Bishop responds to Boy Scouts' decision on admission of homosexual members [CWN]

[Brendan]

Recognition is nice but I’m not sure what an organization like FNE would gain from an association with NFCYM. The Catholic Faith is already integrated into our programs so the religious awards offered by NFCYM would be superfluous.

I know what you mean. The boys in my troop not only know what ‘Ad Altare Dei’ means, but can generally quote the rest of the Mass responses as well.

But it is still the point. Limiting the awards to a particular org.

 

[Cat_Herder]

Cat then stop supporting the scouts.

I have stopped supporting BSA; I haven’t given up on Scouting.

The decision has already been made.

By BSA. Not by anyone else.

And the main Catholic bodies involved with scouting support it.

Who are the main Catholic bodies involved with the BSA? NCCS? NCCS is not a Catholic body, it’s a subsidiary of the BSA. BSA owns the trademark on NCCS and has the power to do whatever they want with it. So they answer to the National Council, not the Church.

You are one interpretation of Church teaching; and that doesn’t necessarily mean your interpretation is right.

It’s not my interpretation. It came from the Vatican. I am just applying what it says to Scouting. It would apply to any teaching/coaching situation especially where children are involved.

No offense but I’m going to go off what the Catholic committee of scouting and the Bishops said.

The Bishops haven’t said anything except that they are tentative and still trying to figure it out. NCCS is owned by the BSA. The Bishops need independent opinions, not ones issued by a branch office of the agency that is to be audited.

Along with the resolution that 60% of the delegates approved.

“It was voted on by somebody somewhere who supposedly represents me so it must be moral!” Please. Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a sheep contesting the vote as unconstitutional. So baaaah to you.

This and the fact that Mormons and Methodists both traditional on sexuality approved this as well.

Whether the Mormons are traditional on anything merits a book, so I’m not even going to try to address this here. And honestly, you can’t say anything about a Methodist (I know, I was one). It’s like trying to describe an Anglican. They’re all over the place. Both just pick the verses of the Bible they like and it’s total chaos, which is the opposite of Tradition with a capital T.

If you don’t agree with the resolution don’t support the scouts. They’re a private organization and they can set their membership standards. If you disagree then don’t support them.

I don’t support the BSA anymore, as I said, but I would appreciate it if you would stop equating the BSA with Scouting as if they owned the concept. They didn’t even invent it.

Me I support them because I agree with what the resolution states. Which is that same-sex attraction cannot be used in itself to bar membership even if someone is open about it. Besides it stated that any sexual or political activity was inappropriate.

Except to point out, say, the Vatican statement. Anyone who does that is going to get treated the same way you’re treating me, and will be unable to fight back because then the “no political activity” clause will be used to freeze them out.

BSA is not a Catholic organization

Exactly.

You can’t impose Catholic teachings onto an entire organization many of whom are not Catholic.

Exactly, which is why we as Catholics should promote our own youth development organizations instead of wasting any more time trying to keep the BSA alive.

I’m open about my SSA and I’m celibate. And I don’t support a gay lifestyle. You make no sense saying every person with SSA must suffer in silence.

It’s not “me” who is saying this. I am just a messenger. ) has said.yes, the same one that you claim is on board with this

For some persons, revealing their homosexual tendencies to certain close friends, family members, a spiritual director, confessor, or members of a Church support group may provide some spiritual and emotional help and aid them in their growth in the Christian life.** In the context of parish life, however, general public self- disclosures are not helpful and should not be encouraged.**

How on Earth is anyone going to get support for it then.

Well, if inclusivity of openly homosexual people was such a good thing, then why is Camp Fire USA still tiny and unknown? They’ve allowed open homosexuals for basically forever and yet they have failed to, well, catch fire. And why did Scouts Canada collapse when they adopted a similar policy?

 

[Cat_Herder]

Full disclosure – I’m a member of FNE.

And that is awesome.

Recognition is nice but I’m not sure what an organization like FNE would gain from an association with NFCYM. The Catholic Faith is already integrated into our programs so the religious awards offered by NFCYM would be superfluous.

I was thinking in terms of logistics for program delivery. More than just recognition; getting the word out that we have a quality Catholic Scouting program, and helping with expansion. But I know FNE has concerns about rate of expansion vs. compromising program quality. That has to be balanced out somehow, which is why I have linked up other Catholic youth programs besides FNE on my profile; I think that at least for now we’re going to have to take a federated approach to replace the BSA. Hopefully the On My Honor folks are able to put together a boys’ equivalent to AHG, which could be part of the same umbrella of 21st Century Catholic youth programs that are rooted in the New Evangelization. Then NCFYM could provide coordination for all of them and achievements common to all of them, so that each program could retain its charism, so to speak, and its autonomy.

