Posted on 06/04/2013 8:30:18 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Boy Scouts of America’s newly adopted policy of accepting gay Scouts “is not in conflict with Catholic teaching” and parishes should continue to sponsor scouting, according to a letter from the U.S. Catholic church’s liaison to the Scouts.
“We should be encouraged that the change in BSA’s youth membership standard is not in conflict with Catholic teaching” which is that gays “are to be treated with the same signity due all human beings created by God,” Edward Martin, chairman of the National Catholic Committee on Scouting, wrote in a letter.
“Scouting is still the best youth-serving program available to all youth,”Martin added. The letter was addressed to “fellow Catholic Scouters” across the country.
The Martin letter contradicts a vitriolic, name-calling anti-gay letter from a Bremerton pastor, the Rev Derek Lappe of Our Star of the Sea Catholic Church, in which Lappe said he is pulling his parish out of Scouting. Lappe wrote last week:
“Our parish cannot be involved with a group that has decided to ratify or approve the self-identification of a 10-to-18 year old boy as ‘gay’ or ‘homosexual.’ To me, it is cruel and abusive and absolutely contrary to the Gospel to in any way confirm a teenager in the confusion of same-sex attraction, which is what the New Boy Scout policy will do.
“And so we are going to redouble our efforts to create a community that is supportive of happy, healthy, holy marriages. In our marriage preparation we are going to try to get women to stop marrying such loser men who will never be capable of being good dads, husbands, and vice versa.”
The National Catholic Committee on Scouting, in Martin’s letter, takes a very different tack, explaining what the Scouts’ new policy actually means:
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.seattlepi.com ...
= = =
This looks like liberal media cherry-picking. The same National Catholic Committee on Scouting statement underlined this:
-"Any sexual conduct, whether homosexual or heterosexual, by youth of Scouting age is contrary to the virtues of Scouting."
-"As Catholics, we believe that engaging in sexual activity outside of a marriage is immoral (CCC [Catechism of the Catholic Church] 2396)."
A previous statement issued by that body immediately after the BSA vote was even more explicit: "The Catholic Church teaches that people who experience a homosexual inclination or a same sex attraction are to be treated with respect recognizing the dignity of all persons. The Church's teaching is clear that engaging in sexual activity outside of marriage is immoral. Individuals who are open and avowed homosexuals promoting and engaging in homosexual conduct are not living lives consistent with Catholic teaching."
It's interesting (to me) to think about, especially when I read of all the Church's internal scandals, problems, and compromises and hear personal testimonies of current and former Catholics that support that Fatima interpretation.
Things have changed rapidly in my lifetime, in positive ways at first, but then a sharp turn away from that path to something very different.
There are many sorts of warfare and this is an interesting sort of war we're in, but it's likely to turn into one of the more familiar versions soon. God, help us.
To me this is infuriating. The Church seems unwilling to take a definite stand on the push to legitimize gay sex. Maybe I am being paranoid, but it seems that the council the Church gives is divided. It keeps giving mixed signals. On the one hand, the doctrine is clear. On the other hand, they don’t act as if it were.
One of our jobs is to protect our kids from perverts....not encourage their presence. They’re ALL predators....there is no other way to increase their numbers. They solicit.
I note that this priest’s parish has the Traditional Latin Mass. I’m not surprised by this detail at all.
But God does call sinners to repent, which is love by God in itself.
There is a coming schism between a significant chunk of the American Catholic Church and Rome. While there are still many traditional parishes, priests and bishops, there are a growing number who have adopted the “kumbaya” approach to Christianity that we’ve seen destroy the Episcopalian, Methodist and Prysbyterian churches (and the United Church in Canada). When the split comes the Roman Catholic Church in Canada and the US will be a much smaller, but more faithful congregation. The new American Catholic Church will quickly decline into irrelevance.
And they wonder why attendance has declined.
Don’t confuse a prudential statement with the teaching of the Church.
Well put.
The letter is using a narrow legalistic interpretation to conclude ‘no problem, no violation’, while in fact the big picture is moving toward accommodation of the homosexual lifestyle and away from biblical proscription of the abomination. As you correctly point out, the letter is passively facilitating that which any real Christian should be actively and openly opposing.
Don’t confuse progressive propaganda coming out of liberal ‘Catholic’ committees (especially American ones) with the teachings of the Church.
great minds or at least Catholic minds post alike
Try the Latin Mass. It is exactly like the church I remember before Vatican II. Many in the parish home school their children.
Not in conflict? Say, what?!?
No argument. God’s love was a major purpose for Christ and Christ calls for-repentance!
Is Martin telling us that Catholic teaching can be tortured, twisted and stretched to accomodate both of these positions?
Going along to get along has severely wounded Catholicism in the US. The urge to make Jesus a sign of compromise rather than a sign of contradiction has done untold harm.
This former Catholic hoped the church would do the right thing. But I guess they had no interest in doing so.
you know we’re near the end when a church comes out in defense of a pro-homosexual policy and rebukes a priest who’s correct on the issue.
we don’t need the rcc to explain the policy change, we know exactly what it means and we know it’s ridiculous and arbitrary and is a slippery slope on purpose, and we know sodomy is not part of being morally straight.
sorry, i see it’s the acc, not the rcc.
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