10 Rules for Talking to Gays

[Melinda_Selmys]

CatholicPotato,

Thanks be to God! :tiphat: I knew that the poker metaphor was either going to go well, or it was going to go really badly – you’ve confirmed all my best and most charitable suspicions about you. I’ll give you odds that most of our actual disagreements are either a) idiomatic, b) misunderstandings, or c) trivial. I’ll be happy to argue them out, if you can remind me of what issues we were actually fighting about…

p.s. What does NPR stand for?

 

[Tantum_ergo]

CatholicPotato,

Beautiful analogy – thank you. The problem here is that you’ve got a guy on the floor. You have people with basic first aid training who think that he needs CPR, but in fact he has a broken rib-cage. It’s perfectly reasonable for someone with EMS training to show up and say, “Uh, don’t pound on that guy’s chest. You’re puncturing his lungs.”

Perhaps you are not aware that in the majority of cases where a person needs CPR, they are going to wind up with bruised if not broken ribs, not because the responders did it ‘wrong’, but because the sheer FORCE required to get the person’s lungs inflated IS going to cause damage.

So it is a judgment call. . .

Do nothing --the person dies.

Do CPR but be oh-so-careful not to cause injury to ribs --the person dies.

Do CPR with the force necessary --the person lives, but with probable injury from the necessary treatment.

Unfortunately–again using medical scenarios–there are very few, if any, occasions where the TREATMENT of a grave and potential fatal condition is NOT going to cause some problem.

You have a person with a blood clot --you can hemolyze the clot with Coumadin, but then the person may wind up with a hemorrhage. So you then reverse the Coumadin effect to stabilize–and then the person starts to clot again.

At the end of the protracted hospital stay, all things considered, if the person has been treated quickly enough and been monitored appropriately, that person will walk out of the hospital. . .but it’s going to take time to recover.

And I can tell you that NONE of the people caring for this patient REJOICE in having to administer needles, or to break a rib, or take some kind of pleasure in seeing a person in pain.

At the same time, if they waved their hands and wailed about how they couldn’t possibly even dream of acting in a way that caused any pain. . .millions of people would die because their illnesses weren’t treated.

Sometimes you have to undergo some pain (or inflict it) not for the sake of the pain itself, not with any intention of causing pain in itself, but in order to heal the body. And sometimes, in order to heal the soul as well.

 

[Catholicpotato]

CatholicPotato,

Thanks be to God! :tiphat: I knew that the poker metaphor was either going to go well, or it was going to go really badly – you’ve confirmed all my best and most charitable suspicions about you. I’ll give you odds that most of our actual disagreements are either a) idiomatic, b) misunderstandings, or c) trivial. I’ll be happy to argue them out, if you can remind me of what issues we were actually fighting about…

p.s. What does NPR stand for?

True, we are all on the same side here!

NPR= National public radio.
perhaps akin to BBC in your area?
coffee shop “intellectual type” rhetoric.

 

[LemonAndLime]

Perhaps you are not aware that in the majority of cases where a person needs CPR, they are going to wind up with bruised if not broken ribs, not because the responders did it ‘wrong’, but because the sheer FORCE required to get the person’s lungs inflated IS going to cause damage.

So it is a judgment call. . .

Do nothing --the person dies.

Do CPR but be oh-so-careful not to cause injury to ribs --the person dies.

Do CPR with the force necessary --the person lives, but with probable injury from the necessary treatment.

Unfortunately–again using medical scenarios–there are very few, if any, occasions where the TREATMENT of a grave and potential fatal condition is NOT going to cause some problem.

You have a person with a blood clot --you can hemolyze the clot with Coumadin, but then the person may wind up with a hemorrhage. So you then reverse the Coumadin effect to stabilize–and then the person starts to clot again.

At the end of the protracted hospital stay, all things considered, if the person has been treated quickly enough and been monitored appropriately, that person will walk out of the hospital. . .but it’s going to take time to recover.

And I can tell you that NONE of the people caring for this patient REJOICE in having to administer needles, or to break a rib, or take some kind of pleasure in seeing a person in pain.

At the same time, if they waved their hands and wailed about how they couldn’t possibly even dream of acting in a way that caused any pain. . .millions of people would die because their illnesses weren’t treated.

Sometimes you have to undergo some pain (or inflict it) not for the sake of the pain itself, not with any intention of causing pain in itself, but in order to heal the body. And sometimes, in order to heal the soul as well.

Not sure how we got onto this topic, but…

As someone who has had the misfortune to be involved in giving CPR, I just want to say that you’re correct. Unfortunately, bruising/damaged ribs is fairly common, but I know what option I’d rather have if I was the patient. I have never caused this injury to someone while giving CPR, but I have heard stories because of the line of work I’m in.

 

[Catholicpotato]

Perhaps you are not aware that in the majority of cases where a person needs CPR, they are going to wind up with bruised if not broken ribs, not because the responders did it ‘wrong’, but because the sheer FORCE required to get the person’s lungs inflated IS going to cause damage.

So it is a judgment call. . .

Do nothing --the person dies.

