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Secular press calls the Holy Father the biggest homophobe on the planet…

And yet uber-Catholics post photos like this inviting irreverent and sophomoric comments and captions.  How very, very sad.  Sad, sad, sad - to see unemployed people wasting their vocation and academic achievements on such nonsensical theatrics. 

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And your ‘no’ mean ‘no’… - James 5

Today’s first reading at Mass reminded me of the Lord’s words from the Sermon on the Mount, “Say ‘Yes’ when you mean ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ when you mean ‘No.’  Anything beyond that is from the evil one.”  [Matthew 5:37]

Certainly these passages must give anyone pause when one considers the ongoing debate about admitting homosexuals to Holy Orders.  The Vatican just reiterated, indeed clarified Church policy regarding this issue.  All I can say is there must be a lot of homosexuals in the clergy and the episcopate to cause such an uproar over what the pronouncement means.

The Cardinal.

In fact Cardinal Rosales of Manila more or less contradicted  the Vatican’s prohibition shortly after it was made public:

Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales of Manila told reporters that homosexuals who do not “act out” can be good priests. His statement came immediately after the release of a letter in which Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone (bio - news), the Vatican Secretary of State, confirmed that a Church policy barring homosexuals from priestly training applies to all the world’s seminaries.

Speaking on Radio Veritas in the Philippines, Cardinal Rosales said that the Vatican did not intend to ban chaste homosexuals from the seminaries. “A homosexual inclination is not bad but acting it out is an entirely different matter, and that is what is written in the sacred scriptures,” he said. - CWN 

So what does the Vatican really say?

“The Vatican policy on the question, explained in an Instruction that was released by the Congregation for Catholic Education in 2005, stipulates that a homosexual identity interferes with a man’s ability to achieve what the document termed “affective maturity and spiritual paternity,” even if the individual refrains from homosexual acts. The Instruction says that anyone who identifies himself as homosexual– whether or not he is sexually active– is not an appropriate candidate for priestly ministry.”- CWN

It was meant for other people. 

I’ve known a fair share of gay priests - how do I know, because they identify as such.  I don’t care if a person identifies as SSA, (same-sex-attracted), gay, queer, homosexual, homosexually attracted, what have you.  If a man identifies himself in this way, there is obviously something “deep-seated” going on.  But many do not believe the rules apply to themselves, or they may feel they are simply meant to placate the faithful.  (Dymphna  has a short post on how confusing this issue can become - it is related to the story of a Texas bishop’s assignment of a gay priest and that priest’s subsequent resignation.)

WDTPRS?  (What do the priests really say?)

Not every “SSA” priest admits his orientation outright, although there are other signs and signals to let another person know, if he wants him to know.  For those willing to discuss the issue, many say they have made peace with their orientation and have accepted it as a gift from God.  They claim to have arrived at a place in life wherein they can be faithful to their vocation, observing chaste celibacy.  So that is good, right?  Pretty much - if he kept himself pure…

Because…

For all of the challenges anyone faces when embracing a life of chastity - I think it is much easier for a gay priest to fall prey to temptation and satisfy the urges of nature, mainly because gay sex is easily had for the taking.  Just ask any married man, or gay man in a relationship, or one who just happens to like cruising and public sex.  (It isn’t always about self-hate when guys do this stuff.  When straight men go to a brothel or massage parlor is it because they hate their sexuality or something inside themselves, or do they just want a quickie, or happen to like dirty sex?) 

Then…

There is that “favored person status“, the “club” atmosphere.  All men hang out with the guys they like and share similar interests with.  Gay men hang out with gay people - and if they are hanging out with straight people, very often these people tend to be “gay” by association.   (J. McNeil, The Church and the Homosexual, 1976)  They’re pretty much open to the artistic, more spiritual and intellectual sensitivity of the SSA priest.  In addition, SSA priests know and cultivate friendships with like-minded priests.  When they become bishops, maybe even cardinals, they continue to cultivate and maintain these friendships and contacts.  The “old boys” - “old girls” club thing.

Cover ups.

The SSA priest understands the lonely isolation of gay men, the slips and falls, and frequent addictive behaviors they can become entangled in.  Therefore they more easily excuse and even cover up their brother priest’s  sin - sometimes assuring him that there was no sin.  It can be like “protective services” for errant priests.  You don’t have to agree with me on this, but you can believe me when I tell you I know what I’m talking about.

