Free Republic

One of the Catholic Church’s most infamously dissident prelates, Archbishop Thomas Gumbleton, died April 4 at age 94. In many ways, Gumbleton’s life was emblematic of the direction the Catholic Church took after Vatican II. He was born in 1930 and was one of nine children – a Catholic family size now rare outside of Traditional Latin Mass circles. Gumbleton and several of his siblings pursued religious vocations. He was ordained a priest in 1956, shortly before the Second Vatican Council and its use as justification to radically change Catholic worship. In 1968, Pope Paul VI appointed Gumbleton an auxiliary...

Catholic bishops sign statement to LGBT youth: ‘God created you, God loves you.’A group of U.S. Catholic bishops, including a cardinal and an archbishop, have signed a statement of support for L.G.B.T. youth, telling them, “God created you, God loves you and God is on your side.”“As we see in the Gospels, Jesus Christ taught love, mercy and welcome for all people, especially for those who felt persecuted or marginalized in any way; and the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that LGBT people are to be treated with ‘respect, compassion and sensitivity,’” reads the statement, released by the Tyler...

How weird it is that I, a layman, had to debate a Catholic bishop on the issue of the problem of homosexuality in the priesthood. It's weird because I was defending the Catholic Church's perennial teaching about this issue and Bishop Gumbleton was taking the position that their being homosexuals in the priesthood is not a problem. It was a brief debate, all of 20 minutes ... but it was enough time to see the two massively different approaches to this issue that Bishop Gumbleton and I took. What are your thoughts? Listen to the show here... [with link to...

Well, it happened 37 years late, but the Holy See finally appears to have pulled the plug on Bishop Thomas Gumbleton. This from an open letter released yesterday: On Thursday of this past week, Pope Benedict XVI accepted my resignation from the office of auxiliary bishop to Cardinal Maida. In the revised Code of Canon Law, promulgated in 1983, there is a canon directing every bishop to request permission of the Pope to resign from the Episcopal office at the age of 75. For a variety of reasons when I turned 75 last year, I wrote a letter requesting that...

DETROIT, Illinois, January 26, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, who is known as an activist for homosexuality in the Church, has handed in his resignation to the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI is expected to announce the resignation today. Bishop Gumbleton resisted mandatory retirement last year when he reached the age of 75, asking to continue on as Auxiliary Bishop to Detroit Cardinal Adam Maida. His request, given to the head of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Giovanni Re, was denied. ”Some time ago he indicated that my request to defer my resignation was not acceptable,” Bishop Gumbleton said...