 

[pnewton]

One must of course keep both of these paragraphs in mind.

But the first paragraph mentions specifically “homosexual acts” which the BSA totally bans.

 

[pnewton]

Then you didn’t read the CDF document.

Maybe he read it but just didn’t read into it more than was said. The BSA is not an adoption agency. The BSA is not the military. The BSA still allows for *just *discrimination for adult leaders. Please understand that someone who disagrees with your point isn’t necessarily ignorant for that disagreement or disagreeing the the Church or any past pope. It is strictly your opinion of how this is going to apply that the disagreement is with.

 

[pnewton]

Is this where we’re at? By including his comment and source, are you claiming that gays and lesbians can and should be “reverted”?

I will go further than that and say that a Catholic scouting group should actively help children who have been confused by the gender confusion around them understand their natural and proper gender identity, of which their are only two, male and female.

 

[markomalley]

Maybe he read it but just didn’t read into it more than was said. The BSA is not an adoption agency. The BSA is not the military. The BSA still allows for *just *discrimination for adult leaders. Please understand that someone who disagrees with your point isn’t necessarily ignorant for that disagreement or disagreeing the the Church or any past pope. It is strictly your opinion of how this is going to apply that the disagreement is with.

This is very true.

However, the Catechism (as well as multiple CDF documents) identify the condition of homosexual “orientation” as being objectively disordered (in as much as if it was acted upon, it would, without exception, result in an act that is gravely depraved…i.e., intrinsically disordered)

I, honestly, have a really hard time with the thought that an 11, 12, or 13 year old kid is psychologically developed enough to comprehend if he is a homosexual. I, frankly, would characterize a child who has made the “declaration” that he is a homosexual as confused, more than anything.

Sadly, society wishes to label the kid as a committed homosexual (and “accomodate” him) if he makes a single declaration at the age of four…

That’s why I, for one, say that if it was just a matter of confused kids, I would agree with the BSA ruling. However, I still don’t think that this has a blasted thing to do with kids. I think this has everything to do with activist adults. And that’s why I personally am opposed to it.

 

[fix]

This is very true.

However, the Catechism (as well as multiple CDF documents) identify the condition of homosexual “orientation” as being objectively disordered (in as much as if it was acted upon, it would, without exception, result in an act that is gravely depraved…i.e., intrinsically disordered)

I, honestly, have a really hard time with the thought that an 11, 12, or 13 year old kid is psychologically developed enough to comprehend if he is a homosexual. I, frankly, would characterize a child who has made the “declaration” that he is a homosexual as confused, more than anything.

Sadly, society wishes to label the kid as a committed homosexual (and “accomodate” him) if he makes a single declaration at the age of four…

That’s why I, for one, say that if it was just a matter of confused kids, I would agree with the BSA ruling. However, I still don’t think that this has a blasted thing to do with kids. I think this has everything to do with activist adults. And that’s why I personally am opposed to it.

Well said and I think most reasonable people grasp it. There is a need to find a way to limit the damage from the policy change and that is what all the tap dancing is about.

 

[Cat_Herder]

I will go further than that and say that a Catholic scouting group should actively help children who have been confused by the gender confusion around them understand their natural and proper gender identity, of which their are only two, male and female.

And how are they to do so when the resolution bans them from doing so?

 

[Dawnia]

This is very true.

However, the Catechism (as well as multiple CDF documents) identify the condition of homosexual “orientation” as being objectively disordered (in as much as if it was acted upon, it would, without exception, result in an act that is gravely depraved…i.e., intrinsically disordered)

I, honestly, have a really hard time with the thought that an 11, 12, or 13 year old kid is psychologically developed enough to comprehend if he is a homosexual. I, frankly, would characterize a child who has made the “declaration” that he is a homosexual as confused, more than anything.

Sadly, society wishes to label the kid as a committed homosexual (and “accomodate” him) if he makes a single declaration at the age of four…

That’s why I, for one, say that if it was just a matter of confused kids, I would agree with the BSA ruling. However, I still don’t think that this has a blasted thing to do with kids. I think this has everything to do with activist adults. And that’s why I personally am opposed to it.

Isn’t the BSA now doing the exact same thing of turning confused kids into committed homosexuals? Once a kid claims to be homosexual how can there be any turning back? If they ID as homosexual they can’t go on to be an adult leader.

 

[pnewton]

This is very true.

However, the Catechism (as well as multiple CDF documents) identify the condition of homosexual “orientation” as being objectively disordered (in as much as if it was acted upon, it would, without exception, result in an act that is gravely depraved…i.e., intrinsically disordered)

I absolutely agree with you. However, we need to remember that we all suffer from a natural tendency to depravity which we called concupiscence. I think the evidence shows that our tendency can be affected by both our genes and our environment, with people having greater or lesser problems with sin in different areas.