Circumventing the rules.

To me, it is a strange obedience when a priest or religious studies and disects a rule to discover all of its loopholes in order to legitimize one’s behaviour.  A priest once explained the loopholes of the Vatican ruling to me in this way:

I have had long discussions with folks in Rome on the three criteria published in the Instruction.  They were very carefully worded so as to respect the infinite variety of souls and of Our Lord’s work in them.  They were not intended to close the door absolutely.  They are principles; their application is entrusted to those who have the grace of state to do so.

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The three criteria:  

1. those who practise homosexuality,
2. present deep-seated homosexual tendencies
3. or support the so-called “gay culture.”

Numbers 1 and 3 are self-explanatory.  Number 2 is more complex.  The deep-seated tendency is generally manifested in the individual for whom the SSA is very core of his identity.  All of his choices and all of his self-expression proceeds from what he perceives as being (ontologically) constitutional of who he is as a person.  Homosexuality as a state of being is a relatively new concept.  The traditional moral theology looks at one’s choices and behaviour: a question, not of being, but of doing, or saying, or acting out, or otherwise expressing what is an intrinsically disordered inclination. - Letter

Obedient dissent? 

Okay, perhaps SSA vocations can be reviewed on a case by case basis, thereby permitting a man with previous homosexual inclination to be ordained - that is a big risk to take though.  How can it be determined the man has resolved the issues of sexuality and the underlying psychological issues that affected the inclination in the first place?  What about a relapse?  It would definitely have to be an exception to obtain a dispensation to admit a “former homosexual” to a seminary or to ordination, and not the “rule” - as it seems to have been in the not too distant past.  That this is an issue for gay men already ordained suggests to me their personal issues have not at all been successfully resolved.

Or, Creative Fidelity?

Diogenes  has an interesting post on this same subject, he writes:

It’s no secret that the old line religious orders are the most fervid dissenters from the ban on homosexuals, and their superiors comprise a kind of Shadow Cabinet within the Church: hostile to the policy of the Holy See but outwardly deferential to its authority — and, most importantly, incubating in their ranks a parallel government and parallel apparat through which the “alternative” policies are discreetly advanced. The Shadow Cabinet’s own term for this genial subversion is Creative Fidelity, and any housewife whose husband protests he was “creatively faithful” to her during his Las Vegas business jaunt will be able to gauge the degree to which the Pope is reassured by the euphemism. - Ad dubiam. 

Yeah, so I don’t think that ”smoke of Satan” thing Pope Paul VI referred to was just about liturgical abuse either. 

Links:

David at Cosmos, Liturgy, Sex  has a couple of presentations which deal with these issues on a more anthropological, theological level, and are easier to understand. 

Nothing Extraordinary

The Vatican will ban gays from seminaries.

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Through their Health Plans.

One of the most important benefits in the life of Americans is their health plan - they can’t live without it.  (Although many people do manage to live without one, those who can’t afford health care…   They don’t do well mind you, but they manage.)  I know of a few Catholic bloggers who praise the American health care industry up one-side and down the other. 

One Catholic blogger in particular frequently disparaged those who were in favor of a universal health care system, as well as the poor people who sought health care but had no income; his advice - get a job wth health-care benefits!  Then he and his wife moved to another city and he complained about how expensive COBRA is. I wonder what he thinks now that he may be supporting abortions through their health insurance premiums?

Here is the story on the problem:

The chances are good that your health insurance plan covers elective abortions since 46 percent of all health insurance plans in the United States do so. A leading researcher urges pro-life advocates to investigate their plans to find out whether they are unknowingly supporting abortion.

During the Reagan administration, Dr. Robert Moffitt was the deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.  The money, of course, comes from the premiums that all members of the health plan and/or their employers pay on a monthly basis — including pro-life advocates.“Forty-six percent of workers today in employer-based health insurance finance abortion,” he said, according to a OneNewsNow report. “I think this is critical.” - LifeNews

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So this is my question. Would pro-life employers drop employee health-care coverage if they, along with pro-life advocates were not able to persuade Insurance companies to stop funding abortions?  Would a Catholic family opt out and stop their healthcare coverage because the insurance company covered abortions?Remember we live in a nation wherein our tax dollars are used to support organizations such as Planned Parenthood.  There are also many voters who claim to be Catholic who vote for pro-choice poiliticians.

