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The FBI believes a Virginia man accidentally amputated his own hand while making an explosive device that may have been designed with the aim to kill 'hot cheerleaders'. Cole Carini, 23, of Richlands, arrived at the Clinch Valley Medical Center on June 2 with a missing hand and shrael wounds on his neck and throat. Several fingers on his other hand were also missing. He claimed the injuries were the result of a lawn mowing accident.

When Julie Rodgers came out as a lesbian at age 17, her mom responded by taking her to an ex-gay ministry in Dallas. Rodgers had grown up in a nondenominational evangelical church where she assumed being gay wasn’t an option. “With ex-gay ministries, it gave me the space to be honest about my sexuality,” said Rodgers, now 28. Yet that same honesty eventually led her away from ex-gay ministries. Rodgers spent several years in Exodus, the now-defunct ex-gay ministry, before deciding she couldn’t become straight after trying to date men. Instead, she has chosen celibacy. When Exodus shut down in...

When I became Catholic in 1998, as a college sophomore, I didn't know any other gay Christians. I'd been raised in a kind of pointillist Reform Judaism... This sheltered upbringing may help explain my sunny undergraduate confidence that even though I knew of literally nobody else who had ever tried to be both unashamedly gay and obediently Catholic, I was totally going to do it. No problem, guys, I got this. [snip] [M]any Christian churches are beginning to integrate gay marriage into their theology... With so many more options for gay Christians, why [not] just de-pope myself? It's that I...

The new bishop of a breakaway Lutheran denomination says there will be "no compromise" on the issue of gay pastors with its liberal counterpart, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.Bishop John Bradosky, 59, a native of Greensburg, said while he is open to dialogue between the North American Lutheran Church and the ELCA, there is a limit to what can be agreed to. Closing the breach between the two would "require some really major changes" on the part of the ELCA, Bradosky said. "I'm not sure there is an openness to those kinds of changes," he added. "We're certainly open...

She is the mother of fourteen children, who gave birth to the longest surviving octuplets in U.S history. But in disturbing comments sure to alarm social services, Octomom's Nadya Suleman has said she 'hates' her eight babies. The 36-year-old single mother also calls her six older children 'animals'

In today’s Gospel  reading for Mass the Lord says the following: Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven. In speaking this way the Lord was leading up to say that there is a noble place for celibacy, freely chosen in the Church, in the Kingdom of God. These are those who have freely renounced marriage for the sake of the Kingdom.Looking at the Translation: However, the Lord also speaks of those incapable of marriage either by...

Bishop John Jukes of Southwark was one of the leading lights – and best brains – of the Catholic Church when I was still at school. Today, much to my surprise, an email from this remarkable Franciscan appeared in my inbox, asking politely if I’d be interested in his thoughts on 87 years of celibacy. Having reported so negatively on the antics of various Catholic bureaucrats, I’m delighted to reproduce his article, whose defence of this ancient spiritual tradition is in such contrast to the sneers and incomprehension of the Church’s critics. I have always enjoyed the company of women....

Friday August 6, 2010 Prominent Lutheran Pastor: Yes, I Struggle with Same-Sex Attraction By Peter J. SmithMINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota, August 6, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Rev. Tom Brock is a senior pastor at Hope Lutheran Church in North Minneapolis who recently became the center of a controversy after his personal struggles with same-sex attraction were made public. Earlier in June, an undercover journalist with the Minnesota-based homosexual publication “Lavender” infiltrated and exposed Brock's attendance at a local chapter of Courage, a Catholic-run, prayer-based support group for men struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions.  Brock, 57 years old and a virgin by his...

Pope's Q-and-A at End of Priestly Year (Part 3) "Celibacy ... Is a Great Sign of Faith" VATICAN CITY, JUNE 17, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the third of five questions from the question-and-answer session Benedict XVI held with priests Friday evening at the prayer vigil in St. Peter's Square. The session was part of the International Meeting of Priests that marked the end of the Year for Priests. Parts 1 and 2 of the session appeared Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. Part 4 will appear Friday. * * * Europe: Q: Holy Father, I am Karol Mikloski and I come...