Do CPR but be oh-so-careful not to cause injury to ribs --the person dies.

Do CPR with the force necessary --the person lives, but with probable injury from the necessary treatment.

Unfortunately–again using medical scenarios–there are very few, if any, occasions where the TREATMENT of a grave and potential fatal condition is NOT going to cause some problem.

You have a person with a blood clot --you can hemolyze the clot with Coumadin, but then the person may wind up with a hemorrhage. So you then reverse the Coumadin effect to stabilize–and then the person starts to clot again.

At the end of the protracted hospital stay, all things considered, if the person has been treated quickly enough and been monitored appropriately, that person will walk out of the hospital. . .but it’s going to take time to recover.

And I can tell you that NONE of the people caring for this patient REJOICE in having to administer needles, or to break a rib, or take some kind of pleasure in seeing a person in pain.

At the same time, if they waved their hands and wailed about how they couldn’t possibly even dream of acting in a way that caused any pain. . .millions of people would die because their illnesses weren’t treated.

Sometimes you have to undergo some pain (or inflict it) not for the sake of the pain itself, not with any intention of causing pain in itself, but in order to heal the body. And sometimes, in order to heal the soul as well.

This is exactly what the metaphor was to mean. As anyone with training knows. It is better to do something even if what you are doing is not being done correctly than to do nothing. If someone can do it better, they better be getting their hands bloody right along with you. Not just sitting there with a toothpick in their mouth not doing anything but telling you you are doing it wrong. So, bottom line to bring it home: lead, follow, or get out of the way.
Comments from the peanut gallery are rarely helpful.

 

[Melinda_Selmys]

Alas, male homosexual culture is more different when compared to its heterosexual counterpart, than female homosexual culture compared to hetero. This makes it easier to form characatures.

Although, I must add - the easiest way to identify a female homosexual? THEY’RE WEARING TROUSERS!

Sigh. I’ll go console myself with the new Tori Amos album and some homemade yogourt…

 

[Melinda_Selmys]

This is exactly what the metaphor was to mean. As anyone with training knows. It is better to do something even if what you are doing is not being done correctly than to do nothing. If someone can do it better, they better be getting their hands bloody right along with you. Not just sitting there with a toothpick in their mouth not doing anything but telling you you are doing it wrong. So, bottom line to bring it home: lead, follow, or get out of the way.
Comments from the peanut gallery are rarely helpful.

I understand the metaphor. The problem is that there are a certain number of people in the Catholic world who immediately start applying CPR before they even bother to figure out whether the person they’re administering it to has vital signs or not, and then they say “Hey! Out of my way. Maybe I’m cracking a few ribs, but I’m saving this guy’s life here.” And it’s like, “No you’re not. You’re just breaking his ribs.” Also, I’ve been in a lot of discussions on CAF where there are a number of qualified physicians on the thread, trying to do a delicate operation, and a representative from Rib-Thumpers For Christ comes along and keeps trying to administer CPR in the middle of a heart transplant… Okay, the metaphor is starting to get a little silly here, but it often really does feel that ridiculous. Also, the rules that I suggested are meant to be guidelines for doing the work that is necessary while inflicting minimum pain and damage. I agree that often doing something badly is better than doing nothing, but doing something carefully and well is better still.

p.s. The Canadian NPR is CBC radio. I’m afraid coffee shop intellectualism is just one of the risks that you take if you let a queer girl go on air

 

[NeedImprovement]

From Sirach 12:1-6

and Matthew 7:6 (which follows the oft-quoted judge not, lest you be judged verse)

God does expect us to love our fellow man but also offers words of caution and warning (Sirach is one of the Wisdom books). Immediately following the pearls before swine verse is the series of verses starting with “ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find”. I think that these verses not only support what John and Elizabeth are saying but also exemplifies what we see on CAF.

Some posters come online seeking guidance or answers, they want to live according to God’s will, these are the ones seeking righteousness. Then there are others, who are not asking or seeking, they embrace their evil and want us to do the same. On CAF, we see them with fair regularity. But in the real day-to-day world, most of us are unlikely to ever run into such people. (Unless you want to go to St. Patrick’s in NYC on St. Patrick’s Day.) Those people are the proud sinners of Sirach.

The usual response here is that Jesus ate with sinners. But notice that this implies the sinners invited Jesus to eat with them. They were seeking, they were asking–perhaps not outright, but they necessarily invited Jesus into their homes and to sit at their tables.

“Giving comfort to the wicked” would be equivalent to giving approval, aiding and abetting in the lifestyle choices; this we cannot do.

… Very eloquently, and clearly expressed michelleds… So nice to see a little clarity amidst all the obscurity.

Thankyou.

 

[John21652]

Yes, it was unbecoming. My apologies.

No problem. Except I think you need to read a little more carefully.

This doesn’t follow. The situation that Paul is describing is one where a man who was already a convert undertook an illegitimate and scandalous marriage after he was already an established member of the community.

Perhaps true. However, admitting those into the Church who are not trying to alter their ways is aquivalent to allowing the man in St. Paul’s story to remain. I specifically wrote in the second half of my post “I’m going yo call a spade a spade…I cannot ‘love’ that which is wrong and I cannot ‘genuinely love’ anyone who embraces wrongness as a way of life.”

