Bishops adopt statement on pastoral care of homosexuals

[Walking_Home]

The message is that the soul of the child is extremely important to us without regard to who his parents are. We had in my kid’s catholic school Hindues muslims and the children of the unmarried.

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So what happens to the soul of the child—who is brought up hearing one thing from the Church and seeing and hearing another from same sex parents. Who is going to be the major influence in the child’s life.

To be baptized into the Catholic Faith—entails as was mentioned “well found hope” and this means that the parents should live a life based on the Catholic Faith. How is this to be possible when the parents are same sex.

I am not speaking against baptism itself–but just the fact that the child will be raised in a same sex union —seems to be a slap in the face of what a Catholic baptism is.

 

[Dale_M]

"luke2219:

I hereby ask all Christians, in the name of love and all that is good, true, and beautiful to never call anyone a homosexual or gay. It may be a mouthful to say “persons with homosexual inclinations” but the USSB did it every time in this document.

Thank you for explaining this - I see your point. I’m not sure how easy it will be to say “persons with homosexual inclinations” as I still have to break my habit of saying “gay”. The document’s parsing of words was only a trifle awkward, but I am afraid that using the phrase in conversation will make us sound overly legalistic. Still, I will give it a go.

we are still in the early stages of charity.

Sadly, yes. But progress happens. The dialogue in this thread gives me hope.

 

[seeker_mom]

The message is that the soul of the child is extremely important to us without regard to who his parents are. We had in my kid’s catholic school Hindues muslims and the children of the unmarried.

I have no trouble explaining to my young children why the Hindu or Muslim or even unmarried mom and dad are kissing each other hello or goodbye on the campus. I struggle to explain why the two moms or two dads are doing so. And I think this sends a confusing message to the teenagers at the school.

 

[dapper]

I have no trouble explaining to my young children why the Hindu or Muslim or even unmarried mom and dad are kissing each other hello or goodbye on the campus. I struggle to explain why the two moms or two dads are doing so. And I think this sends a confusing message to the teenagers at the school.

They’re going to have to hear about it and learn about it one day. Better to hear it from you, the parent, than from anyone else. Why are you so uncomfortable with this? It is the reality of the world. Use your CCC as your guide and be done with it.

 

[HoppityRedux]

Well logically one doesn’t jump to that conclusion as it is also illogical. And history also says otherwise but:

I think maybe what he is saying is that there is no proof at this time that there is a genetic component therefore we must behave as if there is no genetic component because that is the best we can do with knowledge that we have.

When I say history I mean this- another awful example:

for many years schizophrenia eluded people. The sufferers were banned from society and locked up and earlier they were they were burned at the stake by frightened Puritans.

There were later many practices of trying to get the schizophrenic to change by insisting that all they had to do was want to badly enough.

By the sixties, people were getting the idea that it was a mental illness, not a spoiled personality that needed punishment, and schizophrenics were heavily medicated in the early sixties with pheno barbitols.

Mid sixties they were given electro shock and hot/ice bath treatments in state hospitals and sanatoriums.

By the eighties, it had occured to researchers that it was a chemical imbalance in the brain and drugs were developed that actually allowed schizophrenics for the first time ever to live happy productive lives as long as they were on medication.

By the nineties, researchers were looking for the genetic component. I am not sure that they have actually identified the component but there is reasonable certainty that it is a hereditary disease.

Now, being hereditary or a chemical imbalance permanent but treatable, does not make it okay to run around having psychotic hallucinations. But it does mean that the person can be treated effectively.

Homosexuality is not a mental illness. The Psychiatric Association has made that clear.

But my point is is that it is a lot easier to deal with something when you know exactly what it is.

But it is more difficult to get to the root of something when that thing generates extreme fear in society. Homosexuals now, just as schizophrenics then, generate a lot of extreme reaction and fear in our society and it cripples the research process and retards progress toward understanding it.

Eventually, a genetic component may be found. And that would be good because we could stop saying to homosexuals that all they have to do is stop being homosexual. Most claim they have no choice as to their sexual preference. That may well be true. But the fact remains that they have a choice as to whether they exercise that preference or not and that does not change whether it is genetic or not.

Something being genetic does not make it a preferable lifestyle. For instance down’s syndrome is genetic. Diabetes is genetic. We do not ask to have these genetic anamolies. But we have a different view of how to respond when we discover that they are in fact genetic. But for now, society will probably resist the idea of a genetic inheritance of homosexuality as we are still in the early stages of charity.

I agree we don’t know if there is a genetic component. We also don’t know if there is a something in the gestation process that impacts future orientations. It’s OK to say we don’t know. It’s not OK to either affirm or deny a genetic compnent in the face of our ignorance.

We also don’t know if there is a single cause of the phenomenon. Perhaps there are several causes working together. Perhaps there are several causes, and each one can independently cause the phenomenon. Again we don’t know.

We do know what gays tell us about their personal experience, and many say they have always felt an attraction to the same sex. We also know gays come from every type of background, family, race, and culture. But those are only observations, and do not provide any grounds for conclusions.

 

[HoppityRedux]

I am struggling with this. The Catholic school that my children attend is using this part of the document as a grounds for keeping the child of a same-sex couple at our school, allowing the couple to present themselves as a “family” on campus with their newly adopted baby, and for keeping a school policy that will allow other same-sex couples to enroll children at the school. What message are we sending the other children when our Catholic curriculum and Doctrine about family teaches something that is so different from what they are observing on the Catholic school campus?