Friday, April 09, 2010 The Validity of Homosexual Vows of Chastity in Religious Life By Regis Scanlon We are all too painfully aware of the problems that homosexuality in the priesthood has caused the Catholic Church. When the John Jay College of Criminal Justice conducted its research into clerical sex abuse for the U.S. bishops in 2004, it found not a pedophilia crisis but what Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, described as a pattern of "homosexual predation on American Catholic youth." The first question that comes to mind is: Should the Church accept homosexuals into diocesan...

Although the Bible clearly does not support the doctrine of celibacy as a requisite to any office of the church (see Pinedo, 2008), the Catholic Church has established celibacy as a distinctive mark of the papacy and other Catholic offices. In fact, the current pope, Benedict XVI, affirmed that celibacy (imposed by Pope Gregory VII in the Council of Rome in 1074) “is really a special way of conforming oneself to Christ’s own way of life” (“Pope Pens...,” 2007). Therefore, whoever wants to serve as a priest, and finally as the Universal Bishop of the Catholic Church (the pope),...

The temptation to have sex before marriage is as old as marriage itself. More than 1,600 years ago, St. Augustine, grappling with his desires, cried out to God, "Give me chastity . . . but not yet!"What is chastity? The word is often used to mean simply abstaining from sex, as if it were equivalent to celibacy. So it may be strange to learn that, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "All Christ's faithful are called to lead a chaste life." If that meant total abstinence, how would there be any new Catholics? (After all, cloning is...

While one convention promoting sex wrapped up a weekend at the Colorado Convention Center on Sunday, another gathering that promoted abstinence drew some 4,000 people to the Denver Coliseum. The coincidence was not lost on Bob Lemming, the executive director of Pure By Choice, which organized the one-day event that featured hip-hop music, prayer and literature urging teens not to engage in pre-marital sex. Along Brighton Boulevard, within blocks of the Coliseum, a billboard advertised the "Sex and So Much More Show" at the Convention Center. "We're both talking about sex, but from a totally different perspective," said Lemming, who...

Pope shares thoughts on loveBy Richard N. OstlingThe Associated PressJust in time for Valentine's Day, Pope Benedict XVI issued an encyclical letter on love. Popular prejudice thinks a Roman Catholic priest talking about human love is "like a blind man talking about colors," Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes, president of the Vatican's council for charity, told reporters with a humorous touch unusual for Vatican news conferences. Turns out, a celibate, 78-year-old pontiff has perceptive things to say in his first encyclical "Deus Caritas Est" ("God Is Love"). Moreover, he says them with a clarity that could begin notable improvement in papal...

Editorial There are a number of difficult issues to discuss in the call for optional celibacy that 163 priests of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee issued in mid-August, while their archbishop was away on vacation. The first is a question of form: Was their missive a letter, or was it a press release? It was written in the form of a letter, but it was sent to reporters first. Let's call it a "media letter." The media letter raises another issue when it says that celibacy was optional before the 11th century. That's not exactly true. The first people to question...

MILWAUKEE -- Just a week after the Episcopal Church approved an openly gay bishop and let individual churches decide whether to bless same-sex unions, the nation's largest Lutheran denomination convened Monday to pick up a similar debate. For the 5.1 million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the discussion of homosexual marriage and openly gay pastors has its own unique twists and timeline. Homosexuals already may become pastors if they agree to remain celibate. And individual churches may bless same-sex unions despite a non-binding statement made a decade ago by the church's 66 bishops condemning such ceremonies. The Evangelical Lutherans' discussion...

He's celibate until marriage, and dates won't tolerate it June 15, 2003 BY MARY MITCHELL SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Ten years ago, Darren Washington, 33, made a dramatic lifestyle change. He decided to abstain from sex until he got married. It is a choice that makes sense in a world where sex can literally kill you. But the fear of sexually transmitted diseases was not the only thing that motivated Washington to try celibacy. Given the pain sexual relationships can cause, he wanted to be part of the solution--not part of the problem. On Saturday, June 21, he will be one of...

Montreal -- A Roman Catholic bishop has asked to be discharged from his duties to be with the woman he loves. "I don't feel I'm living in sin," said Bishop Raymond Dumais, Bishop Emeritus of Gaspé, Que., who lives with his partner in Bic, Que., about 540 kilometres northeast of Montreal. The bishop, 52, made his remarks this week on Radio-Canada, the CBC's French-language counterpart. CP