The following letter was forwarded to us by one of our readers on Sept. 30. Hawaii’s Governor Abercrombie on Sept. 9 called for special legislative session on Oct. 28 to pass same-sex marriage.
Office of the Bishop
www.catholichawaii.org
1184 Bishop Street, Honolulu HI 96813–2859
808.585.3347 bishop@rcchawaii.org
August 22 ,2013
URGENT LETTER TO ALL CATHOLICS IN THE STATE OF HAWAII FROM BISHOP LARRY SILVA
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
The issue of same-sex marriage is in the limelight once again in our community, with a move for a special legislative session to vote on a bill that would legalize same – sex marriage in Hawaii. While the Catholic Church is clear in its insistence that true marriage can only be between one man and one woman, there are many people, even among Catholics, who perceive such insistence as unjust discrimination against our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. Therefore, it is urgent to clarify certain issues.
People with same-sex attraction are a part of our community, even our Catholic community, and they deserve dignity and respect. Unjust discrimination against them is not acceptable. However, not all discrimination – that is, making distinctions – is unjust. We discriminate quite justly between adults and minors, even though both have equal dignity. We justly discriminate between those who are married and those who are not, because marriage is a special societal bond that assures the continuation of the race in the context of raising children in the loving environment that appreciates the complementary nature of male and female. (If there were no such discrimination, same-sex marriage would not be an issue, since anyone who wanted to apply for any benefits could do so, whether married or not.)
There is just discrimination between parents and children, professors and students. While they are all equal in dignity as persons, they are not equal in their roles. We must therefore be discriminating about the very language of discrimination, because there are those who demonize the word and who presume that any kind of discrimination is unjust. To discriminate between heterosexual and same – sex couples regarding marriage is not, despite the hype on the streets, unjust discrimination.
If same-sex marriage becomes the law of the land, its implications will go far beyond the relationship of this or that couple. There will be long term and definitive changes in our entire culture. If same-sex marriage becomes the law, it will become “normal” or the norm for our land. If one may marry without discriminating whether the partner is of the same sex or the opposite sex, then such “non-discrimination” will become the norm in other areas, too.
Our school textbooks will have to portray sexual attraction as normal, no matter to whom one is attracted. When schools have dances, boys will have the choice of inviting a girl on a date or another boy on a date. Our youth, whose sexual identity is formed over time, will be forced to decide prematurely if they are heterosexual or homosexual, thus curtailing normal sexual maturation, with all its stumblings and challenges.
If same-sex couples are given the legal right to marry under the pretence that discrimination that excludes them from marriage is unjust, why would people who prefer several spouses at the same time not be afforded the same right? Why would we taxpayers be exempt from paying for marital benefits for all those spouses? Why would there be discrimination against those who decide to marry their mother or father, brother or sister, so that they can gain spousal benefits for them? Once we give in to the false notion that same-sex couples have a right to marry, how can we reasonably deny the same “right” to anyone who chooses to enter a “marriage” with a close relative, a minor (with consent)?
If same-sex marriage becomes “norm”-alized, would parents be considered bigoted if they raised their daughters to be attracted to boys and their sons to be attracted to girls? Or must parents now be completely neutral in steering their children toward the choice of a mate?
Would people who firmly believe that God made us male and female, and that God has revealed that homosexual ACTS are sinful be allowed to hold such beliefs? Or would they have to be “re-educated” to think as “normal” people think? Would churches that refuse to celebrate same-sex marriage because of deeply held religious convictions be deprived of the freedom to live those convictions? Would Christians, Muslims, and others who believe that homosexual ACTS are contrary to God’s law (the law that governs those whom God himself has created in such wonder) be persecuted for holding on to those beliefs that have been so sacred to us for centuries? Will the religious freedom we treasure be only a paper freedom, while we will be told what we may or may not believe?
Children will be the greatest casualties, in that they will be deprived of being raised in a loving home by a mother and a father who love them and whose love cooperated with God’s plan in creating them. When children are deprived of such a home, there will be more poverty, more social ills, more juvenile suicides, and more problems than we can imagine.
The issue goes far beyond simply the private relationship of this or that couple, and its implications will be far reaching and profound. The language of the proponents is meant to convince us that this is a civil rights issue and that anyone who does not agree is bigoted. Do not be led astray with such language, and do not allow yourself to be bullied by it. Remember, Adam and Eve themselves fell for the serpent’s manipulative promise that they would be like gods, knowing good from evil, if they just ate the fruit God had forbidden them to eat. The fruit might have been tasty at the moment, but it ultimately brought us all into a very sorry state.
Several legislators who are not in favor of same-sex marriage have told me that the loudest voices on the issue are those who favor it, while those who say they are opposed are relatively silent. They pointed out that legislators do respond to their constituents and do care what they have to say, but if they only hear from one side of the issue, they presume that everyone is fine with same-sex marriage.
IT IS TIME FOR OUR FAITH COMMUNITY TO MOBILIZE INTO ACTION.
The timing is critical, since this issue may be presented in a special legislative session within the next couple of weeks.
YOUR LEGISLATORS NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU NOW!
I therefore ask everyone to do the following within this coming week:
- · Contact both the State Senator and Representative who represent your district, and let them know how you want them to vote on this critical issue for our community. A list of legislators by district is attached to this letter, along with phone numbers and email addresses. Please be courteous, thanking them for the very difficult work they do, but be clear. It is said that some have already made up their minds, and that may be so. But minds and hearts can be changed with the influence of constituents.
- · Ask your friends and neighbors who believe that marriage should only be between one man and one woman to contact their legislators as well.
- · Pray for your legislators. (But do not let your prayers be mere words! See above.) Pray for the wisdom, courage, and commitment to contact your legislators and let them know what you think. I recommend that all Catholics offer ONE ROSARY (or at the least a decade of the rosary) each day in the next several weeks, so that the power of prayer will shape the discussions and deliberations about this critical issue. If possible, pray at all hours, walking around the block that surrounds the State Capitol (without forming an assembly that would need a permit), so that just as God tumbled down the walls of Jericho, he will be able to do so through the prayers AND ACTION of his beloved people.
- · Be understanding and loving toward those who do not agree with you – even Catholic legislators who have committed to vote for same-sex marriage. Pray for a change of heart and the formation of an informed conscience, and let your love be the most powerful agent of change. After all, God is love!
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Most Reverend Larry Silva
Bishop of Honolulu
To view original PDF of the letter, click here.
CCD, thank you for this article. I will pray over the next several days as the good Bishop asks. He is a very wise Bishop and has articulated on the subject quite well.
Oh Mary Conceived Without Sin Pray For Us Who Have Recourse To Thee. And Pray For Those Who Do Not Have Recourse To Thee Especially The Enemies Of The Church. Most Sacred Heart Of Jesus Have Mercy On Us. Saint Michael the Archangel Pray For Us!
Tracy … Gay and lesbian people who want to get married – I’m not one of them personally – are not enemies of the Church. any are Catholics themselves.
Wrong C&H , they are the enemies of the Church, they want the Church to bend to their will…. they have corrupted the Church from within…and will eventually lead to a coming schism… in the end they non-servium
The Schism couldn’t happen soon enough.
In 30 years, the Catholic Church is either going to have gone through a gradual generational change in its official view on human sexuality and what exactly is natural (not talking about abortion here), or it’s going to be all but nonexistent in Western countries, reduced to an small fringe group. The attitude of the Church is so at odds with the prevailing cultural attitudes, and increasingly so.
It’s a shame, too. Because drawing battle lines and that alienate the church from the populace on issues so far from the core beliefs and teachings of Jesus Christ is counterproductive. Defending them requires selectively quoting Leviticus (sans everything else that’s been disregarded as irrelevant and primitive), and Church Doctrine that’s more the product of the prevailing culture of 6th-17th century Europe. The Church doesn’t seem to be able to distinguish between Truth and its own tradition and culture.
This quote pretty much sums it up:
“Would Christians, Muslims, and others who believe that homosexual ACTS are contrary to God’s law (the law that governs those whom God himself has created in such wonder) be persecuted for holding on to those beliefs that have been so sacred to us for centuries?”
The key there is centuries, not millennia. It’s the tradition of the Church, not anything to do with Jesus at all.
It completely muddies the point to include Islam (which is just fine with plural marriage) as some pillar of virtue in the fight against recognizing gay marriage leading toward a slippery slope to polygamy (unlikely), and incestuous marriage (absurd).
Hugh,
You are deluding yourself because of this moral sickness. Yes the REAL CHURCH may be reduced to a remnant as Our Lady of Akita has stated. YOU cannot change what God has decreed.
When you stand before the judgment seat, you will realize that, but then it will be TOO LATE!
May God have mercy on your compromised soul!
May God have mercy on an amoral America!
Viva Cristo Rey!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Many Christians Awakening to the harsh realities of the attack on Faith are starting to “Pope Up” – and come in to full communion with the One True Church…
Others predicting a future for Catholics who fail to Pander as a “nonexistent fringe’ – have so far avoided putting on their own ‘gay genes’ and mincing down to the local Episcopal hangout…
Which despite its ‘progressive’ posture seems headed for more Homosex Activists in the Pulpit – than the Pews.
Consider the treatment of Frank Lombard (just the tip of a dirty iceberg)- compared to media treatment of Catholics:
“A gay Episcopal activist who is a fan of New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson and a Duke University official has been charged in federal court with offering his 5-year-old adopted son up for sex.
…told undercover investigators… that “the abuse of the child was easier when the child was too young to talk or know what was happening, but that he had drugged the child with Benadryl during molestation.”
SEE WRAL: White Rapists and Lombard https://townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/2009/12/07/wral_white_rapists_and_lombard/page/full
…According to the news media, the general public is not capable of processing all of this information. People in the news media are the only ones who can be trusted…
A Church without liberals would be paradise on earth
Oh, well! Someone has to speak on behalf of the devil in these forums or it would be otherwise rather boring.
Hugh,
The Levitical prohibition against active homosexuality is placed squarely with adultery, child sacrifice, sex with animals, and cursing your parents. Christ’s death and resurrection undid none of these moral prohibitions. Unlike cleanliness and dietary laws, most of these sins carried the death penalty in the Old Testament to signify grave immorality. Jesus eliminated the death penalty, but the Old Testament death penalty pre-figured eternal damnation – and this still looms as an outcome. Jesus does not eliminate the Levitical moral laws – if anything he makes them stricter. Jesus moves us closer to God’s original plan. He forbids divorce, he raises the status of women, he calls a lustful eye equivalent to adultery, and he says we are in danger of hell if we curse anyone. Paul
includes, as incest, even non-blood related circumstances that are immoral.
Accepting active homosexuality does not move us closer to God’s original plan, rather it regresses us beyond the distortions from God’s original plan permitted in the Old Testament.
Hugh, the condemnation of homosexual acts is found in the New Testament also. Jesus said concerning his apostles, “he who hears you hears me”. In 1 Cor, and in 1 Tim Paul condemns homosexual acts. Also, Some believe Jesus’ supposed non-mention of homosexuality implies active homosexuality is OK. This reflects a sub-Christian view of Scripture. This wrongly imagines only the Gospels are God’s Word. His disciples’ letters specifically mention homosexuality; Jesus, referring to His disciples says “he who hears you, hears me”.
Jesus said nothing specific concerning sex with animals or incest or pedophilia. Are we to presume these are acceptable behaviors ?
Jesus may have indirectly referred to active homosexuality when mentioning general immorality (porneia in Mark 7:21-23.). Some scholars believe 1st century Jews understood porneiai as a short-hand means to refer to the list of Levitical sexual prohibitions, which included sex with animals, incest, and homosexuality. Jesus did preached against homosexual acts – he included it with bestiality and incest.
Unlike divorce and adultery, Jewish teaching concerning homosexuality was undivided and the incidents of homosexuality probably scarce, it is more plausible to me that (unlike divorce/adultery) incest, sex with animals, and homosexuality were not prominent Jewish 1st century issues. However, when His disciples preached to the Gentiles, they encountered incest and homosexuality – and preached against it.