It’s usual for new converts to take a couple of years to get to the point where they fully understand the Church’s teachings, and perhaps a couple more before they’re able to fully live them. It’s the job of mature believers to support these people, to go to them where they are, and help them along the way to a fuller life in Christ – not to keep them out of our midst.

I also wrote in my post, in my very first paragraph in fact, that I distinguish between someone trying to change and between someone who is trying to do no more than get me to accept their way of life. Specifically, I wrote *"…Is it bothering them and they need some dialogue? If that’s the case, then yes, I could talk to them as a friend and be gentle and guide them in some way, as best I can. If they are trying to shove it in my face, to then make me accept their lifestyle, well, sorry, but I can’t listen, nor understand…" *

John, I think it’s pretty obvious that the reason why you don’t avoid the sinners is that you’re supposed to be leading them to Christ. That’s pretty hard to do if you refuse to mix with them.

Well, surely now you can see that I differentiate between those who make an effort and those who wont. The latter group, I don’t particularly want anything to do with. Now you must admit, the gay lifestyle is often shoved into our faces, mercilessly and uncompromisingly. Well, I wont compromise my opinion of it.

Then of course, we have the example of Jesus himself,…

No, this isn’t analogous. Jesus was consistently pretty nasty to people who claimed religious or spiritual authority, and who used that authority to “lay heavy burdens” on others. The money-lenders were fulfilling a religious function: they were exchanging Roman money into the Temple shekels which were necessary for people to carry out their religious obligations – but they were doing so dishonestly, making it more onerous for the poor to make the requisite sacrifices. I believe absolutely that there should be no tolerance for hypocrisy or rapacity amongst religious authorities.

I’m sorry, but it is more than mere analogy Melinda. It shows directly that even the Son of God sets limits to the idea of toleration. Some things must be railed against. You say it is constant hypocrisy that Jesus railed against and I say that the persistant pushing of a gay agenda, particularly when directed against the Church and existing social mores, is the equivalent of the hypocrisy Jesus fought against.

Cont.d

 

[John21652]

Cont.d

John, the reason for my reaction to your posts is fairly straight-forward: the tone of them is sufficiently off-putting that it’s a stumbling block for me.

Melinda, it shouldn’t be and I think if you’d read my post(s) a little more carefully, you’d see the difference between me making a stand against those who denegrate the Catholic Church and those who would trash society’s moral norms and those who genuinely seek to change themselves and to eventually lead some sort of moral life.

In answering your ten ‘rules’, I was making a point that there should be ‘horses for courses’. Some of your ‘rules’ may suit you and your circumstances, but they don’t suit mine. You are 'evangelising" and I’m just one of the soldiers of God making my stand on behalf of the Church. I also think there is no room to water down Church Doctrine at any time, in any circumstances.

There have been several times, reading the kind of stuff that gets posted here, where I started to think I was in the wrong Church.

Melinda, considering some of the stuff that has been posted on CAF over the past few years, someone could be forgiven for thinking the Church had any future whatsoever. Over the past few years there have been constant attacks on Catholicism’s very foundations here on CAF. One of the most common forms of attack is against the Church’s stance on homosexuality. Thread after thread after thread gets started and it doesn’t take long for the trolls, emboldened by others, to climb out of the woodwork and attack the Church’s moral dogmas. Melinda, some of the posts would curl your hair. We have even had gay protagonists who would have us believe that homosexuality is a gift from God, to be celebrated. I kid you not and others here can attest to that if they so desire. We have had them attempting to undermine the very phisosophical and moral foundations of the Catholic Church, including Natural Law and its objective moral constructs. I can also tell you that often the debates have not been for the faint hearted. It has also been of concern to me and others that would-be-Catholics and those waivering in their faith should be exposed to the rantings of those who seek to undermine the Church. I’m sure you know that there have been attempts by the pro-gay community to get the Catholic Church to admit practicing homosexuals as part of the flock, without being seen as being any different from the rest of the Catholic congregation. Now, that point leads me right back to St. Paul and Jesus Christ…

Fortunately, I was able to go back to the Vatican’s documents, to the scriptures themselves, and to a wider community of supportive Catholics who manifest love – not people who deny truth, but people who tell the truth in a way that makes me want to continue to strive for holiness. When Catholics take this kind of “we will not tolerate” “keep the sinner out of our midst” tone with homosexuals, it really conveys hatred – irregardless of whether you feel or intend that. It hurts people in a way that leads them away from Christ.

No, it isn’t hatred at all Melinda and that willingness to paint staunch Catholics as “haters” is a favourite tactic of those who seek to denigrate Catholicism. The simple fact of the matter is, if homosexuals seek to reform their lives, then the Church, me included, will welcome them with open arms. If, however, they seek to alter, manipulate and change the Catholic Church to cater for their disordered lifestyles, and you know they are trying, then, no ifs or buts, but I for one will make a stand and pull no punches in the process.

