so because they'll be able to implement the changes to get the Church back to where it should be.
Sorry for the long answer. Hope that helped.
Oh, the Pope has given WAY more than a sentence to this! He has spoken out about it quite a lot, you just don't hear it cause the media doesn't report it.
Believe me, there have been several Bishops who have probably had their butts chewed out over this, but they are the arbiter in their Dioceses. The Vatican doesn't own property in the US, the Bishops, through their Dioceses do, so the legal responsibility goes through them.
As bad as it is, this problem isn't as large as the media makes it out to be. If you just heard the news, you'd be under the impression that millions of kids are being raped and abused at the hands of thousands of Catholic priests. That is simply NOT the case! There are no more instances of this abuse in the Catholic Church than there are in any other large institutions. I daresay, there's more of a problem within the public school structure of the US, but the media has decided to bring all it's attention onto the Church because it has a beef with her. The most liberal papers got all over this like white on rice cause they sensed an opportunity to try to destroy the Church's credibility in speaking out on other moral matters. I don't believe it has done irreperable harm, but it certainly didn't help.
The Pope HAS acted by 'retiring' several Bishops who needed to go, and by appointing new ones who will be willing to get rid of the problem priests, but the nature of Ordination itself makes the problem more difficult. Holy Orders is a Sacrament, and cannot be tossed aside lightly. It is like the Sacrament of Matrimony. It can only be annulled (declared never to have been) when it can be shown that one of the parties didn't intend to follow through on the vows made. If the priest were ordained, and it could be shown that it was NEVER his intention to be chaste, then his Ordination can be annulled. In other cases, when he violates his vows in an egregious manner, and shows no intention of returning to them, he can be laicized. In both cases, he is no longer associated with the Church, and is on his own.
There's another thing to remember, when considering all these cases of abuse. At any time, the abused kids parents, and the civil authorities, when made aware of the abuse, could have filed charges against these men. In some cases, the police and DA's decided NOT to press charges cause they were friends with the priest. In the case of Geoghan and Shanley in Boston, they were big Democrat supporters, and the DA's didn't want to rock that boat. There is a LOT of blame to go around in the cases that have made headlines. A lot of it has to do with the way people used to view priests, as being up on some sort of pedestal. That is particularly true up here in the Northeast. I grew up in MS, and never had that notion. I have always respected priests and religious, but not to the point where I though they could do NO wrong. They are all human, after all.
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