Canisius ~ I’m sorry you were abused. What happened?
C&H, I will make it plain, my so called mother, left my father ( who later killed himself) for a woman, yes she BECAME LESBIAN ie chose it. That was when I was about 9-10, this so called ‘life partner” was a man hater of the lowest order and abused me physically for about 7 years, until I left home joined the armed services then joined the French Foreign Legion, returned to the US. Got in contact with my twin sister (who tried to protect me, btw) and fortunately this lead to violent confrontation with the man hating life partner. This time she received the abuse, she was permanently scarred by the confrontation, a mark of pride on my part. To be very honest if my sister and girlfriend at the time were not present, this creature would not be walking among us… But I report to you with great joy this monster is now lying in a hospital bed unable to walk due to very bad hips, I understand she will be ruined financially by all the bills…. I can’t wait to stand over her grave and smile……
Canisius, pray the Sorrowful mysteries.
With all respect Anon, I have had enough of sorrow…..
Woah, Charger, I mean, C&H. Tracy didn’t call people with same sex attraction enemies of the Church. Please don’t put words in her mouth to obfuscate the meaning of her post.
We fight against the Powers and Principalities, that is the spirits that seek to defile the Bride of Christ, that is the Church. As for supposedly gay Catholics wanting to get married, there are many Catholics in bad marriages – or those that would be perceived as bad by social norms – that may be tempted to divorce, but do not get one because they are Catholic. Not out of the fear of Hell, but out of a LOVE for God and His laws.
We need to remember that theses rules for living do not descent strictly from a ‘CHURCH’, but rather from God.
C&H your comments are full of dissent from the truth about God’s plan through His natural law. Correction to your deceptive views. Correction:They ARE enemies of the church and of our Lord’s calling to honor His natural law.
The tone we hear often is the denial of immoral sinful lifestyles. Many deny and will not say that their fallen away homosexual brothers and sisters are choosing to sin by the lifestyle choices they choose against the natural law. They are confused themselves too and don’t understand how same sex disorders exist in their loved ones. In many occasions it is often puzzling. No more than comprehending other immoral sins. But God has revealed to us the root of many but when it comes to this disorder, man has chosen to not look at the root any longer because it’s complex and confusing for the human mentality of today’s comfortable lukewarm human beings. It’s much easier for them to bow down to that notion that they are OK with those choices away from God. It’s much easier to embrace it just to get along, just so they can say “who am I to judge”, what a lie, God has already judged and we are doing an injustice to the disordered by condoning their sinful choices. We need to discern and pray on how to lovingly deal with this growing disorder but we must never bow down to their immoral demands to re-define marriage or other moral issues. YOU SEE its the devil at hand here, playing with those who suffer with this disorder and he also plays with those who feel false compassion as well…he is helping them and he uses their weakness to lead many astray. That is the truth! Anyone that understands a little bit of the spiritual warfare, understands that small part at least!
Nonsense.
peter, the definition of nonsense is —behavior or language that is foolish or absurd. The definition of absurd is —contrary to common sense.
I went line by line of Abeca’s post and could not find anything foolish or contrary to “common sense” (native good judgement). Please enlighten the readers on this site as to what I or Abeca can’t see that you apparently do see.
It begins with “The tone we hear…” and ends with “…part at least.” Everything in between is nonsense.
Thank you Abeca for your beautiful and charitable post! Thank you too Tracy for your excellent and charitable posts.
Wow that really clarifies your defense of nonsense, peter. There really is no defense for sin is there, peter?
Thank you Catherine….I too praise Jesus for your perseverance in speaking the truth, that is a gift in itself. You have taught me a lot with your historical posts from our church saints. God bless you. : )
Abeca – About your 10/1 @8:35: Who are “they” All LGBT people. LGBT people who have had gay sex? Anyone who voted their concense against Prop 8? My friend the lesbian social worker who works at a crisis pregnancy center? Really, who?
Fortunately, this cleric reiterates that there are many gay people in the Church and that they ought to be treated with respect.
Unfortunately for all of us, this cleric fails to explain how gay people are to live there lives when it wants to take away the option of a lifetime of love and commitment. He fails to say how we ought to protect the children of same sex couples if we don’t provide them the protection that only their parents’ marriages can provide. If he were a pastoral bishop, he would spend more energy helping gay people live up to the forced celibacy that the Church demands, and help them raise their children in the best possible environment. Instead, he condemns institutions that desire to help gay people and their children, and respect and love their partner for life.
Homosexuality is a choice. Those who have been indoctrinated into the Homosexual lifestyle can choose to denounce it and follow Christ, or wallow in it, drag children in it, and deprive themselves, their ‘partners’ and their children of an appropriate relationship with Christ. Is it easy? No. We all have our crosses to bare. But to demand that Christ’s church stoop to accommodate… no, to celebrate… specifically condemned sinfulness in order not to offend the sinner… I don’t think so. If homosexuals truly love their partners, and they know that unrepentant homosexual behavior will lead to damnation, is it more loving to engage their partner in those behaviors (and expose their children to it… convincing them that it’s acceptable when it isn’t) or to encourage their partner(s) to come to Jesus and leave behind their sinful ways? God doesn’t make people homosexual… Ask yourself, were all the people in Sodom and Gomorrah born homosexual? I think not. Well, how then did they get that way? So, do want to bring up your children to follow Christ, or the demonic… ? A loving Christian parent would choose…. Christ. No one ever died from a lack of homosexual sex. Christ asks us to deny self, and serve others… not wallow in self indulgence.
Scub:
You have said everything that needs to be said!
Let the Truth Ring Out!
Your comments and explanation must be given the widest circulation possible as it is the Truth!
Smokers and Alcoholics can quit if they want to and really try…so can the homosexuals and lesbians and transgendered! All it takes if Will Power not wishy washy excuses.
peter,
When you stand before the Supreme Judge, I dare you to try to tell HIM, nonsense!
May God have mercy on your sinfully compromised soul!
May God have mercy on an amoral America!
Viva Cristo Rey!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Sub, I’m sorry but homosexuality is not a choice. Bisexuality is not a choice. Heterosexuality is not a choice. Even the Church does not teach that sexual orientation is a choice.
YFC?, increasinly pedophilia does not look like it is a choice either.
https://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/14/local/la-me-pedophiles-20130115
That’s why they have the sex offenders list.
Anonymous, so there may be at least one sexual condition having some biological roots that is disordered. If there is one, there may be others. Clearly, having biological roots does not, in itself, make the activity valid.
When did homosexuality become a choice. Is this some new science that hasn’t been published yet? It doesn’t matter if you think it is unnatural or sinfull, but you can’t call it a choice. People are born that way, and for most it shows up early in life.
Can’t remember when I “chose” to be a lesbian. I really remember really, really liking a girl in the 3rd grade long before I knew what sex was. Two of my brothers were gay. Our family was loving, stable, Catholic. Go figure.
Are you by any chance Philipina?
Nope YFC Irish on one side German on the other.
C&H: Left you a comment on the Pelosi thread about Pope Francis. Sorry I was late – lost track of how to access older posts.
Lord help us…we now have a new gay activist here…..C&H ….you do more harm in distorting your true sexuality and what is disgusting at best is your words here on a Catholic website. It feels like I am on a gay website instead. Disgusting. I think it’s best I finish up with this thread and not entertain all this dysfunction and disrespect to our Lord with those who flaunt their immoral sexuality here!
You do no honor to our Lord with openly displaying without shame about your sexuality. Its nothing to be proud of. God have mercy. I will check out the rest of this thread and see what I need to reply too and then not reply again to this filth. Go see a Therapist C&H…a Christian one. First go to confession. I recommend that you and YFC and others seek out some help for their same sex disorder but first embrace and honor God so you can be open to such therapy. If not, then live a chaste lifestyle and it also means not leading others into sin by your words and edifying of such things against the natural law. Walk with Christ and carry your cross.
Abeca.. I was away over the weekend and just saw your post to me. I don’t know where to start! Believe me, no gay activist would ever think I was a gay activist. No, my Lesbian potluck group doesn’t count. Abeca .. please read the CCC section 2358. It clearly tells you that my sexuality isn’t “disgusting.” Why do you think I need a therapist. If life’s troubles get to be too much, I have friends, family and especially my pastor. I DO go to confession though my sins, as serious as they are, arn’t the “exotic” ones some here may imagine. I do try to honor God as best I can. Abeca, please see a priest and talk to him about what the Church teaches about gay people, especially the difference between orientation and acts.
Utter nonsense both Bob One and C&H, as someone who was surrounded by queers, it is a choice.. they chose to destroy my family..
Your family may have been destroyed, mine is quite intact, thanks.
YFC I can honestly say that I detest your very existence..with your snide comments…hate is a terrible thing to waste
I can think of no better example of a person living a life of love and commitment and yet chastely than an old friend of my family. She was an only child and never married but became part of our family and brought the community, our family and many others much comfort and help in trouble. At her funeral were many people who can attest to the difference she made in their lives. She is still greatly missed. She never had much but what she had she shared. She wasn’t a Catholic, but she was a Christian and lived her faith. Are you trying to tell us that homosexuals are incapable of chastity and living a faithful life like this? To me, it’s nothing to do with one’s sexuality but one’s ability to live according to what Christ calls us to be. When one chooses to define oneself by one’s sexual nature, he or she already precludes that it is IMPOSSIBLE to follow Christ because they’ve already closed the door. It’s about the life of the spirit, not the body. It’s about giving not taking. It’s about truly loving, not having to be loved.
Dana, no I’m not trying to tell you this: “Are you trying to tell us that homosexuals are incapable of chastity and living a faithful life like this?” Nor am I trying to tell you this: “one chooses to define oneself by one’s sexual nature”, any more or any less than heterosexual people are defined, in part, by their sexual nature. But what I AM trying to tell you is that same sex couples are just as able to live a lifetime of love and commitment as any equivalent opposite sex couple. I AM trying to tell you that they are raising children in the context of that life, and therefore, that couple and their children ought to have the benefits and obligations of civil marriage.
Marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman. Christians cannot participate in the redefinition of marriage. It is a sacred institution. We cannot support same sex marriage. Of course there will be good things and bad things about it. The good does not outweigh the bad and even if it did, we could not participate without betraying our mission on this earth. Marriage is under attack from Satan because the family is under attack from Satan. There are only a few who sacrifice themselves for God. This is not social work; this is salvation. You must not project your feelings about this onto God. There are consequences for this that you do not foresee and you must listen to those who do.
“Are you by any chance Philipina?”
Dear YFC, the word is actually “Filipina.” And then of course “Filpino” for a gentleman.
When I first read your question, I thought you were asking about this lady’s name — and then my thoughts went to the Philippians, but I realized you were probably not going in that Biblical direction.
Well, my heart goes out to you YFC. I truly feel your frustration and it’s got to take great perseverance to be caught between two worlds. You take such a beating on this web site and take another beating in defending your faith to your ssa friends. It has to be wearing. I find it so just being the only Catholic in my family and the only believer in most of our friends. All I can say is I feel like you are a brother in the faith and though I feel you’re greatly in error, you’re a loving person and I can only pray that God will open your spiritual eyes. I don’t judge you but fear for you, YFC, if that makes sense. I have found in my many years on this earth (I’m certainly old enough to be your mother) that pride truly is our greatest enemy because it is disguised as our greatest friend. Peace, friend. Like Abeca, I have to quit posting here too…it just makes me so utterly sad.
YFC, I feel for the children, but same sex marriage is the wrong solution. We have a duty to help those children. We also have a duty to God and to the Church, to our nation and to the human race to preserve the institution of marriage in the manner that it is willed by God. God will send help from his holy places. Please realize the danger in changing the building block of society. All things that harm the family and marriage- divorce, contraception, abortion, materialism, consumerism, individualism- have taken a great toll and have left our nation and the world very vulnerable. And the children are the greatest victims.