So, maybe I’ll stand at the door and you welcome them in…

Horses for courses.

 

[John21652]

Perhaps you are not aware that in the majority of cases where a person needs CPR, they are going to wind up with bruised if not broken ribs, not because the responders did it ‘wrong’, but because the sheer FORCE required to get the person’s lungs inflated IS going to cause damage.

So it is a judgment call. . .

Do nothing --the person dies.

Do CPR but be oh-so-careful not to cause injury to ribs --the person dies.

Do CPR with the force necessary --the person lives, but with probable injury from the necessary treatment.

Unfortunately–again using medical scenarios–there are very few, if any, occasions where the TREATMENT of a grave and potential fatal condition is NOT going to cause some problem.

You have a person with a blood clot --you can hemolyze the clot with Coumadin, but then the person may wind up with a hemorrhage. So you then reverse the Coumadin effect to stabilize–and then the person starts to clot again.

At the end of the protracted hospital stay, all things considered, if the person has been treated quickly enough and been monitored appropriately, that person will walk out of the hospital. . .but it’s going to take time to recover.

And I can tell you that NONE of the people caring for this patient REJOICE in having to administer needles, or to break a rib, or take some kind of pleasure in seeing a person in pain.

At the same time, if they waved their hands and wailed about how they couldn’t possibly even dream of acting in a way that caused any pain. . .millions of people would die because their illnesses weren’t treated.

Sometimes you have to undergo some pain (or inflict it) not for the sake of the pain itself, not with any intention of causing pain in itself, but in order to heal the body. And sometimes, in order to heal the soul as well.

Wonderfully allegorical; well put.

 

[Melinda_Selmys]

Hey John,

Look, I totally understand where you’re coming from. There were about three or four years after I finally figured out what Catholic orthodoxy was (the first couple of years after I converted I was a heretic, mostly out of ignorance…) when I had a very similar mentality. A lot of it, I think, was because I was mad at the gay community, because I felt that they had “lied” to me. The problem is that I eventually realized that trying to defend the Church in this way makes it unapproachable: people tend to get put off by the glistening array of glittering spear-points at the door. I also realized that this isn’t Christ’s methodology: He’s not a “hole yourself up and defend the fortress” kind of God – I think one of the big shifts between the Old Testament spirituality of the Law and the New Testament spirituality of the Spirit is contained in those words “Be Not Afraid” which the angel spoke at the beginning of the Christian era, and which John Paul II reminded us of on the cusp of the new millennium. The Church militant isn’t supposed to be an entrenched Church, hiding in the bunkers, hoping not to get overrun by the hordes of Hell, it’s supposed to be a Church on maneuvers – He didn’t say “The Gates of the Church will always hold against Satan,” He said, “The gates of Hell will never prevail against” the Church. Being a soldier for Christ means being out there, fetching the one sheep, trusting that the 99 will be okay.
Now I also realize that if someone reads your posts carefully, and has enough patience and good will to try to really understand what you’re saying instead of simply taking the surface level impression, that they’ll realize that it’s not actually hateful. The problem is that, even if you don’t intend it, the surface level comes off that way – particularly to people who have same-sex attractions (including people who really are trying to live in accordance with Church teaching on this.)
A final note: the people who denigrate and attack the Church on CAF are prime conversion fodder. Benedict XVI makes this point: that “practical atheism” is a much greater problem than militant atheism, because the practical atheist does not care about the question of God. People who bother to show up and attack the Church in a forum where the Church is able to offer a defense of Herself, care about the question of God. They attack because they feel threatened – they’ve got a God-shaped bee in their bonnet, and they’re terrified of being stung. Seriously, I was at my most virulently and vociferously anti-Catholic about three months before I joined the Church. I know that if you’re on the inside, already safe, it looks like these people are the legions of the enemy, attacking the foundations of the Church and the fabric of society, but they’re not – they’re our brothers and sisters in Christ, and their “attacks” are really the cries of a soul which is in pain because it both yearns for and fears salvation. So you have to be patient and kind with those people, to comfort them and calm their fears so that they’ll settle down enough to take the leap of faith and come home.

 

[InSearchofGrace]

In Search of… Good to see you. I’d like to apologize in the event that any of what I said on previous threads, or in my blog, offended you personally. One of my more recent posts explains what was going on with me at the time, but I still ought to have been more charitable.
In this thread, I “drudged up” a list of persecutions because Thistle asked me what wrongs had been done to homosexuals, and I was answering his question. I do, however, think that it’s a mistake to think that gay activists only bring up the persecution of homosexuals for dramatics, or to get everyone emotional – nor is it just a meme. One of the things that impressed me about John Paul II’s pontificate was his willingness to acknowledge and apologize for wrongs that had been done in the name of Christianity – the humility to recognize that as Christians we are all one body, and therefore, in some sense, all bear the responsibility for the wrongs that have been done by people acting as members of the Church. If we are vocal about the sins of other groups, and then refuse to acknowledge the corporate sins of our own Church, this goes down very badly. The horrible things that have been done to LGBTQ people are not just a meme – they’re real. If I had not learned of these things in confidence, I could tell you the names, and show you the faces of the victims.