I, honestly, have a really hard time with the thought that an 11, 12, or 13 year old kid is psychologically developed enough to comprehend if he is a homosexual. I, frankly, would characterize a child who has made the “declaration” that he is a homosexual as confused, more than anything.

Sadly, society wishes to label the kid as a committed homosexual (and “accomodate” him) if he makes a single declaration at the age of four…

That’s why I, for one, say that if it was just a matter of confused kids, I would agree with the BSA ruling. However, I still don’t think that this has a blasted thing to do with kids. I think this has everything to do with activist adults. And that’s why I personally am opposed to it.

I too agree that this is a matter of activist parents primarily, though I do not discount our general depravity in this area as a society. When you have younger kids (where most scouts join the program) there is no way they can come up with this stuff on their own. For me, this is all the more reason to get them involved in a Catholic scouting program of some sort, assuming that the Catholic scouting program is orthodox and the leadership firm in this area.

I think we will see the effects of this change play out over the next couple of years as activists meet orthodoxy. A child can be removed for his behavior, as I will choose to see it, including statements and promotion of homosexuality. A homosexual activist with an agenda may well choose to place a child in a group he knows will not tolerate this type of promotion. A parent that is just confused and wants the best for his child will probably seek a more (liberal?) group.

 

[markomalley]

Isn’t the BSA now doing the exact same thing of turning confused kids into committed homosexuals? Once a kid claims to be homosexual how can there be any turning back? If they ID as homosexual they can’t go on to be an adult leader.

I don’t know that one way or the other how BSA envisions handling this…or, if, as I suspect, it will be handled council by council. I will take the word of those who post here and are involved in Boy Scouting.

The adult homosexual activists who pushed this upon BSA will likely want that to happen. And, at the same time, they will berate BSA for not allowing boys who were perfectly fine as homosexual boy scouts to be perfectly fine homosexual boy scout leaders. But that is my guess as to what will happen in future months and years.

To repeat, my concern is that the camel has gotten its nose under the tent. A move, which on the surface, appears to be perfectly innocuous, which will…if similar events are paralleled in this case…result in the tent coming down as the camel seeks to come all the way in.

 

[pnewton]

Well said and I think most reasonable people grasp it. There is a need to find a way to limit the damage from the policy change and that is what all the tap dancing is about.

I think so. There is plenty of room for disagreement on how best to respond. It is interesting to see the SBC tackle this problem first. They are experiencing the same divergency we see here.

 

[Dawnia]

I don’t know that one way or the other how BSA envisions handling this…or, if, as I suspect, it will be handled council by council. I will take the word of those who post here and are involved in Boy Scouting.

The adult homosexual activists who pushed this upon BSA will likely want that to happen. And, at the same time, they will berate BSA for not allowing boys who were perfectly fine as homosexual boy scouts to be perfectly fine homosexual boy scout leaders. But that is my guess as to what will happen in future months and years.

To repeat, my concern is that the camel has gotten its nose under the tent. A move, which on the surface, appears to be perfectly innocuous, which will…if similar events are paralleled in this case…result in the tent coming down as the camel seeks to come all the way in.

It doesn’t appear to me that this whole rule change was very well thought out.

I want to know where you camp that you have camels trying to get into your tents? All we ever get is coons.

 

[Brendan]

It doesn’t appear to me that this whole rule change was very well thought out.

I want to know where you camp that you have camels trying to get into your tents? All we ever get is coons.

You probably keep food in your tent. That attracts the coons. If you kept water, on the other hand, THAT would attract the camels, or at least camelbacks.

 

[Dawnia]

You probably keep food in your tent. That attracts the coons. If you kept water, on the other hand, THAT would attract the camels, or at least camelbacks.

Hmmm…hasn’t worked for me and believe me, I have only been camping once or twice where I didn’t have water in my tent. Lots of wet stuff, but no camels. I must be doing it wrong.

 

[Captain_America]

Realistically, why not have a better, more Catholic organization?

 

[Brendan]

Realistically, why not have a better, more Catholic organization?

That is exactly my thoughts.

 

[Captain_America]

The BSA organization caved in on an important moral matter. Hard to believe it won’t again; always easier the second time, particularly when there’s money involved.

 

[Captain_America]

OP: I’ve read the statement and read the various national catholic scouters website bits.

The fact of the matter is that this issue is like many other contemporary issues----the church leadership is following/ scrambling after the bus has pulled away, and making equivocating noises.

The belief among many bishops is that if the Catholic Church makes any clear affirmative statement, then people will walk away from the church and walk away from their “leadership”, and show the bishops to be merely propped up Wizards of Oz, leaders without followers.

It’s the fear of being off-putting to Catholics—and losing membership— that keeps the bishop’s mouths shut on many issues.