Troll on as usual, Your Fellow Catholic. The lifetime of love and commitment you speak of for a Catholic is to be directed toward God. And it is God who has set the guidelines of distinction in this instance, not the Church and not Bishop Silva. Or would you have the Bishop teach the flock to trade in the reality of Eternal Salvation for the Lentil of – queue the violins – a ‘lifetime of love and commitment.’
I’d venture to say you would, having read your other posts.
The shortsightedness of folks who can only see the sentimental aspects of the here and now, the what-about-love crowd, is perfectly illustrated by your rebuttal. Sadly, that is what harms children for the long term.
There is no need for any trading since all love is from God. Pursue love and you pursue God. It’s just that simple.
Great job promoting feel-good naiveté, Fellow Catholic. Yes, there is trading. Pursuing false love that is love directed at fulfilling your earthly needs in direct disobedience to the teachings of Holy Mother Church (That is, “He who hears you, hears Me.) is choosing the Lentil.
But then Esau was just choosing the love of food and immediate gratification. Poor hungry baby. Judas was merely choosing his love and/or need for money and an earthly king who would kick the Romans out. Misunderstood zealot.
As a seeming follower of the Beatles (All We Need is Love), you may think that way. It sure reads as if you do.
So I say again, “Troll on.” Your regular postings of that which is opposed to the Faith is nothing but fodder to merit. Thank you!
You do understand who Esau sold his birthright to, don’t you? You do understand the significance of that in salvation history? You do understand the outcome of Judas’ decisions, don’t you? This is accomplished; it is finished. Do you understand? And YFC is correct-all love comes from God. But the good is the enemy of the best. Human love pales compared to Divine Love.
Yes, Anonymous, I do understand who Esau sold his birthright to. And it’s significance in Salvation history. The same goes for Judas and his choices. (Our Lord stated that it would have been better for Judas had he never been born.)
What I do not understand is your reference to “It is accomplished: it is finished.” These allude to Christ’s words on the Cross and yet, we are still called as human beings to correspond with Christ’s accomplishment. We are free to reject it, you know. Choosing our own constructs in lieu of the self sacrifice which crucifies the flesh.
That said, I’d be pleased to hear further thoughts from you on the subject as I would like very much to understand your point.
Regarding YFC, however, I cannot agree with you that all that is termed ‘love’ comes from God. For much of what passes for love, human love, is really self-directed and disordered. The ‘love’ a woman has for a married man is not from God, not in the sense that it is acted upon in an immoral fashion.
And you are correct, the ‘apparent’ good is the enemy of the best. That is why I take issue with folks deriding those in the Church who, by their very calling, are to lead souls to Perfection (or at least the constant striving for such) instead of settling that leads to earthy happiness and Hell afterward.
First of all, I want to make sure that you know that YFC has posted that obeys the church. Secondly, it is finished. I think you rightly understand that salvation is accomplished. It is the will of God. It can be rejected, you are correct. YFC has not rejected it. All men sin. We are not to judge others. YFC should understand that the temporal good that he is seeking from civil same-sex marriage is a lesser good that the destruction of way marriage and family as desired to be accomplished by God. But to be honest-not many here discuss that. The discussions always descend into attacks and disrespect and bigotry. Human love can be selfish but then it is not love for the other, is it? I think God calls souls to perfection. A person can help by several mans but it must be left to God. You should not assume that YFC is choosing hell. If you read his posts, he is obviously not. I disagree with some of what he writes and I sometimes think he has been influenced by someone who has not told him the truth. He is accused of standing up for sodomy but he has not done that. He is falsely accused of many things. Many who post here are not in conformity with the Church. We try to correct but we are just voices on the internet. We must pray for all.
Anonymous: Nobody is judging YFC, but rather commenting on what he writes. I am in no way saying that YFC chooses Hell personally. I don’t know his life. But promoting the same sex marriage idea under the guise of charity is misleading as it is precisely this misplaced ‘lesser of two evils’ – I will not say the lesser good because directly disobeying the Natural law and God’s law is never good – that is sinful in that it has the potential to encourage others to break with Christ and choose human/earthly needs over Christ’s call to perfection. Simply put, if you believe that YFC has been misled, then the same can be said for the potential misleading folks are engaging in by promoting the false good and/or necessity of Same Sex marital unions.
Thanks for clarifying, Anonymous. I appreciate it.
“First of all, I want to make sure that you know that YFC has posted that obeys the church.”
Anonymous, You have posted the very same thing about other homosexual activists and you have never been able to cite the post. So for the sake of clarity please cite the exact post or posts where YFC wrote that he obeys all Church teaching. Many have asked YFC and he dodged the question and never answered those who asked him. Now you are claiming that YFC posted that he obeys the Church. That would be very good to read so once again please cite the post.
It is just re-hashed “sky is falling” sensationalist nonsense.
peter, sin causes souls to fall, not the sky. By the way, I find it hard that you aren’t discriminating about something. Like would you love to have me at one of your parties?
I see where the pro-“gay” retorts are now popping up. Re respecting “gays”, I disrespect what they do, but I don’t go around treating them individually like bad people. Again, it is a situation of hating the sin, but not the sinner.
Tracy what a horrible disgusting thing to say I am using children as human shields. Unlike you, I actually care about those children. You want to throw them under the bus.
When all of us were growing up, male or female, we all had friends, some better friends than others, HOWEVER, to have a sexual attraction to someone of the same sex is NOT natural! Our best friends never became our partners in marriage.
In our early teens, several other boys and I drove on our bicycles to a nearby farm and stopped to watch the many chickens. There were likely about 1,000 of them, and yes even some roosters, as were soon realized. The roosters had a red crown on the top of their heads and the chickens did not.
What really drew our attention to 25 to 30 birds, was that all of them, were roosters, and they were chasing ONE rooster and all attempting to peck it with their beeks or the claws on their feet if they could jump in his back. It was round and round the hen house the went for at least 5 minutes until the Lone Rooser was exhausted, then all of the more than 25 other roosters continued to peck the body and pull out the feathers. At the time we felt that the roosters were so cruel to one of their own, and there was no farrmer around to interfere and the fence around the chickens and roosters was too high to climb. The pecking did no stop until the lone rooster was dead.
Only later in life did we discover that roosters do not like of put up with a rooster that likes same sex roosters and they got rid of him in the only way they knew how.
Your story is utterly ridiculous and pointless, and based on your false notion that homosexuality is a choice and should be punishable by brutal torture and death.
It is the rising above the natural instinct by way of GRACE, that keeps humans from doing as those chickens do, Fellow Catholic. It is also GRACE that encourages Catholics, no matter how mean and seemingly dogmatic it sounds, to hold to the Truth that homosexual acts are inherently disordered as they make use of that which is intended for reproduction to do the exact opposite.
That said, can we keep the over dramatization of ‘ridiculous, pointless, etc’ to a minimum.
” If he were a pastoral bishop, he would spend more energy helping gay people live up to the forced celibacy that the Church demands, and help them raise their children in the best possible environment. ”
YFC, The priests and bishops who defend and uphold Catholic Church teaching are pastorally the kindest and most charitable shepherds. They won’t lie and tickle your ears to help you land in hell and they won’t tell you that it is now an acceptable time in history to disobey Almighty God. The best possible environment for children is to have a father and a mother. This “cleric” who you failed to show proper respect for by using his name, did not design this plan, God did, so take it up with God on your particular judgment day and try telling God how he failed. If you were truly a loving friend you would refrain from encouraging others to offend God. You would spend more energy telling others that you were truly sorry for ever leading them away from God.
Catherine, like it or not, gay people sometimes have children. They are not going to be un-parents just because you don’t like them or because you wish they had heterosexual parents. Those children deserve all the help we can muster to grow up healthy and happy. Treating those children as second class citizens, trying to make them feel like they should be ashamed of their family, and demanding that society not provide their families with marital protections is a crime against these kids. You and the Good Bishop ought to think through how your discrimination against their families makes it much tougher for them to grow up to be healthy productive members of Church and society.
Just today there was a report of a legally married couple in Monterrey Mexico whose daughter was EXPELLED from school and removed from the school property by guards because her parents refused to pretend that they were indeed her parents. This may be literally criminal in Mexico. But this is the way you want these children treated. Morally reprehensible, if you ask me.
“Catherine, like it or not, gay people sometimes have children.”
YFC, Like it or not, God’s wrath and justice will prevail for those who have selfishly used, scandalized and corrupted the innocence of His little ones with their unnatural perversions. All the more reason why you should immediately repent and not waste time while you are incurring God’s wrath.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice: Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable.
Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and of fourfooted beasts, and of creeping things.
Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.”
cont.
“For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error.
And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers, Detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy. Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.”
— Romans 1:18-32 (Douay-Rheims)
Fellow Catholic: The fact that ‘gay’ people have kids is testament to their having had relations with a person of the opposite sex and/or having gone out of the bounds of Church teaching to seek artificial insemination. The PARENTS are the ones who are forcing their children into a situation of apparently being ‘second class citizens’. Not the Church.
The same could be said for kids born out of wedlock. I mean – do you believe it is the Church’s fault that an illegitimate child is subject to the reality (not social construct) of being illegitimate?
That’s part of the meaning of – and I’m paraphrasing here – ‘the sins of the parents will be visited on the children up until the 4th generation’. That is not a malediction or a call to the Church to declare sin doesn’t exist, that is just a statement of what happens when people forge ahead with their FEELINGS.
What would you say to the State if parents insist on driving their kids around while drunk, or taking them along for a bank heists, or exposing them to pornography. Some people – parents – do these things. The law doesn’t stop them. But it isn’t the fault of the state that these children are at risk and/or marginalized in their lack of protection. It is the fallout of free choice and parents who CHOOSE the bad and then want someone else to take the blame and/or clean up their messes.
Again, I ask, can we cut out the hearts and flowers and estrogen in these conversations and stick to logic.
This passage does not end at the end of chapter 1. It continues. Read the whole letter until you understand it.
So Catherine, instead of quoting scripture, how about proposing a plan to give these kids the best upbringing possible. Is it really such a tough question that you have to resort to scriptures that don’t even speak to the point of what these children deserve?
YFC who’s gonna like “gays” having children? No one is…like we don’t like child abuse or abortion. Catherine is right on what she says.
“So Catherine, instead of quoting scripture, how about proposing a plan to give these kids the best upbringing possible.”
YFC, These are God’s children, not bargaining chattel or goats. I don’t have a better plan to propose than God’s plan and you have rejected God’s plan for yourself and for innocent children. Now you want others to come up with a plan. That is selfish planning to begin with at the expense of innocent babies and children. Homosexual activists are not really interested in any plan except the plan that validates their *pretend illusions of same sex mirages.* Homosexuals who have chosen to ignore God’s plan will have to live with the terrible future consequences of the generational pain and suffering that they have selfishly inflicted upon these innocent children. Now after ignoring God, you all of the sudden want others to come up with a plan and undo the terrible damage to children that you and other activists had absolutely no qualms with causing. That is why I quoted Scripture (God’s plan) to you. Your best plan is to repent and to work tirelessly to undo any damage and make reparation for any harm that your own personal bad example may have caused.
Homosexuals have used innocent children as their protective shields in a selfish attempt to validate their sins. As Ann Malley earlier stated, “It is the fallout of free choice and parents who CHOOSE the bad and then want someone else to take the blame and/or clean up their messes.” “And whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me; it were better for him that a millstone were hanged around his neck, and he were cast into the sea.”…Luke 17:2 Douay-Rheims
Catherine, some of us wish to base our civic decisions in the reality based world of a pluralistic America, in which people people are recognized to have a right to believe whatever religion they wish, or none at all. So this position of yours ignores the religious liberty of people who do not share your faith, and as well, condemns innocent children to lifetime of less than equal access to easily available ‘helps’ towards their full development. It’s just this simple. These children will suffer more than they need to because of people like you.
YFC Catherine does not have to re-invent the wheel…God has already given mankind a plan and Catherine honors it, all she has to do is remind everyone their duty to it! Which she already does. You sure are not listening or reading her comments. Pay close attention and you won’t have to waste time asking what already is a given!