Not to worry, no personal offence taken. I think Hadrianus upthread said it well, it is worthwhile to distinguish between the Church and the actions of her members. I don’t doubt that since you published your book, were invited to speak on TV programs, etc., and have a blog site, actual victims seek you out to tell their stories. Nobody is expecting that you break confidences. I just thought you were piling it on with the atrocities through the centuries that you listed in your reply to Thistle. I think it’s unnecessary and a ploy to appeal to emotion, not reason. Penchant for drama has been used also by a sibling with whom I grew up.

The serious problem that the gay crowd pose is the incessant noisy demand to legalize SSM and ‘right’ to adopt children. This hurts the Body of Christ, the same Body of which you speak when homosexuals are on the receiving end of oppression. Some homosexuals do point out here they do not go along with that and they don’t march in gay pride parade. But they sure ride on the wave of charges of ‘homophobia’ even when it does not apply. And I will include you there, as you made your controversial point in a preceding thread you opened that it is ‘homophobic’ not to attend family Thanksgiving dinner where the gay couple was invited around the table along with the poster’s children. And then you say in this thread that straights should agree to the terms of gays (No. 3 in Melinda’s proposed rules). There have been a number of posters who made solid arguments against yours, so I will not re-hash them in this post. I think those two points you made may give you credibility to the gays who participate and lurk in this forum, but you lose with the straights on maintaining those positions.

I wish to ask you for your clear position on SSM legalization and gay ‘adoption.’ Since Canada is ahead of the U.S. with that, do you think Canadian society has benefited at all with the government’s accommodation to its gay population? I realize this is sort of outside your 10 rules OP, but a brief answer would be appreciated.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us.
,

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

Ah, Mark, I wondered when you would wonder in.

I refer you to St. Paul in Rom 1:18. …] and the USCCB’s NABRE has the following footnote:

All of that’s great, Michelle, but if it leads us to believe anything contrary to what we know of God in the light of the Resurrection, then we have interpreted it incorrectly. I cannot say it more clearly: the absolute canon of our morality and our theology is that the Resurrection of Jesus is the most definitive revelation of the nature of God as Love. There is no way to affirm that reality and to also affirm that God has a share in either violence (whatever form it might take and however we may wish to justify it to ourselves) or death without fundamentally compromising our faith. If the Christian understanding of God is just another articulation of an ultra-righteous Death God (which are generally merely divinized and “purified” projections of human violence), then the gospel is a lie. Plain and simple.

That sin is it’s own punishment, that we choose to love (by grace!) or not to love, and that the reality of not loving is a reality of pain and suffering of our own choosing, that in our sin we reject God’s love and build for ourselves a hell–none of these things mean that we are not responsible for our sin, or that our sin does not destroy us. What it means is that we are called out of sin into love, that God’s justice bears no resemblance whatsoever to our sin, which means too that it shares no resemblance to human violence and, in fact, rejects it completely, because it looks like the incarnation, life, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. That is God’s astounding and bewildering justice. It’s hard to accept, I know, that God doesn’t have it out for us, that he loves us so intensely. Many Christians seem to find that reality and it’s implications particularly incredible.

That is not to say that God loves our sin, because sin has no part in him and should therefore have no part in us.

But to understand God “suffering intensely at the thought of having to punish Israel” means either a) that God is compelled by some external force greater than him to act against his will (unless that suffering is crocodile tears, in which case God is duplicitous); or b) we are invited to view God’s agency in the punishment of Israel as a function of an incomplete understanding of God’s nature–an understanding made complete by the Resurrection. I.e, we are invited to understand Israel’s punishment as the natural result of sin in which God has no part, but that God shares in the suffering of his people, a reading which is confirmed by the fact of the incarnation, God With Us.

I understand your position, Mark. I truly do, having lived there myself for a number of years.

I don’t know that you do, Michelle, because your assumption seems to be that I believe what I do because I’m a homosexual, that believing, with St. John, that God is Love is an indication that I’m trying to justify my sin. That is an incredibly impoverished understanding of my position, Michelle. What I believe is not a function of my homosexuality. I believe what I do because a reading of the Desert Fathers opened up the Gospel to me. I believe what I do because many loving people have showed me the grace of God. I believe what I do because of that grace and love, of both of which I am totally undeserving.

[CONTINUED…]

 

[Deo_Volente]

…CONTINUED AND COMPLETED]

If one continues to deny God’s position on sin, continues to convince oneself that God’s love will cover/hide/erase all of one’s sins, then one doesn’t need to change anything about one’s behavior.

I hope you understand, given what I’ve written above, that this is a misunderstanding of my position, though it is perhaps a good understanding of what you were thinking some time before your conversion.

it was fear of eternal consequences that finally made me get fired up for God, abandoning my life of sin and debauchery.

We’re different people, Michelle. Fear of hell or punishment did not bring me closer to God. The love of God (chiefly in the sacraments) brought me closer to him and gave me an inkling that the power of his love was greater, more awe-inspiring, and more able to teach me holy fear than the horrible things I imagined he would like to do to me (or would be forced to do to me) because I’m a sinner. I want to live into that love by his grace. I’m not loving God because I fear hell. I’m loving God because God’s love shown to me in Jesus Christ makes me want to love him more.

