The wisdom of bishops
Nice. ‘Compassionate.’ Thoughtful. Caring.
The president of the US bishops’ conference has issued a reminder that New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based group that works with homosexuals and lesbians, “has no approval or recognition from the Catholic Church.” Cardinal Francis George of Chicago added that New Ways Ministry fails to provide “an authentic interpretation of Catholic teaching. Like other groups that claim to be Catholic but deny central aspects of church teaching,” the cardinal observed, New Ways Ministry does not speak for the Catholic faithful.
Because, of course, ‘Catholic teaching’ is that ‘homosexuals and lesbians’ are bad, nasty, dirty, ew, put it down, leave it alone, shun it, nasty, bad. Mind you it does of course hide and protect its own employees who stray into same-sex Sin, provided they do it with people who are underage and thus too weak to get the church into trouble – but that is not at all the same thing as treating adults who couple with other adults of the same sex as if they were human beings like any others as opposed to filthy criminals. The church knows what is right and what is not – thanks to its ‘teachings.’
I they’d apply the same scrutiny and denouncement to their followers, their churches would be all but empty. I have yet to meet a Catholic who accepted all “central aspects of church teaching”.
If you don’t believe in a religion you should leave it. If all the people who didn’t agree with the Catholic Church’s ideas on birth control, abortion, women’s ordination, and homosexuality left the church, you can bet some new Papal revelations would be coming down the pike pretty soon.
Maybe so, Anna, but I doubt it. The popes have painted themselves into a corner. Once you have decided that popes are infallible, it’s very difficult to change your mind – and there are no new revelations. All that popes can do is bring out of their treasury of revelation what has been handed down to them. Doubtless they have sometimes seemed to change their mind, but not very often on issues on which they have taken a very definite stand, and of course, while may seem that the church has changed its mind, it must nevertheless not really seem to.
In 1930 the Anglican Lambeth Conference met and gave guarded approval of artificial means of birth control. The immediate result for the Roman Catholic Church was to inscribe its opposition in stone. It can in the form of an encyclical by Pius XI, Casti Connubii (Chaste Marriage), which was issued on 31st December of that same year.
Since the Catechism of the Catholic Church states clearly that, “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the naturral law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.” (2357)
The cardinal, I’m afraid, spoke no more than the truth about catholic beliefs, though I’m sure he does not speak for all the “faithful”. The catechism does go on to say that homosexual persons must be treated “with respect, compassion, and sensitivity,” (2358) but it is hard to see how you can believe the first and do the second.
In other words, people should just leave the church. It is irreformable.
I can’t believe I actually proof-read that, but I did. I think, despite the wayward words, it still makes sense, with a little creativity.
Talking of churches, and matters pertaining to sex and sexuality, the good old ABC yesterday called for “moderation” in the debate over whether women should be allowed to become bishops, and whether it is OK to ordain gays.
I presume by that he meant that women should be allowed to become bishops providing they do not look to feminine. Look a little butch and you will be fine, but be a bit “girly” and forget it. Likewise I suppose he thinks it is OK ordain bisexuals, but no people who are exclusively homosexual.
There is actually a get-out clause for Papal infallibility: the declaration of infallibility was made by a Pope who was not infallible at that moment and therefore could have been mistaken. (One of the 19th century ones but I don’t remember which right now).
Not sure why I’m bothering to solve their problems though. I’ve been reading in the last couple of days about a supposed power struggle taking place in the Vatican and wondering what it has to do with God – well, nothing whatever obviously.