Catherine, you have just exposed YFC for using children as human shields.
YFC, using children as human shields is the most vial thing one can do to a child. Your logic is sick indeed.
YFC: It seems you are more concerned with the supposed earthly welfare of those opposed to Christ than the salvation of their souls.
And whereas you believe that ‘children’ – your favored violin – will suffer more by Truth, you seem to have no care at all for offending God and/or harming society and whole generations with the promulgation of lies.
Translation: Moses has been up on the mountain for too long. He ‘must’ be dead. Let’s craft the golden calf we left in Egypt and worship god that way. The pagan way. Then the Egyptians will welcome us with open arms.
http://www.marriageuniqueforareason.org
YFC. where do you see the line that “there are many gay people in the church”? Re-read it. That line is not there. This is what the Bishop said, “there are many people, even among Catholics, who perceive such insistence as unjust discrimination against our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.” He then went on to quite effectively explain what the definition of “to discriminate” really means. and how we apply this in everyday life.
YFC – The Church can not approve of any sexual sins – sodomy, fornication, adultery, masturbation, or pornography.
The Church wants all of her children to get to Heaven.
CCC: “2349 People should cultivate [chastity] in the way that is suited to their state of life.
Some profess virginity or consecrated celibacy which enables them to give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart in a remarkable manner. Others live in the way prescribed for all by the moral law, whether they are married or single.
Married people are called to live conjugal chastity; others practice chastity in continence:
There are three forms of the virtue of chastity: the first is that of spouses, the second that of widows, and the third that of virgins. We do not praise any one of them to the exclusion of the others. . . . This is what makes for the richness of the discipline of the Church. “,
YCF, by asking the Church to approve same-sex marriage, you are asking for the approval of SODOMY.
Please read: “Gen 19:1-29; Rom 1:24-27; 1 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10.
God’s will, not our will.
PETE,
You can quote Holy Scripture and Messages from Heaven to you are Blue in the Face but they won’t listen. They are listening to the Father of Lies!
If Our Lord or His Mother came to them, they would tell Them that They don’t know what they are talking about. Some would be so blind as to tell Them, “Nonsense”!
May God have mercy on an amoral America!
Viva Cristo Rey!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
You do realize that the Old Testament is a collection of myths, legends and Judaic tribal laws, filtered through generations of oral history/retellings, and even the New Testament is subject to the biases, contemporary culture, and subjective interpretation of translators… And the Church has a long history of Socratic dialogue and scholarly interpretation by human beings subject to the same biases.
There plain Truth and consistency in Biblical verses, and particularly in the Teachings of Jesus, and frankly, sexual politics (in the New Testament) are incidental to core teachings (evidenced by grasping for a single passage), and in the Old Testament, they’re bizarre and easily dismissed (Deut 22:28-29, for instance).
If someone were to stumble upon this blog knowing nothing of Catholicism, the impression would be that it’s a fundamentalist religion concerned primarily with, and almost entirely opposed to, sexual behavior.
I must come from some other planet, but the Catholicism I know values reason, charity, insight and moral purpose I see glaringly absent in the sanctimonious condemnation of others so prevalent here. This is making me realize I’m not a Catholic at all. Thanks.
Hugh: The focus on this particular thread with regard to moral issues is merely a testament to folks staying on point with the topic of the original article.
As for your new realization, perhaps you should go back to the basics of the catechism and ask yourself the hard ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of your Faith. Your questioning is normal and healthy and all part of growing. Much like impassioned debate.
Hugh, this is the Catholic teaching on the Bible: God is the author of sacred scripture. They were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The inspired books teach the truth. All that the inspired authors taught should be “regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit…the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scripture.” As for its interpretation: “Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written.” I am sure you are a Catholic. This website made me question the validity of Catholicism, too. Because Jesus Christ said “By this all men will know you are my disciples, by your love for one another.” But I eventually recognized that the cruel remarks made by Catholic individuals should not be generalized onto God’s Holy Church. Wheat and tares; dragnet, remember? The Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Christ. He is in agony. One can pour balm on His Wounds by praying for the conversion of sinners and by loving them and overlooking their faults.
Hugh don’t go away mad … just go away
Once YFC grasps the fact that lust is not love it may find its way toward some semblance of recovery as a morally balanced human being.
Bishop Silva sounds like a very intelligent and articulate gentleman.
Of COURSE we discriminate at times, as he says — for instance, a man cannot use a woman’s restroom at the airport. But this is JUST discrimination.
In such a manner, our own Archbishop, Salvatore Cordileone, has talked about the need our children have for a mom and a dad, if at all possible.
We should not experiment with family life just to make the grownups feel better: family life should focus on the little children and what’s best for them.
Anyone who is gay and seeks help from the Church in living up to what you are calling “forced celibacy” has my respect and encouragement, YFC. In a way, though, the term is not a fair one, since all of us are asked to choose celibacy most of our lives, that is, until we are married, and most couples do not want marital connection every day or hour of their lives, meaning that even during married years, usually one partner is living with at least temporary celibacy, until the other partner is willing to connect. We are taught to choose to remain faithful and patient, but we are not forced to, of course. Most people do, judging from all I read and hear. Then the years in married life when sexual connection becomes less urgent, less frequent, or non-existent, or the years one is left alone through their partner’s illness, death, divorce or abandonment, we are taught to choose to remain celibate again. Most people who follow these rules and live out a normal lifespan will experience more days of abstinence than sexual fulfillment, again, not by being forced, but because real life is somewhat different from that which is presented to us by the media, and sex is but a part of it. To see celibacy as forced is to fail to see that it is a choice, just as to abstain from lying, stealing, and hurting others are matters of choice, consciously considered and usually selected by those who wish to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Holy Roman Catholic Church, which is also a choice.
Maryanne, I support anyone of any orientation that chooses celibacy as a form of spiritual discipline. The problem is that in every other case, celibacy is a chosen aspect of life, and it is from that choice that spritual benefits flow. But if a person is required to be celibate because of how they were created, then it really isn’t a choice.
I would also point out that it is a choice whether or not to recognize love when one sees it. It is sad and unfortunate that many members of our Church refuse to see love when it stares them in the face. I attended a wedding last week, and the reception followed on Sunday. The lov e and commitment between these two was absolutely amazing, and everyone there celebrated it. It is just so sad to me that many of us scowl up our faces and refuse to see what is so obvious. Fortunately, Catholics are more and more choosing to see love for what it is.
YFC,
For the love of God, stop calling yourself Catholic!
May God have mercy on your morally compromised soul!
May God have mercy on an amoral America!
Viva Cristo Rey!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Amen to that YFC.
I pray, Fellow Catholic, that Catholics would choose to accept love in the way that Our Lord has defined it, not in the way our human sentiments and emotions. ‘Seeing’ isn’t believing. And we are called to Faith, not agreement and/or satisfaction of our own limited concepts of what ‘true love’ is.
Our Lord on the road to the Cross, said, “Weep not for me, but for yourselves and your children.” Why? Because, by human standards, his road looked painful, unjust, scary, and really hard. But Our Lord was doing the will of His Father and Ours.
So as to your sentiments of ‘recognizing love when one sees it,’ I would reiterate the words of Christ to St. Peter when Peter was being oh-so logical in saying they could just avoid Jerusalem. “Get behind me Satan!”
Fellow Catholic: It is from the Sacraments that grace flows, not choice. Or is choice the unofficial eight sacrament?!
YFC, this notion that two people need to love one another before they wed is a modern day notion. For millennia, and even in some cultures today, people were given to one another in arranged marriages. No one questioned whether or not these marriages were valid. Clearly love was not the reason for the marriage. Something much deeper existed here. When Jesus stated that the two become one, he meant this for all married couples regardless of their feelings for one another. This is probably why his disciples found His teaching on divorce to be so difficult.
Unfortunately today, with contraception and sterilization almost considered a requirement by many in our society, to make healthy bodies unhealthy, is it any wonder that many think sex is primarily for enjoyment and marriage an arrangement to obtain special status and privilege in society? Marriage is a deep mystery if you really think about it. A newly formed life created by God is also a deep mystery. Pride thinks that we now have it all figured out and under control. Humility is an undervalued virtue these days.
YFC? God did not create homosexuality. You teach falsely. There is no such teaching in the Catholic Church. It is your insertion. The catechism says God directly created your soul. It says your body was created through physical processes (Catholic Catechism for Adults page 68) and these processes are subject to Original Sin. Homosexuals insist homosexuality has biological roots. I suspect so also. But these roots are a consequence of Original Sin as is death, disease, and other disorders. Homosexuality is a corruption of heterosexuality and not a creation of God. Nor does your false teaching explain why God would consider homosexual acts immoral (in both Old and New) if he created homosexuality. Your belief makes no sense. It is a lie that you need to repeat until people believe it to be the truth.
YFC?, Proverbs 30:5-6 Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.
Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.
YFC?, you lie when you add that God created homosexuality. Please turn away from your false teaching.
kaves1,
Thank you for really clarifying that YFC does not accept or obey teachings of the Catholic Church regarding homosexuality. There is a poster who is now using the name “anonymous” who wrote that YFC posted that he obeys Church teaching. Previously a poster using the name k would also run interference to claim that other homosexual activists on CCD also obeyed Church teaching. So as not to deceive or confuse new readers I have asked anonymous or kanonymous to please cite the specific post or posts where our newest activist YFC stated that he obeys all of the teachings of the Catholic Church. Your post helps to clarify that YFC and other homosexual activists on this website have wrongly been taught that God created homosexuality. Your post also helps to clarify that there are trolls who are deliberately misrepresenting the teachings of the Catholic Church.
I think the title of the article nailed it. It’s just discrimination.
Everyone discriminates…right from the time you first wake in the morning!
Your decide (discrimanate) whether of get up or just turn over and go back to sleep.
Next, if you decide to get out of bed, you again discriminate as to which side of the bed to get out of!
Again, when you enter the bathroom, you once again discriminate as to what you will do first, second and third and maybe forth. Toilet, shave or not if you are a man, wash, brush teeth, brush hair, etc. All decided by DISCRIMINATION as you make the CHOICE.
What clothing you will wear is again Discrimination by you.
Eat or skip breakfast…discriminating again!
This can go on all day until you go back to bed at the end of the day.
In this day of political correctness, we aren’t supposed to say anything that might offend anyone, no matter how offensive or perverse the behavior. A person who is attracted to persons of the same sex has choices. He/she could try psychotherapy to become heterosexual, which is sometimes successful: or a person could live a life of celibacy and chastity. Many heterosexual people choose such a life and are happy and successful. One does not have to be sexually active to be happy, despite what the media tells us. If a person is ruled by his/her hormones, that person’s life is already sadly limited.
Sarah there is no psychotherapy that converts someone from being gay into being homosexual. It just is not successful, and the few ex-gay groups out there are finally admitting that. And I’m not sure where you get that gay people are “ruled” by their hormones. No more so than straight people.
Single heterosexual men and women are called to the celibate life, Fellow Catholic. And whereas Sarah says that many heterosexuals choose the celibate life, many do not. They just don’t encounter that ‘right person’.
This means they need to practice the chastity of their current state. Homosexuals are called to this same challenge. And it is a challenge. But God does not give one a cross to carry without granting adequate grace to carry it – provided said person doesn’t reject that grace and/or deny it’s efficacy to handle the issue. As difficult as it may be.
Being an active sodomite is a sure fire way to the hospital and Hell…yup. you get the aids virus, and die horribly and often in great pain! If you don’t repent of the grave sin of “sodomy” , you now reside in Hades, for all eternity…one must make a good act of contrition, in order to be reconciled with Holy Mother Church…God loves all people and gays and aids victims as well…He doesn’t approve of this sinful lifestyle, and as we all know the wages of sin are death…pure and simple…you reap what you sow…you patronize gay bars and indulge in buggery…you get “the aids”…and check out horribly, in great discomfort… keep your pant on, and strive for holiness…virtue comes in the struggle…indulging in the perversion of buggery is a one way ticket to Gehenna…you savvy?