And as for your “cruel” implications and statements, I call bull.

You may if you like. I’ve noticed in my own behavior and in the behavior of others that we’re very skilled at justifying our cruelty, mostly because we don’t like to think of ourselves as cruel. But, as Christ says, we put ourselves in danger of hellfire if we merely call our brother a fool. Which says to me that the way of righteousness is a way of relationship as well. We may want to call our brother a fool, he may be doing something foolish, but there’s a loving way to care for our brother in his foolishness and lead him by grace to grace, and then there’s calling him a fool.

Are you saying that if I tell someone that the homosexual activities they are engaging in are a mortal sin, I’m being cruel?

I didn’t say that, Michelle. My understanding of cruelty is, admittedly, very broad. But I think it must be. Cruelty can be expressed in many ways, some of them simple, careless, and easy. Telling someone that homosexual activity is a mortal sin is not necessarily simple, careless, or easy (though it might be, depending). It may not be cruel, either. But it also may not be the best way to lead them to love. That, I believe, was the whole point of Melinda’s list.

Seriously, I want to know specifically what’s cruel other than the fact that it might be incredibly painful to an infected conscience to be so pummelled with the Truth.

I think I’ve already addressed the gist of this, Michelle. But I want to comment on two things: a) sometimes we pummel people with infected consciences believing we’re doing it out of love, when actually we gain a kind of pleasure or take a kind of pride in the pain it causes them. We should not be indifferent to that pain, should we find that we’ve caused it, but meet it with compassion; b) the truth is not a sledgehammer. It’s a person: Jesus Christ.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
VERO CRAS!

 

[NeedImprovement]

Hey John, …

Now I also realize that if someone reads your posts carefully, and has enough patience and good will to try to really understand what you’re saying instead of simply taking the surface level impression, that they’ll realize that it’s not actually hateful. The problem is that, even if you don’t intend it, the surface level comes off that way – particularly to people who have same-sex attractions (including people who really are trying to live in accordance with Church teaching on this.) …

You know John , I can’t help but think that the *surface level *wouldn’t “come off that way” so much if it weren’t getting *helped along *. It appears rather fortuitous that you mention the subject of *painting people *a certain way .

I thought I saw a paint can get opened right around here :

Lemon and Lime, … Unfortunately, dahling, if you review most of the threads on the forum about homosexuality you’ll find that John21652 is not alone in believing that gay folks are the equivalent of lepers in the Old Testament, and that any show of kindness or sympathy is a failure to Stand Up For the Truth!

And I believe your reply was right on the mark:

Now now Melinda…
Your… remark in your response to LemonandLime … is also factually wrong, which you’d know if you had read my responses accurately …

Factually wrong indeed. Where your post expresses the desire to not mislead homosexuals into thinking you are affirming their lifestyle , it specifically refers to those who are active homosexuals - which is clear from the example you had given . Actually you even went so far as to specify that the person in your example , “wasn’t wanting any conversion and seeks none today.” (not a whole lot left to do except pray for them in that scenario):

Cont.d

… I have had one person with whom I had a close relationship break the news that he was ‘gay’. He was seeking approval and did not get it. Obviously, he knew that our relationship meant he would get a hearing and he did. But, he wasn’t wanting any conversion and seeks none today. He knows where I am if he decides to accept my non-acceptance…

And just as you have, we also as conscientious Catholics, are to differentiate between the three levels of homosexuality :
Modern Catholic Dictionary ; Fr. John Hardon:

HOMOSEXUALITY. In general, some form of sexual relationship among members of the same sex. From a moral standpoint, three levels are to be distinguished: tendency, attraction, and activity. Homosexual tendencies in any person are within the normal range of human nature, whose fallen condition includes every conceivable kind of impulse that with sincere effort and divine grace can be controlled. Sexual attraction for members of the same sex may be partly due to the peculiar make-up of certain individuals or, more often, the result of indiscretion or seduction and presents a graver problem; yet this, too, is not by itself sinful and may in fact be an occasion for great supernatural merit. When the condition is pathological, it requires therapy. Active homosexuality is morally indefensible and has been many times forbidden in revelation and the teaching of the Church. The most extensive declaration on the subject was by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, approved by Pope Paul VI on November 7, 1975.

1. 
   *]Homosexual tendency,
   *]homosexual attraction,
   *]homosexual activity / active homosexuality
   
   Of the three, active homosexuality is the only one which is categorically morally indefensible … So , why should you – or any of us for that matter, defend it ? That would definitively go against Church teaching. You clearly indicated this (active) was the type of homosexuality you were referring to.
   These accusations, on the other hand , conveniently discard that fact –
   

   Lemon and Lime, … Unfortunately, dahling, if you review most of the threads on the forum about homosexuality you’ll find that John21652 is not alone in believing that gay folks are the equivalent of lepers in the Old Testament, and that any show of kindness or sympathy is a failure to Stand Up For the Truth!

