As a former seminarian of the Roman Church I was greatly distressed to read today that Ratzinger will agree to weed out seminarians, especially in the United States, who are gay and deny them the Sacrament of the Priesthood. Gay men are equally capable of keeping their vows of celibacy as any heterosexual. The heterosexual priests who have failed in their vow of chastity are not now attacked or condemned, nor are they blamed for their molestation of children, nor are they threatened with being defrocked. The denial of any of those with a true vocation to service will surely damage the Church, making her yet more vulnerable to attacks by the world. This is a witch-hunt and an attempt to point fingers at someone else for the child abuse scandal within the Church. Child molesters are documented to be attracted to children, all children, and it is not based upon their own sexuality. The largest percentage of molesters are heterosexual, yes, even in the Church. The Church willingly and deliberately blurs the distinction between molester and homosexual in order to insulate herself from lawsuits and to protect property. How very sad!
I realized that I was not called to the life of a priest in the Church and sought to find my role outside religious life. I do believe most men of any sexual persuasion are honest about their vocations and do the same. My friends who are straight with whom I went to school and who did not complete a religious vocation knew that another role of service awaited them as well. I also know they were as easily led astray by premarital sex as any gay man may be, and some sowed many 'wild oats' before settling down with a long term partner in life.
Additionally, some of these couples who were unable to procreate were still granted the comfort of a marriage bed. If one says all couples who are not fruitful must be celibate then where is the equality of the Church's law? No, it is only against same sex marriage. Is it not to then a ruse and another example of the false pride of the Church? I must argue the affirmative.
Witch hunts. My community, the GLBT community, is under attack from all conservative factions now. Why? We are now at our most visible in our demand for equal civil protections, rights and obligations from our country, America. Those who side against us now will one day read in history of their short sighted and mean spirited denial of civil equality for us. In the twenty-first century those who single out individuals and groups who are different and blame them for the calamities of nature and man are not of Christ.
If you believe in a God of pestilence, war, hunger and disease who smites from some great celestial throne those who are poor, disenfranchised, different - the outcasts of society - you haven't been reading your New Testament.
I realized that I was not called to the life of a priest in the Church and sought to find my role outside religious life. I do believe most men of any sexual persuasion are honest about their vocations and do the same. My friends who are straight with whom I went to school and who did not complete a religious vocation knew that another role of service awaited them as well. I also know they were as easily led astray by premarital sex as any gay man may be, and some sowed many 'wild oats' before settling down with a long term partner in life.
Additionally, some of these couples who were unable to procreate were still granted the comfort of a marriage bed. If one says all couples who are not fruitful must be celibate then where is the equality of the Church's law? No, it is only against same sex marriage. Is it not to then a ruse and another example of the false pride of the Church? I must argue the affirmative.
Witch hunts. My community, the GLBT community, is under attack from all conservative factions now. Why? We are now at our most visible in our demand for equal civil protections, rights and obligations from our country, America. Those who side against us now will one day read in history of their short sighted and mean spirited denial of civil equality for us. In the twenty-first century those who single out individuals and groups who are different and blame them for the calamities of nature and man are not of Christ.
If you believe in a God of pestilence, war, hunger and disease who smites from some great celestial throne those who are poor, disenfranchised, different - the outcasts of society - you haven't been reading your New Testament.
"If I speak with the eloquence of men or angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and knowing everything, and if I have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all. If I give away all I possess, piece by piece, and even if I let them take my body to burn it, but am without love, it will do me no good whatever."
I Corinthians 13, 1-3
"When I was a child I, I used to talk like a child, and think like a child, and argue like a child, but now I am a man, all childish ways are put behind me. Now we are seeing a dim reflection in a mirror; but then we shall be seeing face to face. The knowledge that I have now is imperfect; but then I shall know as fully as I have known.
In short, there are three thing that last: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love."
In short, there are three thing that last: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love."
I Corinthians, 13, 11-13
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