Get over it!
TEM, get over what?
TEM –
Get over our love for the Holy Trinity! Forget it!
It is best that you and your satanic colleagues get over it.
A truly cogent and charitable statement by a cleric on the issue.
Same-sex attraction is a passion and in an individual of faith can be overcome through self-mastery and grace.
But it’s only a false faith that would require such a thing . . . .
If you say that Catholicism is a false faith, as it does ask chastity of us all, I am questioning why you are posting on this site, Peter. Notice that I choose to capitalize your name, as either it is a proper noun, which requires capitalization in written English, or you are using a vulgar term for penis as your handle and thinking we too stupid to figure out what you are doing. I think it is clear that you are indulging yourself mentally on a site meant for Catholics, and your posts are unfailingly snarky, sashing, anti-Catholicism, and generally personally aggressive, to say nothing of meritless. I think we have to define you by your posts, attitudes, and aggressive attacks on people as pure troll, and I suggest that if you will not cease posting here, that the editors should save us as individuals and as Catholics from any more of your nasty posts against individuals and against Catholicism. It is this tendency to nastiness, sarcasm, anti-Catholicism and sinfulness that makes it hard for Catholics and other members of the general public to support the cause of homosexuality. Sinfulness aside, for the moment, most of you are not very nice people. If you were to go through all the posts from homosexuals here on our site alone, you will see that only a few homosexuals conduct themselves in such a way as to merit respectful discourse. Your posts stand out as among the more aggressive and anti-Catholic, and I don’t understand why you are not banned for life, and your name not capitalized rather than allow our site to be used by someone whose posts are obscene, mean-spirited and filled with hatred for Catholicisms as are yours.
My name is peter. I post here because I am troubled when religion is blatantly misused. Religion for many is a convenient shield for bigotry; it allows one to indulge deep-seated hatred as religious expression. Accuse me of indulging myself mentally on a site meant for Catholics, but while that may be true to some extend, I am not alone, for clearly to many “Catholics” this site too is nothing more than a sounding board to refine and hone their bigotry to the point where it becomes some nuanced brand of self-serving religious fanaticism. Is that still Catholicism? Is that still Christianity? Is that still righteous discernment? In that regard, is it really just my posts that are obscene, mean-spirited and filled with hatred . . . ?
Peter we really don’t care what you think. What you call “bigotry” I call truth,, what you call “born this way” I call perversion.. What you want is affirmation of gay sex PERIOD… and you want the rest of us to bow down to it….Well I spit on it, I defy it, I reject it, you and the rest of your so called progressive ideas…. We are already at the point where truly Faithful Catholics are mocked, but soon we will be martyred.
Thank you, Bishop Silva, for standing up for the truth, and helping children to live in decent two parent heterosexual homes.
People with “same sex attraction” are not our brothers and sisters. They are simply “perverts” who lust after each other. The term “same sex attraction” tends to sanitizes their relationship. Their only attraction is genital. That is the reason for their having the highest rate of oral and rectal cancer, the highest rate of obscure HIV diseases, and the highest rate of oral, rectal syphliss and gonorreah, etc. What a loving relationship and marriage they must have.
(sp) gonorreha
Innominato you are right…they are not our brothers and sisters …not until they re-unite with Christ on the cross, that is when they become our brothers and sisters once again…..lets pray for their conversion and healing.
Abeca ~ I”m so sorry that you don’t consider me a sister. I consider you my sister in Christ.
Likewise, C&H, I’m sure you would feel it excessively unfair of the French resistance after WWII to punish supporters of the Vichy regime? It was only war, right, and all’s fair in love and war? Catholics have been, are and will be always at war with the forces of darkness until Jesus returns. Like the French traitors during the war, all of us will be judged by how we fought the enemy on our watch. If a French woman, for example, slept with a Nazi, her hair was shaved and she was subjected to much contempt and persecution by those loyal to the Allies. What kind of example are you setting by espousing being a faithful Catholic and yet committing adultery and openly proclaiming that Jesus says it’s perfectly okay…and probably even partaking in communion. It is because some here truly believe in the conduct of war…such as not consorting with the enemy. Isn’t it the marines who say “Return With Honor”? We are called to be chaste if we’re not in marriage (being only that of one man and one woman). Abeca is simply reminding you of your obligation to your baptismal promises (our standing orders straight from the top brass).
ps. I’ll be using my initials from now on. Thanks! Dana
C&H carry your cross, walk with Christ…then we can both pray to make it into heaven as sisters. It is then that matters the most…there is eternity, this temporary life…eh who knows what to expect.
Hell is an ugly place and those in hell are no longer our brothers and sisters. They rejected Christ. I’m sure you have not and probably struggle as many of us, some more than others depending on what sinfulness one may have much struggles with. At least we seek to make reparations to our Lord and not bring others down with us. Anyone can fall out of grace, depending on what sins they advocate, one can also lead others into grave sins. In the end C&H….I look to Jesus to show me who my brothers and sisters are…and I pray that His love and mercy will flow on you much more for your kind words. May he enrich you with His truths and I pray that you be open to them. God bless you.
C&H embrace a chaste lifestyle….chaste not only body and in dress but also in words and more…..chaste helps one master ones weaknesses and being chaste also helps one not to help others into embracing sinful lifestyles.
DBW .. What are you talking about? On what grounds do you call someone you’ve never met an adulteress????? People on this forum are far to obsessed with other peoples sins but your post takes the cake. Next thing we know, you’ll be claiming I or someone else here is stealing from the poor box. None of us is perfect yet some act like it. How would you like it if a went heywire and started accusing people of not feeding the poor, clothing the naked and visiting the imprisioned whhen I clearly have no way of knowing is they do or not. Really!!!!
That is not correct Catholic teaching. All men are brothers because we are creatures of God. In addition, all the baptized have become sons and daughters of God. A sin, even a mortal sin, does not negate that. All men and women are sons and daughters, also, of the Blessed Virgin Mary. There are some human families where the parents try to come between the children when one child does something abhorrent to the parents. The Holy Family is not like that.
It’s too bad that your post violates Church teaching. We are your brothers and sisters and your fellow catholics. I’m sorry you find this reality to be such a cross to bear.
NFC…stop trying to get everyone on this blog to endorse this depraved, gravely sinful lifestyle…your efforts would be better spent trying to “go straight” senor…have a moment of clarity…pray the rosary, and stop stumping for this disgusting, perverted behavior, that as you know… as we all do… that this activity is a surefire way to lose your salvation and wind up frying in hell!…and the hell-fire is eternal …read Fr. F.X. Schoupe…you would think twice before pushing this filth my friend…
I agree, YFC, and it’s imperative that we are all at one another’s backs, so to speak. If we can’t be true in the small things, like being able to follow the coach’s plays or a captain’s direction, how are we going to win the game? Which end of the field are you going to run the ball? Can we count on you?
Or are you going to bad mouth the rest of the team and start playing offense for the competition? (you’ve just been given my entire repertoire of football knowledge…other than there are ten yards in a down, right? Go Bucks!)
Seems to me that some folks here are actively bad mouthing the team’s captain.
Just like when you libs bad mouthed Benedict XVI a la NCR
I never badmouthed B-16!!!
Saint Peter Canisius says this about the sin of sodomy: “Those who are not ashamed of violating divine and natural law are slaves of this turpitude that can never be sufficiently execrated.”
Saint John Chrysostom denounces homosexual acts as being contrary to nature. Commenting on the Epistle to the Romans (1:26-27), he says that the pleasures of sodomy are an unpardonable offense to nature and are doubly destructive, since they threaten the species by deviating the sexual organs away from their primary procreative end and they sow disharmony between men and women, who no longer are inclined by physical desire to live together in peace.
C&H you seem to forget I believe in collective guilt ,,, liberals are generally guilty ,,,,
Dana, I had to read this several times to try to figure out what you meant. I’m at least as bad at understanding most football analogies as you may be at delivering them!
But you bring up an interesting point here, and a related one in another post that I just responded to. By implication you ask, as your brother in Christ, do I have your back? You may be interested to note that I am at least as vociferous in defending our Faith within the gay community as I am at defending the gay community here. And you may be interested to know that I have strongly tried to oppose those who equate Courage with the ex-gay movement. I do believe that if gay people wish to live a celibate life in accordance with the CCC , they ought to be able to do so without fear of prejudice from the gay community, and WITH the help and support of the Catholic community. And I think it is unfair to the authentic Courage apostolate to claim that encouraging celibacy is the same as encouraging people to deny that they are gay. So yes, I think I DO try to have your back, and the back of those who live and teach the fullness of Catholic dogma.
But it is a two way street: Those who use hateful words, as here we so often see on CCD, to demean, degrade, dehumanize gay people are not acting as brothers and sisters should act towards one another.
When people publically denounce the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, they are clearly not Catholics, despite insisting that they are. I was denounced here recently for praising a priest who does an extraordinary amount of good, far in excess of the good works of nearly all of us on a daily basis, yet who has also proclaimed that he thinks the Church will one day change its teachings about ordaining women. While I have no way of knowing the future, any more than anyone else, I don’t believe he is right in that prognostication. But you’d have thought I myself had declared myself to be against the teachings of the Catholic Church! But for people to come on this site and defy the major tenets of the Catholic Church while claiming that they violate them regularly and without remorse, and insist that we all join in finding this good and admirable, seems to me to be the very definition of not being a Catholic. Maybe there are Protestant sects that are pro-homosexuality and certainly there are plenty of them that are vocally anti-Catholic and engage in denouncing Catholicism in the media; perhaps those who think they are Christians should consider joining them. Better yet, try the Unitarians; they are willing to listen to anybody and refuse to indulge in selecting any particular dogma; several of them have often laughingly described themselves to me as atheists with the church habit. I’m saying anti-Catholics don’t belong in the Catholic church, but maybe they do belong somewhere that will assuage their need for being churched.
YFC has not denounced the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. And of course, he is a Catholic. He says he obeys church teaching. The one thing where he varies is on the civil recognition of gay marriage. This is a serious issue and his view is based not on religion or philosophy but on the benefit/damage assessment of those he knows or those he has heard about. As for you being denounce-I have read those posts and have found them to be uncharitable and un called for. The denouncer obviously is mad at you about something else but is using that to needle you. It just makes the denouncer look bad.
We should denounce anonymous trolls who consistently enable and run interference for the homosexual agenda. No wonder this individual showed up. Maryanne Leonard is a poster who pre-canonized a priest who ridicules Church teaching on same sex marriage. YFC calls the writings of several saints that Abeca posted… including St. Thomas Aquinas, part of the long and proud history of homophobia and once again you are trying to undermine church teaching by telling everyone that YFC does not denounce the teachings of the Church. Who do you think you are fooling! Your history of posting is no different than the enablers in Michael Rose’s Book ‘Good-Bye Good Men’ who helped protect and foster the sub culture of thriving homosexuality within the seminaries and within the Catholic Church. That sub culture is still thriving and still being protected.
Your Fellow Catholic says:
October 4, 2013 at 12:07 pm
Thank you Abeca for reminding us of the long and proud history of homophobia in the Catholic Church.
YFC has inserted his belief into that God created homosexuality and considers himself a Catholic. I see nothing in Church teaching that says God created homosexuality.
Catherine, Maryanne Leonard can like a priest. In fact, God wants her to love him and he wants you to love him, too. He wants you to love YFC and all the “enablers”. He wants to love all the homosexual persons. He wants you to love all the priests and all the bishops. He wants you to love everybody. He wants you to be patient with them and kind to them. He wants you to overlook their faults and not to rejoice when you catch one doing or writing something wrong. And not to harp on it. It is merciful to correct an error. It is wrong and unholy to characterize a person by a mistake or a statement that you disagree with. God bless you.
kaves1. God created me. I am a homosexual. Therefore God created homosexuality.
Abeca Christian,
Thank you very much for reminding us of the wise and true warnings from those three holy saints.