   … preferring to paint you with a much wider roller instead as someone who thinks all “gay folks are the equivalent of lepers in the old testament.” – which is a convenient misrepresentation. (And , anyone who of course agrees with you, automatically gets painted that same colour.)
   
   Alternately, if the fact that you were only referring to those engaged in an active homosexual lifestyle, and that the actual example you gave was of someone who neither “wanted any conversion” nor “seeks none today” were acknowledged by everyone – exactly the way you wrote it, it would mean that accusations of the aforementioned nature … and subsequent ones such as
   

   …What I’m saying is that the lack of charity in John’s posts is scandalous – …

   wouldn’t really hold much water at all.
   
   Rather than anyone “understanding” your posts “come off” a certain way , I should think the much more spiritually beneficial salient point would be to understand *who is helping them to come off that way by obscuring what you actually said. *

 

[NeedImprovement]

Before any more accusations like that are leveled, it would be in the best interest of all of us to pause, then proceed with caution.

Several definitions from The Modern Catholic Dictionary of Father John Hardon .
Modern Catholic Dictionary ; Fr. John Hardon:

CHARITY.
The infused supernatural virtue by which a person loves God above all things for his own sake, and loves others for God’s sake. It is a virtue based on divine faith or in belief in God’s revealed truth, and is not acquired by mere human effort. It can be conferred only by divine grace. Because it is infused along with sanctifying grace, it is frequently identified with the state of grace. Therefore, a person who has lost the supernatural virtue of charity has lost the state of grace, although he may still possess the virtues of hope and faith.

CALUMNY.
Injuring another person’s good name by lying. It is doubly sinful, in unjustly depriving another of his good name and in telling an untruth. Since calumny violates justice, it involves the duty of making reparation for the foreseen injury inflicted. Hence the calumniator must try, not only to repair the harm done to another’s good name, but also to make up for any foreseen temporal loss that resulted from the calumny, for example, loss of employment or customers. (Etym. Latin calumnia, a false accusation, malicious charge; from calvi, to deceive.)

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

With reference to my post #133, I’d like to correct the following sentence:

“What it means is that we are called out of sin into love, that God’s justice bears no resemblance whatsoever to our sin, which means too that it shares no resemblance to human violence and, in fact, rejects it completely, because it looks like the incarnation, life, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ.”

That bolded, red “it” should read “God’s justice.” Right now, it’s unclear what the word is referring to, and I apologize for that.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
VERO CRAS!

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I understand the metaphor. The problem is that there are a certain number of people in the Catholic world who immediately start applying CPR before they even bother to figure out whether the person they’re administering it to has vital signs or not, and then they say “Hey! Out of my way. Maybe I’m cracking a few ribs, but I’m saving this guy’s life here.” And it’s like, “No you’re not. You’re just breaking his ribs.” Also, I’ve been in a lot of discussions on CAF where there are a number of qualified physicians on the thread, trying to do a delicate operation, and a representative from Rib-Thumpers For Christ comes along and keeps trying to administer CPR in the middle of a heart transplant… Okay, the metaphor is starting to get a little silly here, but it often really does feel that ridiculous. Also, the rules that I suggested are meant to be guidelines for doing the work that is necessary while inflicting minimum pain and damage. I agree that often doing something badly is better than doing nothing, but doing something carefully and well is better still.

p.s. The Canadian NPR is CBC radio. I’m afraid coffee shop intellectualism is just one of the risks that you take if you let a queer girl go on air

I think we’re on the same page but giving a different emphasis.

Say that all things considered (NPR pun not intended ) we have four different groups of people.

Group A: Physicians and other qualified personnel.
Group B: Cross section of non-qualified people of all walks and professions and abilities
Group C: Holistic or other ‘non traditional’ personnel, again of all kinds of abilities
Group D: At-risk people; some of whom know they are at risk, some of whom are in denial, some of whom just don’t want to know, again of all kinds of abilities.

Group A is the practicing, informed Christian.
Group B is all sorts of people, Christian and non Christian, who have differing opinions and experiences
Group C is evenly divided between Christians who are stubbornly adherent to teachings which are either exaggerated truth, or so ‘skewed’ that even if there’s a kernel there, it is buried under other not really accurate teachings–and nonChristians who just like to cause trouble.
Group D is the sinner–Christian and non-Christian alike.

SO: When it comes to communication, Group B and Group D need to deal with Group A (even if at times they are afraid of what Group A will tell them).

But group C often intervenes. And because group C often identify themselves (wrongly) as being part of group A OR part of group B, they can be perceived as having more authority than they do in reality.

BUT we can’t tell group A to ‘back off’, because say for the last few years group C has been making the news so much and coopting certain phrases or causes such that now everybody associates those phrases with ‘group C’ and immediately rejects anything they hear because they assume it’s group C teaching and not reliable.

Suppose a doctor from group A has found that acupuncture (traditonally a more holistic practice in western medicine) really helps his oncology patients. So he tells a relatively new patient who has a more ‘traditional’ type of upbringing to see an accupuncturist. . .