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Warning:  Some of the food may be tainted…

And the proprietor may be too busy trying to reinvent himself to care.  But hey, decide for yourself - his comment on the new-old Cafeteria here:  “Thankfully, my blog isn’t rated on the site you cite I consider my blog a personal rather than a Catholic blog with claim to orthodoxy ™. Admittedly, ex post, the blog title was a bad idea. It was meant as a bon mot re: Ratzinger. Apparently, on the internet the accusation of ‘Cafeteria Catholic’ is ubiquitous. In my defense, I was a pup when I started. I hadn’t even known how far out some people are, Frequently, they have a lot in common, regardless of whether they’d be viewed as ‘left’ or ‘right’. Dislike for democracy and individual rights, for example.” - Vox Nova

His latest post here seems to confirm my earlier observations here.

I have to believe he really would like to change the name of his blog, but as he commented to me once:  “My blog’s really a personal opinion blog on many topics, not a ‘Catholic blog’ per se. With 2+ million visitors, it’s more popular than ever.”  And what assurance does he have all of those people would follow him to a new site?  Especially since it was the uber-Catholics who made him so popular (and contributed to his support) in the first place? 

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“Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies…”

One reason I usually refrain from silly posts on this blog is because I hope what is written here will have some credibility.  On my other blog, Abbey 1, I often post ridiculous and humorous things, along with real news items.  If I engage in jocuse lying, I label the post humor or something else to indicate it is not factual.  I never deliberately try to deceive the reader.  Lately I have been posting photos from spurious apparitions, and doing satirical posts on the same, in order to bring attention to the openess of even the devout as regards absurd lies and deceptions masquerading as heavenly messages.  In the Gospel, speaking of the last days, our Lord warns, “Even the elect will be led astray if that were possible.”

“Teach your children.”  

This week we have seen how Hillary Clinton  has been exposed in one her lies, this one regarding her visit to Bosnia  with her daughter.  I suppose she lied in order to make herself appear more macho, more capable of being the Commander in Chief.  She described the visit as extremely dangerous, landing amidst sniper fire and so on.  CBS blew the story out of the water with footage from the visit, proving Hillary and Chelsea were lying.  Hillary dismissed what she said by explaining that she misspoke, and Chelsea backed her up on that.  (Proving to me that Bill and Hillary taught Chelsea to lie like they do.)

“If there was a universal law that it was generally OK to tell lies then life would rapidly become very difficult as everyone would feel free to lie or tell the truth as they chose, it would be impossible to take any statement seriously without corroboration, and society would collapse.” - bbc.com.uk 

A week or so ago, I did a post about liars on the internet, implying that I knew of some bloggers who lie.  I wasn’t referring to anyone in my sidebar, rather other blogs I happen upon when I surf the net.  I particularly had in mind a couple of dissident Catholic blogs where the writers pretend to be faithful Catholics, although they are really schismatics and heretics.  They do not love the truth - in fact, they invent their own truth in opposition to the Church.  (They know who they are.)

“Stop lying to one another.”

I’m not here to single anyone out, I just want to bring attention to the fact that we are being lied to on a daily basis by media, big business, government, politicians, people pretending to be holy- the list goes on and on.  We know that, but can’t we do something about it?  Can’t we start saying, “She didn’t misspeak, she lied!”  “He isn’t telling the truth, he’s lying!”  “The president wasn’t misinformed, he was lied to.”  Call a spade a spade and stop lying to one another. 

(Photo:  Scene from “The Talented Mr. Ripley”) 

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Yesterday I took a friend out antiquing, and as we were driving, I happened to pass by Planned Parenthood.  I glibly pointed the building out to him and said, “That is where they do abortions - they kill babies there.”

My friend, who is around 65 years old remarked, “I thought they just helped people with family planning and birth control there.”

“Really?  You didn’t know that?”  I answered.

Obviously he is amongst those who believe what they want him to believe by using such a benevolent sounding name as Planned Parenthood.  Others may call it denial. 

[Photo:  Margaret Sanger.]

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Baptism and eternal salvation. 