Catherine thank you. They are the Church….they haven’t changed. Just because mankind changes doesn’t mean that the truth changes. It’s those very messages that sets men free. Free from the bondage of sin. If one can apply these truths in their lives, the Lord takes great pleasure in ones faithfulness and loyalty from humble souls seeking to please Him.
Let us be reminded that our Lord does not change.
“For I am the Lord, and I change not: and you the sons of Jacob are not consumed.” Malachi 3:6
“God is not a man, that he should lie, nor as the son of man, that he should be changed. Hath he said then, and will he not do? hath he spoken, and will he not fulfil?” Numbers 23:19
………etc etc there is more scripture that reminds of this!
Maryanne Leonard says:
June 7, 2013 at 1:25 am
“My husband and I actually know Father Greg Boyle, and his life story will make a great movie someday, along the lines of the Boys Town movie but of course more focused on today’s “troubled children” of poverty and the inner city. He may be a priest who disagrees with the teaching of the Church, but he certainly is a good man, and that’s an understatement.”
Maryanne, First of all you are completely contradicting yourself. You asked people to boldly proclaim the truth without any distortions right after you pre-canonized a priest who is leading souls away from the clear and revealed truth. Second of all, Maryanne, Why did you choose to selectively leave out the fact that Father Boyle is also promoting same sex marriage as well as women’s ordination?
“In an August 5, 2010 video interview with NonprofitNews Jesuit Father Boyle was asked about the overturning of the referendum to ban homosexual ‘marriage’ Proposition 8.
Father Boyle replied:
“These things are actually easier than people make them out to be it seems to me. I think it’s always important to kind of say, ‘how does God see sexual orientation.’ Does God feel like that same-sex marriage could happen? I don’t think anybody who has a connection to God and God’s understanding and depth of compassion who’s gonna say no. And this is contrary to the party line.”
No YFC you are not now and never will be,..your are deceivers of the lowest order….
Innomianato and Abeca, I would have to respectfully disagree with you both on this. If one is Baptized into the Church and has a same sex attraction, they ARE our brothers and sisters. They ARE part of the Body of Christ. My understanding is that when one of our brothers or sisters lives a virtuous life, the Body of Christ is fortified. At the same time when one of our brothers or sisters sins, then the Body of Christ is harmed. This is why a life of virtue is so important and why a life of sin is so harmful. Those Baptized individuals who believe that they can keep their sins secret behind bedroom doors and not harm the entire Church are in grave error and fooling themselves.
They are our brothers and sisters in Christ, BUT they are our SEPARATED brothers and sisters in Christ. They have freely chosen to separate themselves from Christ, Church teaching, Christ’s laws, and Christ’s Church. They have freely chosen to live in mortal sin.
Innomianto, Abeca, Tracy, and Fellow Catholic: When said member of the Body of Christ chooses mortal sin (that is a sexual sin or any mortal sin), they by their own doing cut themselves off from the Body of Christ. Their soul is considered as dead. That is why Baptism and the Sacrament of Penance are considered sacraments for the dead. The purpose being to restore life to the soul.
Interesting all these comments here and the prize goes to Dana aka dbw. She mentioned me at the end of her first response and got it! God bless her soul.
I do take pride in knowing the faith, better than most, it’s interesting how some here were trying to “teach me” but no matter what remember my comment “until they re-unite with Christ on the cross”. After all the sin of sodomy is something to take seriously just as is abortion.
RR is correct to say that they have chosen to separate themselves away from Christ. Yes there are our separated brothers and sisters, the ones who are struggling daily in silence trying to understand their disorder, those are my brothers and sisters but not the ones who are so proud and who are advocating immoral lifestyles and helping more and more souls end up in hell when they died of aids because someone helped them embrace fully their sinful lifestyle and they kept growing in pride, the ugly pride that keeps telling God that they know better than He. I look at the whole picture folks…when I die and I pray for my soul and salvation as well, I pray to be in heaven with my Lord, it is then that God I ask Jesus to welcome my soul into His kingdom and those who are with our Lord are already named my brothers and sisters. But I can’t make that judgement now. God will tell me. I use to reach out to homosexuals, I did it with love. I still pray for them and will continue to. For some are just mislead but then you also have the prideful ones who downright defy God. Here on earth we must show compassion and love and keep our fallen away brothers and sisters in our prayers but only God knows how much longer they will be called our brothers and sisters…for not all make it into heaven. Hard to explain, I have a unique way of viewing things. But interesting how Dana actually got it. God bless her and God bless you all.
heh heh. Thanks Abeca. I just got really sick of seeing my name when I wrote something…dana says, dana says. >:( And I really appreciate your getting what I was trying to convey. Freedom is basically just understood as licentiousness these days and being empowered to do what one wants, ‘as long as we don’t hurt anyone else,’ when traditionally freedom was having the ability to make the right choices not based on coercion but on freewill. Because this lovely Hawaiian (thanks spellcheck) bishop gives us a clear understanding of why we must hold fast to Church teaching and common sense for the good of society (because our behavioral choices ALWAYS affect society in some way) he offers positive ways of encouraging people to be proactive in supporting this by praying, speaking out, asking questions, writing letters etc. The worst thing we can do is to be silent. His example is one of loving correction like a father would give a wayward child. That is what bishops are called to do. The problem is too many priests and bishops are not doing this and it is causing tremendous contention among the rank and file. Too many who contribute here seem to think the Church is a democracy and that they can actually disagree with Church teaching and yet still consider themselves good Catholics. It’s astounding how people in such error can be so sanctimonious and consistently argumentative. When I became a Catholic I had to agree with EVERYTHING in the Catechism…it wasn’t optional, it was mandatory. Do these people think they’re somehow sacrosanct and don’t have to abide by the same rules? Such conceit! Such audacity! Such cheek! And it’s not against us, but God!
Tracy its OK sweet sister in Christ if you disagree with me. Just remember that Baptism doesn’t guarantee that one may not fall out of grace. Separating themselves from God and all of His people.
Plus like our church teaches us that one may have a disorder of attraction to the same sex, that is one thing but I am speaking of the ones who have already decided for themselves to distort the church teachings on that so they can get many in the church to accept their homosexual lifestyles. Those who rebel against the church flaunting their sinfulness and misleading others…there are serious consequences and since things on this life are only temporary, one can be disconnected from being called a brother or sister but there is no reason they can be re-united with Christ on the cross, making them once again our brothers and sisters. They are not blood related but on the spiritual level…we can be cut off or rejoined.
According to Pope St. Pius V in the Roman Catechism:
Hence there are but three classes of persons excluded from the Church’s pale: infidels, heretics and schismatics, and excommunicated persons. Infidels are outside the Church because they never belonged to, and never knew the Church, and were never made partakers of any of her Sacraments. Heretics and schismatics are excluded from the Church, because they have separated from her and belong to her only as deserters belong to the army from which they have deserted. It is not, however, to be denied that they are still subject to the jurisdiction of the Church, inasmuch as they may be called before her tribunals, punished and anathematised. Finally, excommunicated persons are not members of the Church, because they have been cut off by her sentence from the number of her children and belong not to her communion until they repent.
But with regard to the rest, however wicked and evil they may be, it is certain that they still belong to the Church: Of this the faithful are frequently to be reminded, in order to be convinced that, were even the lives of her ministers debased by crime, they are still within the Church, and therefore lose nothing of their power.
Good post anon…and yes, like in a biological family, you can’t deny your brothers and sisters, no matter how nuts they may make you. As most of us will agree…no matter what, for good or ill, we ARE brothers and sisters. We just seem to squabble alot!
You haven’t been listening to our Pope, have you?
Bob One, you didn’t list to BXVI… he was not speaking on dogma we are not bound to obey…
What a complete mess knowing everything, I see infused knowledge is back!
TEM the act of sodomy opens another door to certain knowledge of temptations of the flesh. Once involved in those sexual sins….one still in certain graces, may say I made a mistake, this is not right..they may feel sick or broken because of it, there is still hope for them because they continue to soul search and find peae and a healthy connection with our Lord but then you have the ones who left certain graces given to them at baptism…they may say in anger” I think this is love and I won’t give it up even if God says its not good for me, even if God detests this”….you also have the ones who don’t know better…they actually convince themselves that God made them that way. So they spread their deception even when the church speaks up to say no you are incorrect. They find ways to convince otherwise. There is much confusion because of these immoral sins. But those who remain faithful to Christ….there is no confusion, not many will know the answers to everything but still no confusion.
Abeca, Miles is just interjecting bahs and humbugs in between martinis. We’re strictly entertainment fodder for his cocktail hour. As they used to say in NYC, fuhgeddaboudit!
Thats true dbw. : ) You have a cute way of viewing things…I like it. Cheers good and noble friend.
Same sex attraction (SSA) is merely a temptation, (just like other sexual temptations).
SSA becomes a mortal sin when acted upon. It is also a mortal sin when one encourages others to participate in homosexual acts whether through words or deeds. The support of same sex marriage (sodomy) is a mortal sin.
Those with SSA who fight their temptations (sexual desires) and do the will of God instead of their own will can become Saints.
All homosexual acts, (just like fornication, masturbation, adultery, pornography) are all mortal sins, and can send the Soul to Hell.
We all must do everything we can to discourage sexual sins. If we love our neighbors as commanded by Jesus, we will want them to get to Heaven. This is true love.
No Mike SSA when acted upon is not just a merely temptation….sodomy is not just your ordinary sexual temptation..not everyone has those temptations and our Lord detests anything that goes against His natural law.
Heterosexual sex does not defy the natural law as homosexual sex does…you can not compare the two in the same. Not at all. Its like saying that a miscarriage is like the same of an abortion. An abortion is a direct disobedience as well to the natural law and is murder of an innocent unborn but a miscarriage is not a woman’s fault, she did not choose to lose her pregnancy because of whatever natural reason it happened.
Abecca: Reread Mike’s posting. He specifically stated that SSA in itself is a temptation, but acting upon it was mortal sin. And contrary to what you may believe, not everybody is tempted to heterosexual impurity either. That is a grace to be sure, but not impossible. In both instances, however, it is the free choice to act upon the temptation that makes it sinful. The willful turning away from God.
Our Lord himself said that merely looking at a woman with lust is committing adultery with her in one’s heart. That’s mortal sin. That’s cutting oneself off from God and His grace.
And while some mortal sins may seem less grave than others – to us peons – even a seemingly small mortal sin (grave matter, understood as sin, and fully consented to) will land a person in Hell.
Thanks, Mike, for lending reason to this forum.
Ann Malley you need to re-read everything…all this babbling is gone out of hand, you are doing a disservice in my opinion…,,,,you are speaking to the choir and you have twisted what I have said…..I believe there is a misunderstanding…who cares I stand by what I said….heterosexuality does not defy the NATURAL LAW… but homosexuality does…not comparable the two….understand! There is heterosexual sins yes but when they do not defy the natural law….
Homosexuals too defy the natural law by wanting children. two men can not pro-create.
And for you to insinuate that I do not give reason here…shame on you. You may have not gained enough knowledge yourself to have stated so. It tells a great deal of you, because you lacked reason to understand my post! The way MIKE posted it did not convey well…get it!
“Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, because it is an abomination. . . . Defile not yourselves with any of these things with which all the nations have been defiled, which I will cast out before you, and with which the land is defiled: the abominations of which I will visit, that it may vomit out its inhabitants. . . . Beware then, lest in like manner, it vomit you also out, if you do the like things, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. Every soul that shall commit any of these abominations, shall perish from the midst of his people. . . . I am the Lord your God.” —Leviticus 18:22-30
“For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. . . . Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.”—Romans 1:26-27, 32
All this ‘babbling’ is precisely what a forum is for, Abecca. And while I do grasp the fact that you are trying to relate that homosexual acts are grievous crimes against God and one’s own human nature (AND THEY ARE) they are but one of the sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance. There are many that will lead a person to Hell – and it only takes one.
As for preaching to the choir, nobody is preaching to you. Nobody is preaching, per se, to Fellow Catholic or C&H, of Good Cause, but rather pointing out truths and inconsistencies.
Mike was very clear.