The patient immediately starts to worry that his oncologist is some new age charlatan. . .
UNTIL at the next visit the oncologist brings out nice solid New England Journal of Medicine articles talking about the benefits of acupuncture and giving a laymen’s overview of how it evolved, etc.

IF the oncologist had ‘backed off’ from talking about acupuncture because he worried he would have his patient starting to doubt him and not following his recommendations and not undergoing at least palliation if not healing, it would not have helped the patient, and it would not have helped the oncologist, and it wouldn’t have helped all the other people out there who would be in some way affected, either for themselves or their families, in years to come.

I guess what I’m saying is that I worry more about people NOT getting the treatment that they need (even if the proposal by SOME --by no means ALL of providers or would-be providers–is given prematurely or harshly even). I have seen FAR more people wind up in grave situations because when they noticed even a little ‘change’ they would try to minimize the symptoms, deny them, postpone making a doctor appointment. It wouldn’t have mattered to them whether the doctor treated them like royalty; they would have reacted to the diagnosis with outrage. BUT. . .if they had gone in earlier, the chance for cure would have been much higher. The longer they wait, the more it’s likely that they’ll ‘miss their chance’ and wind up suffering far more than they would have had they been more willing to accept hearing things that THEY DIDN’T WANT TO HEAR.

And you know what? The well-meaning husband, wife, friend, who encourages the person ("Sure, it’s probably just a passing twinge’. “Yeah, doctors are just out to make money.” “I don’t think you need to worry”) say these things BECAUSE THEY DON’T WANT TO HURT THE PERSON’S FEELINGS or ‘UPSET THEM’ or “PUSH THEM TOO QUICKLY”. And boy, can they have regrets even though they had ‘good intentions’. . .

 

[Catholicpotato]

I think we’re on the same page but giving a different emphasis.

Say that all things considered (NPR pun not intended ) we have four different groups of people.

Group A: Physicians and other qualified personnel.
Group B: Cross section of non-qualified people of all walks and professions and abilities
Group C: Holistic or other ‘non traditional’ personnel, again of all kinds of abilities
Group D: At-risk people; some of whom know they are at risk, some of whom are in denial, some of whom just don’t want to know, again of all kinds of abilities.

Group A is the practicing, informed Christian.
Group B is all sorts of people, Christian and non Christian, who have differing opinions and experiences
Group C is evenly divided between Christians who are stubbornly adherent to teachings which are either exaggerated truth, or so ‘skewed’ that even if there’s a kernel there, it is buried under other not really accurate teachings–and nonChristians who just like to cause trouble.
Group D is the sinner–Christian and non-Christian alike.

SO: When it comes to communication, Group B and Group D need to deal with Group A (even if at times they are afraid of what Group A will tell them).

But group C often intervenes. And because group C often identify themselves (wrongly) as being part of group A OR part of group B, they can be perceived as having more authority than they do in reality.

BUT we can’t tell group A to ‘back off’, because say for the last few years group C has been making the news so much and coopting certain phrases or causes such that now everybody associates those phrases with ‘group C’ and immediately rejects anything they hear because they assume it’s group C teaching and not reliable.

Suppose a doctor from group A has found that acupuncture (traditonally a more holistic practice in western medicine) really helps his oncology patients. So he tells a relatively new patient who has a more ‘traditional’ type of upbringing to see an accupuncturist. . .

The patient immediately starts to worry that his oncologist is some new age charlatan. . .
UNTIL at the next visit the oncologist brings out nice solid New England Journal of Medicine articles talking about the benefits of acupuncture and giving a laymen’s overview of how it evolved, etc.

IF the oncologist had ‘backed off’ from talking about acupuncture because he worried he would have his patient starting to doubt him and not following his recommendations and not undergoing at least palliation if not healing, it would not have helped the patient, and it would not have helped the oncologist, and it wouldn’t have helped all the other people out there who would be in some way affected, either for themselves or their families, in years to come.

I guess what I’m saying is that I worry more about people NOT getting the treatment that they need (even if the proposal by SOME --by no means ALL of providers or would-be providers–is given prematurely or harshly even). I have seen FAR more people wind up in grave situations because when they noticed even a little ‘change’ they would try to minimize the symptoms, deny them, postpone making a doctor appointment. It wouldn’t have mattered to them whether the doctor treated them like royalty; they would have reacted to the diagnosis with outrage. BUT. . .if they had gone in earlier, the chance for cure would have been much higher. The longer they wait, the more it’s likely that they’ll ‘miss their chance’ and wind up suffering far more than they would have had they been more willing to accept hearing things that THEY DIDN’T WANT TO HEAR.

And you know what? The well-meaning husband, wife, friend, who encourages the person ("Sure, it’s probably just a passing twinge’. “Yeah, doctors are just out to make money.” “I don’t think you need to worry”) say these things BECAUSE THEY DON’T WANT TO HURT THE PERSON’S FEELINGS or ‘UPSET THEM’ or “PUSH THEM TOO QUICKLY”. And boy, can they have regrets even though they had ‘good intentions’. . .

Good explanation and well thought out!