When I was little, probably in first grade, I was so impressed by the doctrine that baptism is necessary for salvation, that I used to carry a jar of water with me whenever my family went for a drive.  I knew that any baptized Catholic could baptize a person in danger of death if a priest was not available.  I found an old briefcase to carry the jar of water in, and I included a prayerbook with prayers for the dying as well.  I carried it everywhere, just in case we came across an accident or someone in danger of death.  Yes, I was roundly mocked.

As a small child, I had a vivid imagination concerning hell, limbo, purgatory, and eternal salvation.  I knew my parents were living outside the state of grace - primarily because my mom was a divorced remarried Catholic, neither parent ever attended church, and my mother sometimes told me she wasn’t in the state of grace.  Thus I prayed constantly for them - so great was my fear of eternal damnation - I hated the thought of anyone going to hell.  Of course the concept of hell frightened me, but what scared me much more, was the idea that hell was eternal - so I prayed ardently that no one would have to go there.  (In the end my parents died ‘happy deaths’.)

I mention all of this as background for my outrage at the fact some ministers of the Catholic Church have not taken this doctrine as seriously as it should have been taken.  The revelation that the feminist, gender-neutral formula of baptism is not only illicit, but also invalid, is rather distressing to anyone who takes their faith seriously.  I’ve posted about this before, it isn’t an issue of language or politics, it is an issue dealing with eternal salvation.  Something feminist Gnostics obviously do not take seriously.

Will diocesean officials begin to do something about it?

Pewsitter News  has a piece on how the Brisbane Archdiocese is now having to deal with the issue.  At one church hundreds of baptisms before 2004 were performed using the illicit/invalid formula.  However, the chancellor for the Archdiocese is claiming that such  baptisms are only illicit and not invalid.  Obviously he must be misinformed or making it up, because the original  Vatican announcement clearly stated  that all such baptisms were not only illicit, but invalid, and those baptised using the Gnostic formula would have to be re-baptized.

Does anyone else see this as a big deal?  Does anyone else think this is bigger than the sexual abuse scandal?  Isn’t the Catholic Church supposed to be about the salvation of souls?  Yet the Brisbane Archdiocesan chancellor, Fr. Jim Spence gave reporters this assuring news:

It doesn’t mean it’s invalid, it just means it’s illicit, he said.

“It doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen, it means that it shouldn’t have happened.

“I guess (those affected) would have all sorts of reactions. I would hope that anybody whos troubled by it would get in touch.'’

Baptism, the first of seven sacraments in the church, is the rite of initiation into the church and is usually administered shortly after birth.

Fr Spence said the illicit baptisms did not invalidate subsequent sacraments, including confirmation, penance and marriage. - Couriermail.com.au 

BS!  Sounds like a cover to me.  I’d go ahead and have the baptism done over.  And yes - an illicit/invalid baptism does indeed invalidate subsequent sacraments.  Now, can’t you see how this could affect a soul’s eternal salvation?

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Niederauer to LifeSite News:

“At Most Holy Redeemer Church Oct. 7, I noticed no protest, no demonstration, no disruption of the Sunday Eucharist,” said Archbishop Nierderauer.  “The congregation was devout and the liturgy was celebrated with reverence. Toward the end of the Communion line two strangely dressed persons came to receive Communion. I did not see any mock religious garb. As I recall, one of them wore a large flowered hat or garland.” - LifeSite News

He is on tape distributing Communion.  He knew where he was - he knows  about the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.  See how religious decorum works when priests and religious pretend not to know?  PRETEND NOT TO KNOW!  (_x_) 

Business as usual in the American episcopate.  

“How long Lord will you look on?” - Ps. 34 

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Gay agenda and propaganda. 

My friend Paula sent me the link to the video of Archbishop Niederauer giving Communion to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence which took place last Sunday in San Francisco.  It appears he was set to deny Communion, but then one of the “Sisters” requested it, and the Archbishop obliged.  Ah!  “Reluctant compliance” again.

Anyway, I could not get the link to the video to work, but Cafeteria is Closed has it, along with a bit of commentary.  Off The Record  also has a very good post covering the event.  The entire debacle is extremely sad and a disgrace to the Archdiocese of San Francisco - expecially in light of the recent threats against the lives of high ranking members of the hierarchy for their opposition to the gay agenda.