That said, I hope that YFD and C&H and Good Cause will note that my comments about their seeming endorsement of same sex marriage is just as loathe some to me as defrauding workers of their just wages or abusing widows and orphans. Or heterosexual adultery.
Why? Because they offend God and cut a person off from His most generous salvation bought at the price of His Most Precious Blood and the Agony of Our Blessed Mother at the foot of the cross. And what a grievous agony!
While I do not know your personal situation, Abeca, it is possible, I feel very strongly about this because I have a fallen away Catholic relative who lives in an invalid marriage, is getting closer and closer to death (and Hell), refuses to repent of a lifetime of cheating and impurity (all heterosexual, mind you), while at the same time saying how hateful sodomites are.
Ann M again your speaking strange stuff, this has nothing to do with my personal situation? I live a holy lifestyle so I don’t know what you are getting at. You need to stop putting your personal feelings into things or else you would not reason well. “Have confidence in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not upon thy own prudence.” Proberbs 3:5.
I learned from the church teachings and formed my conscience and ability to reason from the writings of the saints, sacred scripture and church teachings (CCC etc). This article is about homosexuality and their re-defining marriage. Not heterosexual sins. We covered some of those topics on the other articles on porn and other things….so stop distracting people.
Abeca: You distract yourself by stating in a public forum – proudly too – that you believe your are better informed of Christian truths than others and that you take issue with folks trying to ‘teach’ you.
Also, if you truly believe that your personal situation doesn’t add/subtract to your fervor that would denounce homosexual acts as mortal sin while dismissing adultery/fornication as mortal sin, then you are sadly misinformed.
Yes, there are degrees of mortal sin, true enough. But it only takes one Mortal Sin to land a body in Hell for all eternity. And if you do not think that the current homosexual scourge afflicting the Church (and individuals) isn’t a punishment for our own cozying up to our own (collective) mortal sins, think again.
That said, I would suggest that you pay heed to the Proverb you quoted and stop leaning on your own supposed prudence and superiority for living a ‘chaste’ life. Give thanks to God for the attainment of any level of holiness you may think you have.
There by the Grace of God go I.
Saint Albert the Great gives four reasons why he considers homosexual acts as the most detestable ones: They are born from an ardent frenzy; they are disgustingly foul; those who become addicted to them are seldom freed from that vice; they are as contagious as disease, passing quickly from one person to another.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, writing about sins against nature, explains: “However, they are called passions of ignominy because they are not worthy of being named, according to that passage in Ephesians (5:12): ‘For the things that are done by them in secret, it is a shame even to speak of.’ For if the sins of the flesh are commonly censurable because they lead man to that which is bestial in him, much more so is the sin against nature, by which man debases himself lower than even his animal nature.”
Saint Bonaventure, speaking in a sermon at the church of Saint Mary of Portiuncula about the miracles that took place simultaneously with the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, narrates this: “Seventh prodigy: All sodomites—men and women—died all over the earth, as Saint Jerome said in his commentary on the psalm ‘The light was born for the just.’ THIS MADE it clear that He was born to reform nature and PROMOTE CHASTITY.”
SSA is of the devil…a sick, disordered temptation…that secular society try’s to get everyone to endorse…even peddling it as a viable, alternative lifestyle…I think not!…buggery and sexual depravity will be dealt with sternly, unless one repents and turns away from this behavior/activity…hell-fire is real…aids may last only a short while in the host it devours…the pains of hell will continue to devour a person, body and soul for all eternity…and it’s suffering is infinitesimally greater, than anything we endure on earth…think about it…read Fr. F.X. Schoupe’s book on Hell…this will sober you up fast…buggery be damned!
That is not the teaching of the Catholic Church.
Very predictable! Insects are well known for loving the anonymous cover of darkness. When you lift a rock that has not been moved for years, the second the sunlight meets the darkness the insects scramble and react with great fear.
Yes Catherine I agree….Catherine I am greatly disappointment on how the gay agenda has done a great job at deceiving many. Homosexual sins have been so desensitized that even from within have they tried to tone it down by using to their advantage what the church really teaches about it. Many people lack the biblical convictions and use the current church teachings without the word….there is where it has softened sin. We can’t have one without the other. Yes I am human Catherine I may lose my patience with some here who are so ill informed on the gravity of fleshly sins especially on the ones on homosexuality. People are to worried about offending someone so they tone down the truth or they distort it. It shameful….Thanks Catherine for your passion and love for Christ and His church.
Abeca Christian,
You are disappointed sweet sister in Christ because of your great love for Jesus and for souls. You have not been impatient Abeca. You have cared deeply. : )
“And Jesus said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. But they, dividing his garments, cast lots. Luke 23:34 Douay-Rheims
On CCD we have continuum of disguised trolls who are dividing Jesus’s revealed truths and casting lots. Each of their posts are a hopeful rolling of the dice with the random chance that someone will believe their lies, their distortions and their falsehoods. Some of these posters sound or portray themselves as personally accepting Catholic Church teaching but their posts eventually expose their true agenda.
cont.
Abeca Christian,
Matthew Chapter 5:11 Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible
11] “Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: [12] Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you. [13] You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men. [14] You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. [15] Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house.
[16] So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. [17] Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. [18] For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled. [19] He therefore that shall break one of these least commandments, and shall so teach men, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But he that shall do and teach, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. [20] For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
Excellent and sobering reminder Stephen Joto. Fr. FX Schouppe’s book titled ‘Purgatory’ is also very sobering. How many people are lulled into believing that hell does not exist.
Hell
– A horrific eternity of torture and despair –
Taken from Hell plus How to Avoid Hell by Fr. FX Schouppe, S.J. and Thomas A. Nelson. (TAN Books & Publishers, Inc., 1989)
“A holy priest was exorcizing a demoniac, and he asked the demon what pains he was suffering in Hell. “An eternal fire,” he answered, “an eternal malediction, an eternal rage, and a frightful despair at being never able to gaze upon Him who created me.” “What would you do to have the happiness of seeing God?” “To see Him but for one moment, I should willingly consent to endure my torments for 10,000 years. But vain desires! I shall suffer forever and never see Him!”
On a like occasion, the exorcist inquired of the demon what was his greatest pain in Hell. He replied with an accent of indescribable despair: “Always, always! Never; never!”
Unhappy sinners who are lulled to rest by the illusions of the world and who live as if there were no Hell will be suddenly stripped of their illusions by the most frightful of catastrophes. From the midst of their pleasures they shall fall into the Pit of Torments.
They who deny Hell will be forced to admit it soon; but alas! it will be too late. Father Nieremberg, in his work “The Difference between Time and Eternity”, speaks of an unfortunate sinner, who, as the result of his evil ways, had lost the Faith. His virtuous wife exhorted him to return to God and reminded him of Hell, but he would answer obstinately: “There is no Hell.” One day his wife found him dead, and strange circumstance, he held in his hand a mysterious paper on which in large characters was traced this terrifying avowal: “I now know that there is a Hell!”
Stephen Joto yes the devil does play into much stronger into those weakness because he knows how far those sins will go in this secular world… so your right, he tempts and they fall for the trick.
Anony needs to read some of the writings of the saints, church doctors etc that I posted before (quotes) of what they wrote on homosexual sins…they were very clear. Today I notice that there is much confusion in the church about those grave sins. The gay propaganda has done a good job at bringing those confusions forth to force the church to cave in and because we have disobedient and dissenting priests, bishops etc who refuse to enforce and teach what the church and what the bible has always taught, it was easy to tone down the seriousness of many immoral sins especially on homosexuality. Like Archbishop Sheen taught on false compassion.
The first statement of a Church council on homosexual practices was issued by the Council of Elvira (305-306). The decree excludes from communion, even in articulo mortis (at the moment of death), the stupratores puerorum (corrupters of boys). The decree of the Council of Ancyra, held in Asia Minor in 314, strongly influenced the Church of the West, and it was often cited as authoritative in later enactments against homosexual practices. Canon 17 speaks about those “who . . . commit [acts of] defilement with animals or males.” The Council of Ancyra established for these crimes a series of punishments according to the age and state of life the infractor
Pope Saint Siricius (384-399) issued norms for admission into the priestly state. They apply indirectly to homosexuality: “We deem it advisable to establish that, just as not everyone should be allowed to do a penance reserved for clerics, so also a layman should never be allowed to ascend to clerical honor after penance and reconciliation. Because although they have been purified of the contagion of all sins, those who formerly indulged in a multitude of vices should not receive the instruments to administer the Sacraments.”
In the opening speech of the XVI Council of Toledo in 693, Egica, the Gothic King of Spain, exhorts the clergy to fight against homosexual practices: “See that you determine to extirpate that obscene crime committed by those who lie with males, whose fearful conduct defiles the charm of honest living and provokes from heaven the wrath of the Supreme Judge.”
Saint John Chrysostom denounces homosexual acts as being contrary to nature. Commenting on the Epistle to the Romans (1:26-27), he says that the pleasures of sodomy are an unpardonable offense to nature and are doubly destructive, since they threaten the species by deviating the sexual organs away from their primary procreative end and they sow disharmony between men and women, who no longer are inclined by physical desire to live together in peace.
Obsess much…?
He said it was an unpardonable offense? St. Augustine his contemporary declared “Let us not listen to those who deny that the Church of God has power to forgive all sins.” I found your post word for word on a website that promotes a private revelation that has been condemned by the Church. Here is a link to what St. John Chrysostom actually said:
https://orthodoxcounselor.com/Articles/John_Chrysostom_Homily_4.htm
Thank you Abeca for reminding us of the long and proud history of homophobia in the Catholic Church.
The canons of the council of Elvira (which I admit I never heard of til now and apparently was a synod of the bishops of the Iberian peninsula) are not valid in our day. It prohibits anyone who confessed a sexual sin and then committed another one from receiving communion even at the point of death. I see several websites that have these same statements word for word-are you cutting and pasting from somewhere? But besides-we know that sodomy is a mortal sin and a sin that cries to heaven for vengence. What is your point? The poster said that SSA comes from the devil. That is not the teaching of the Church. No one is bound to the canons of the Council of Elvira. We are bound to the current canons of the Church. Maybe you should be reading the Catechism instead of whatever website you found these on. This is not the gay agenda. It is Catholicism. There is no excuse for you to distort the Catholic faith. If you are studying the history of the Church, good for you. But modern day Catholics are not bound to the penances of the 3rd century.
It took a slow infiltration of “gay activism” throughout many years, they were so “obsessed” that the lukewarm and the unsuspecting were writing it off as harmless for many years and now they have managed to re-define marriage and even adopt children. Its something that we can’t continue to ignore. YFC displays the real dangers because of his gay activism word usage of “homophobia”. A word never used before not until in the present times now that sodomy is becoming more acceptable. Even in the old testament before the Catholic Church came to be…..there were many warnings about same sex lust….those very warnings came from God and He is NOT suffering with homophobia! God is our ALPHA and OMEGA, and we should stand firm with His gifts of wisdom and knowledge, His truths. Firm with love even if they see that love as hatred because it is not!
“I have never thought nor written that persons suffering from same-sex attraction are evil. I went on to summarize what I had written in the column to which she referred, namely, that same-sex attraction itself is disordered – that is, contrary to God’s plan for us as male and female; that homosexual acts are intrinsically evil; and that persons with same-sex attraction are our brothers and sisters, whom we are to respect and love” -Cardinal Raymond Burke.
Please educate yourselves on the truth of the Catholic faith as regards homosexuality. A good place to start is the Courage website especially, under RESOURCES, the catechism on homosexuality. Cardinal Burke recommends Fr. John Harvey’s book
“Homosexuality and the Catholic Church.” Says Cardinal Burke “In these pages, Father Harvey helps us all to think more clearly and to act more rightly and lovingly in responding to our brothers and sisters with same-sex attraction, especially those who wrongly desire to enter a kind of “marriage,” which, in fact, is no marriage at all and a contradiction of the nature of marriage.” taken from Renew American website
Your Fellow Catholic: Please rethink the term ‘homophobia’. Nobody is frightened of homosexuality here, no more than they are of those who commit adultery and/or steal, lie, etc.
The track record you reference in the Church is the track record of speaking out against SIN and the damage that it can and does do the individual and the community – which includes the children that proponents of Same Sex marriage profess to want to protect.
While there are those that have physiological and/or hormonal abnormalities that can lead to disordered sexual attractions, there are also those who ‘try’ homosexual acts even as they ‘try’ perverted heterosexual acts. Kind of like drugs. When marijuana doesn’t cut it anymore, then what? And when you advance to the harder stuff to get your kicks, some folks find themselves unable to go back. So should we label the desire to keep kids and society away from drugs all together as fear? Or common ‘A’ leads to ‘B’ leads to ‘Z’ logic?
And hormones do play a HUGE role in sexual attraction. If they didn’t you wouldn’t have ANY of the hormone replacement ads and/or books intended to get people to ‘try’ the pills that will suddenly make them happy by upping their sex life. Sorry, but all of that schlock makes me ill. Very unnatural.
But that’s just me. The Bible does state that Fear is the beginning of wisdom. So maybe ‘homo’ phobia, ‘adultery’ phobia, ‘extortion’ phobia, ‘skipping out on mass for the beach’ phobia isn’t such a bad thing.
Yes, Catherine, we all know there is a hell. You should know the scriptures about it, like Matthew 5:22; Matthew 25:41-46; Revelation 21:8. Sodomy is a mortal sin if done with full knowledge of its sinfulness and full consent of the will. Being gay, being attracted to members of one’s own gender is not. The inclination is disordered but it is not a sin.
Decriminalizing a filthy habit is one thing. Enshrining it into law is quite another. So called same-sex marriage has nothing to do with love but everything to do with lust.
One does not tear up the body of someone one loves with disease ridden and dangerous practices.
To me , trying to make ss so-called marriage legal is not so much about lust or love, but a conscious and audacious move to refute what has always been taught through natural law and Biblical teaching and Church tradition to be sinful and an abomination . They think that if the law and enough people say it is a ‘true marriage’ then homosexuals can no longer be accused of adultery (since their sex acts would necessarily always be outside of the realm of marriage) and hence the Church must grant them all the sacraments and privileges of everyone else. It’s called having your cake and eating it too. Because they have a gay president at their beck and call they’re moving at lightning speed to enact all sorts of illegal and illicit enforcement in the military and government etc. but at the end of the day, though they’re forcing the world to accept that the world is flat, there is always empirical evidence that it is round. Like the communists, they have these long range strategies like five year plans, ten year plans etc.to get what they want, want, want, me want, me first, me me me …it’s never the rule of law for bullies, but the rule of me first that rules. Just another variant of pathological selfishness to foist on the rest of us. God help us.
actually the earth is not “round”…it’s eliptical…not a perfect sphere, but your point is duly noted…
phew. Thanks for clearing that up for me, Stephen. I’ll sleep tonight! heh heh
I recently read a magnificent book about the life of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions…it was published by St. Paul Publications, the Daughters of Saint Paul. It was written by a Fr. J. F. Faupel, a french priest and biographer of these saintly martyr’s. St. Charles Lwanga, along with 21 other men and boys laid down their lives for the “faith” in the kingdom of Buganda, which is now Uganda. Rather than yield to the homosexual advances of Kbaka Mwanga, who was the chief of these people’s, who advocated sodomy and perversion amongst his peoples…he indulged in these vile acts, and took great pleasure in terrifying young men, with sly looks and innuendo, about what he had in store for them. These wonderful saints of our Catholic Church, were martyred because they refused to yield to the Chief’s demonic demands for sodomy! They were catechist’s and neophytes, that understood this behavior as being abominable, and were more than willing to die than endorse and yield to these perverse demands…Lwanga was roasted alive and others were beheaded and speared in order to satiate the “blood-lust” of this monstrous heathen King Mwanga. These Ugandan saint’s are shining examples of holiness virtue and PURITY!
The paradoxical comments on this blog is what is truly alarming, by one blogger in particular…NFC, (an admitted homosexual), who wants the other Catholic bloggers, to modify their spiritual value system and Catholic belief , that they may conform to his perverse and demonic thinking. It is almost inconceivable that a Catholic man, who claims he is so involved in the Church, would be advocating for “gay” marriage, which in essence endorses the ignominious act of sodomy, an act so bestial and depraved, that “it cry’s to heaven for vengeance”…two cities were destroyed in the Book of genesis because of these salacious acts of perversion, yet NFC still would have us believe that the Church somehow should validate and support this evil…I almost wonder what his motive really is?…is he trolling?…his ballyhooing for “gay right’s” and “gay marriage” seems almost contrived and disproportionate, in light of the fact this is a Catholic blog, which shares information about the Church here in California and abroad, with a decidedly traditional feel…which is truly edifying and a great comfort…NFC needs prayer and spiritual direction…a supernatural grace may be necessary, in the hope that he renounces this repugnant activity, advocacy and lifestyle.
Just Deserters
Discrimination is not only Just, but often Necessary – in the proper circumstances.
When competition for an open job or other position is permitted (as opposed to the pork patronage pogroms of POTUS Down Low Soetoro’s Chicago Mob) – impartial examinations are used to Discriminate, on a job relevant / bias free basis. Generally – Top Score gets First Pick, as a form of DIscrimination that is fair to all.
Except of course for ‘progressive’ zones – like Sodom by the Sea, where a Federal Judge once threatened the Fire Chief (one of the most Courageous Men to ever regularly Risk His Life to serve the people) with Prison – based on what All knew was a Staged Racist Hoax trashing WW-2 Veterans, but Nobody Dared Discuss.
Hence – Discrimination against those Actively Promoting the Sinful and often Pathologically Depraved Hatreds and Perversions of the Gaystapo – does Not Contradict the position of the Church (Pope, Cardinals, Bishops…) of Welcoming Sinners to learn the Good News – that they need not be Slaves to such Sins.
However – Like a Drunkard jostling to be first in line for a free slug of Communion Wine – there are those who seek to abuse the Charity of the Church, and turn its Strength in to a weakness – by making actively Pandering to Disordered Behaviors – a mandatory ‘non-pdiscrimination’ policy.
In such cases, like chasing the money changers from the Temple, such appropriate Discrimination is indeed the proper Christian Act.
Please don’t get all speckled-flecked nutty, to quote Fr.Z, but Michael, I often feel that YFC is a compassionate but misguided person. If God could save a wretch like me, He is certainly able to save him. If I were my mom, I’d be sending him boxes of homemade cookies and writing him sweet letters until he cracks and repents. There are some here who gossip and call it a venial sin, but it can also become a grave sin when it leads to serious injury to another’s reputation etc. It is then like murder. According to EWTN on grave sin…”It is always good to remember, especially those who are trying to be faithful but sometimes fall, that for mortal sin it must not only be 1) serious matter, but 2) the person must know it is serious and then 3) freely commit it. ” We can’t be more clear than that, can we? YFC and the rest of us are in a real bind if we persist in an act which is considered grave sin. We could be in a car crash on our way home from work and be unable to reconcile ourselves before dying. How much more emphatic can any of us be than this? That’s a sad story about your fire chief. What a crumby place to leave your heart.
The church is rich in truths that many do not know of…that is why this puzzle of homosexual sins are not complete mostly due to false compassion or ignorance! We must bring back the passion for the truth in the faith and save souls!
Saint Catherine of Siena, a religious mystic of the 14th century, relays words of Our Lord Jesus Christ about the vice against nature, which contaminated part of the clergy in her time. Referring to sacred ministers, He says: “They not only fail from resisting this frailty [of fallen human nature] . . . but do even worse as they commit the cursed sin against nature. Like the blind and stupid, having dimmed the light of their understanding, they do not recognize the disease and misery in which they find themselves. For this not only causes Me nausea, but displeases even the demons themselves, whom these miserable creatures have chosen as their lords. For Me, this sin against nature is so abominable that, for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the judgment of My Divine Justice, which could no longer bear them. . . . It is disagreeable to the demons, not because evil displeases them and they find pleasure in good, but because their nature is angelic and thus is repulsed upon seeing such an enormous sin being committed. It is true that it is the demon who hits the sinner with the poisoned arrow of lust, but when a man carries out such a sinful act, the demon leaves.”
You are right, Abeca. That said, I’m thinking the best thing for Catholics to do is to rigorously pursue holiness and the reconnect of the marital act with marriage and producing children. That, after all, is natural. Even more natural than NFP which seeks to combine the mentality of forestalling the fruits of marriage to better suit our human idea of timing, financial needs, overpopulation, whatever.
Not to say that there aren’t times of grave necessity. There most assuredly are. But we too are called to carry our cross.
Since the acceptance of birth control, that is back in the ’30s, by the Anglican Communion, sexual sins among those who claim to follow Christ have risen greatly and grown graver by the decade. The ‘homosexual’ advance in the culture is due in large part by our own downward slide. Our own sins.
(A Catholic man invented the Pill. And the residual fallout of the pill is estrogen laced water that actually effects people physiologically. Scary that. But true. But that is no call to endorse homosexual acts, but rather to root cause the problem.)
In another post, a commenter stated that the Church is headed for trouble because 80% of her ‘faithful’ use birth control. Mortal sin. That said, is it any wonder why there are so many ‘Catholics’ who aren’t staunchly against homosexual acts and/or ‘marriage’ and abortion. Mortal sin blinds a person.
Obviously, 80% of the faithful do not use birth control. Silly.
You may say that it is silly, Anonymous, that statistics point to 80% of (correction: Faithful should say Church-going) Catholics using birth control. Check the polls. Check with the women in your parish (the person who quoted the stat I used was a priest – the excuse he used for not preaching against birth control from the pulpit). Is everyone using NFP in your parish doing so for grave reasons… or for personal convenience and lifestyle choices?
You may want to look at how large and/or small Catholic families really are in parishes and ask yourself WHY. You may want to ask yourself how the current liberal administration in this country that endorses all manner of birth control and abortion is supported by a good many Catholics. Especially in California.
I came from a family of eight with a mother who had 3 miscarriages and a six year stint of infertility issues. The families in my parish growing up had 8, 10, sometimes 14 children. (You can check stats at your local Latin mass parish. The birth rates are through the roof). YOU do the math and answer me just how the population of children in the mainstream Catholic church has declined to such an extent. And it IS NOT natural family planning, Anonymous. NFP is free and if it was foolproof even a dummy would use it. But it isn’t. That is why there was such a push for the PILL and all manner of prophylactics. And there still is today.
The whole population of Catholics of child-bearing age is not 80%. You are forgetting children, those of age who are not sexually active and those beyond child-bearing age. That is why I said “silly.”
Clever, Anonymous. I’m duly chastened by the word-mincing police – reminds me of my kids. Especially the one with her first taste of college and real life. Very heady that.
And yet the stat remains that 80% of those of ‘childbearing’ age are contracepting.
As far as I know, no study of Catholic men has been done. Women of childbearing age- 86% have had sex; 68% have used a method of contraception contrary to the moral teaching of the Church. You may be thinking of a different statistic- only 15% of Catholics believe that contraception use is morally wrong.
Anonymous: The statistics you quote might be spot on. They probably are. But the point isn’t so much the exactitude of the stats themselves, but what the statistics say about supposedly ‘Church going’ Catholics.
If only 15% of Catholics seem to ‘feel’ that contraception is wrong, that is a problem. The faithfulness of teaching/following is gone by the wayside.
It speaks of a lack of fidelity and faith – on the part of clerics for not speaking for fear of losing parishioners and on the part of the ‘faithful’ for choosing that which they will follow. This muddles the mind when it comes to more difficult teachings because nobody ‘wants’ to be harder on others than they are on themselves – especially when they’ve rationalized away their own mortal sins instead of repenting of them.
That’s why I take issue with folks who preach so vehemently against homosexual sins while dismissing other MORTAL sins. It’s as if they feel there is no culpability on all our parts for growing tepid in the Faith – each in our own lives and each in our own way.