Yet, even amongst staunch Catholic bloggers there is this odd concession to “Gay Catholics” dismissing the actions of a few radical queers as being non-representative of gay culture.  Bullshit!  If a sexually active gay Catholic, or anyone, sexually active or not, who applies the label “gay” to their Catholic identity, tells you they reject such behaviors, they are deluded.  In effect they are saying they reject all the GLBT rainbow crap they claim to support.  If you are pro GLBT you necessrily accept all the crap that goes with it.  When a gay person desires rights for themselves, they must respect the rights of others in the sub-culture - hence there is tacit approval.

“G” stands for Gay in GLBT.

Gerald writes:  ”To be sure, these nuts are not representative of gay Catholics. While being gay is not exactly a choice, running around like that is.”  I am not taking issue with Gerald in his statement, simply using it to demonstrate how many of us are taken in by gay propaganda on the road of tolerance and acceptance.

A Catholic man or woman may be same-sex attracted, experiencing their sexual orientation for persons of the same sex, but to call oneself “gay” and Catholic seems to me to be incompatable with Catholic teaching.  Gay is a poitical term, it is the “G” in GLBT.  To label oneself gay implies a person is either sexually active or accepts homosexual behavior as normative.  It implies an attachment to the homosexual sub-culture.  This goes for parents of homosexual children  who participate in organizations such as the Rainbow Sash movement.  (I’ve written about this before when I posted about “what homosexuals do“.)

Off The Record  author Diogenes makes the point so much clearer than I do:

A further point. If there existed in reality gays who were faithful Catholics — that is, if the expression “Gay Catholic” were not a contradiction in terms — it wouldn’t be the orthodox bloggers who were first and loudest to cry foul. Gays themselves — I mean the ostensibly responsible gays like James Alison and Sean Michael Winters — would pounce on Niederauer to demand he shut down MHR, banish its clergy, and toss out the twisted sisters with them. “Don’t you see,” they’d argue, “that this mock-jocular sacrilege and puerile exhibitionism plays right into the hands of our adversaries? That this is exactly the kind of sexually distorted rage that conservatives are always warning the Holy See about? That our claim to be mature, sober, and pious Catholics is blown out of the water by cross-dressing psychotics who can’t switch off their act long enough to take communion? Can’t you see that this harms our cause worse than anything the conservatives could say about us?” Well, the fact is that we haven’t heard such protests, and we won’t. And the reason is that the difference between the “presentable” gays and Sister Boom-Boom is one of tailoring rather than conviction. Skeptical? Find me a counter-example. - Diogenes 

A local “Gay Catholic” speaks out.

A rather prominent local gay activist who writes about the Catholic Church and gay issues, recently posted his thoughts on the Folsom Street Fair (see my post on that event)  and the denunciations by the Catholic League over the Miller Brewing Co.’s sponsorship of the event.  What is interesting in this man’s writings is that he often characterizes such events as aberrations in the gay sub-culture, as well as pointing to similar sexually deviant behavior amongst heterosexuals.  As if this makes it all okay.  Nevertheless, this is all part of the propaganda.  What follows is a snippet from his post, which I will not link to:

A diverse group of people - both straight and gay - participate in the Folsom Street Fair. What they share in common is a penchant for S&M. Regardless of what you may think of this type of sexual role play, the antics depicted by the Folsom Street Fair images are actually quite tame compared to what goes on at certain bars (gay and straight) every weekend around the country – not to mention other boozed-up and more public events like Spring Break on South Padre Island.

The bottom line is that gays don’t have a monopoly on certain types of behavior that objectify oneself and others. I mean, shows like Big Brother After Dark and Girls Gone Wild aren’t populated by gays. Yet what these forms of “entertainment” do have in common with events (such as the Folsom Street Fair) that do attract gays, is that they are sponsored by corporations. Is the Catholic League also going to go after these sponsors? Not likely. No, once again, it’s those “homosexuals” that are bringing about the decline of civilization as we know it. - Wild Reed

You see what I mean?  As sincere as this fellow may  be, there is a tendency to dismiss,  excuse or whitewash the aberrant behavior of some  homosexuals.  The “good ones” distance themselves from the “exaggerated” behaviors of the “few” in order to promote what is in effect  their common agenda.  As Diogenes stated, “it is a matter of tailoring, rather than conviction.”

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