The message is that the school is open to children, and will strive to provide them the best education it can. The message is that the folks who run the school see every child as an individual who deserves all the opportunities available. The message is that the school does not blame kids for things they do not control. The message is the children of bigots are welcome, but the bigotry is not.The message is that the school is run by some pretty sharp people.

 

[Walking_Home]

I have no trouble explaining to my young children why the Hindu or Muslim or even unmarried mom and dad are kissing each other hello or goodbye on the campus. I struggle to explain why the two moms or two dads are doing so. And I think this sends a confusing message to the teenagers at the school.

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Ms. seeker mom—I agree. A situation like you describe only serves to confuse and undermine the Faith formation of children and teenagers. We as Catholics are to believe and follow the teachings of the Church and pass these on to our children. How can this be done —when our own Catholic schools are allowing the opposite. This is no longer about offering education to the children of same sex couples—if it is accepted that these couples can go about kissing each other in front of the students at a Catholic school. The statement is made that the teachings of the Church are of no regard.

Maybe a change of school is in order.

 

[tequilamac]

I have no trouble explaining to my young children why the Hindu or Muslim or even unmarried mom and dad are kissing each other hello or goodbye on the campus. I struggle to explain why the two moms or two dads are doing so. And I think this sends a confusing message to the teenagers at the school.

Why in the world would you have trouble explaining this to your children? Why would this send a confusing message to the teens in a catholic school? Do these teens attend the Confessional? Do they have sins to confess? Have they reached the age of reason and received their first Communion? If they have not yet understood that sin exists, it’s around them, what do they think they are going to Confession for? Why should the fact that other people also sin “confuse” the teenagers? If they are "confused by seeing sin around them, they need to be recatechised immediately. If anything it should clarify for them what Christ is all about. My daughter grew up three doors down from an abortion mill and attended a Catholic school with some of it’s patrons. She was not “confused”. Rather she has been fighting abortion ever since for she saw the evil.

 

[Other_Eric]

I think prudence requires that we, the faithful, greet any document by the USCCB with a fair amount of skepticism. This is the same body of bishops who dreamt up the execrable document “Always Our Children,” presides over a number of seminaries that turn out sexual predators as a matter of routine and most recently wrote a fawning review of Brokeback Mountain. The moral authority of the American bishops on this issue is inconsistent and, at times, borders on heretical.

On a cursory reading, the document seems calibrated to cater to the moral relativism that has been the downfall of sexual morality in the West. In this thread, there has been discussion over two of the problems associated by the flawed philosophy that animates this document, namely, the baptism and education of children being raised by such sexual hedonists.

To leave open the door of baptism to a child who is being raised in a family environment diametrically opposed to Church teaching is to lend implicit endorsement to the arrangement. It is to assist in the sin through silence. It fails to admonish the sinners, and thus unjustly denies them a spiritual work of mercy. Such infants should be denied baptism out of Charity.

A Catholic school is an environment that is charged with the proper Christian formation of its student body. This cannot be accomplished when the parents of one of the students so obviously flaunt their opposition to Church teachings on sexuality. Additionally, the child in question, being raised in such a sinful environment, will inevitably become a miniature apologist for the sinful lifestyle and, as is common with abused children, may choose to act out sexually against other children in the class. The mental and physical welfare of the student body therefore demands that any such child be denied admission to any Catholic learning environment.

These are but two of the hundreds of issues that this document insufficiently addresses. It lacks clear remarks about avoiding the near occasion of sin and the danger posed to the faithful by close association with people who have these tendencies. It fails to stress that the condition is a disease of the mind, the soul and, eventually, the body. It mentions the definition of chastity promulgated by the Church, but does not insist upon reorientation as a necessary component of the cross these individuals must carry to make themselves worthy of Christ’s sacrifice, as the definition implies. In all, this document is a sad proof text of the Church’s teachings which is begging for revision by the Holy See.

 

[goofyjim]

I think prudence requires that we, the faithful, greet any document by the USCCB with a fair amount of skepticism. This is the same body of bishops who dreamt up the execrable document “Always Our Children,” presides over a number of seminaries that turn out sexual predators as a matter of routine and most recently wrote a fawning review of Brokeback Mountain. The moral authority of the American bishops on this issue is inconsistent and, at times, borders on heretical.

On a cursory reading, the document seems calibrated to cater to the moral relativism that has been the downfall of sexual morality in the West. In this thread, there has been discussion over two of the problems associated by the flawed philosophy that animates this document, namely, the baptism and education of children being raised by such sexual hedonists.

To leave open the door of baptism to a child who is being raised in a family environment diametrically opposed to Church teaching is to lend implicit endorsement to the arrangement. It is to assist in the sin through silence. It fails to admonish the sinners, and thus unjustly denies them a spiritual work of mercy. Such infants should be denied baptism out of Charity.

A Catholic school is an environment that is charged with the proper Christian formation of its student body. This cannot be accomplished when the parents of one of the students so obviously flaunt their opposition to Church teachings on sexuality. Additionally, the child in question, being raised in such a sinful environment, will inevitably become a miniature apologist for the sinful lifestyle and, as is common with abused children, may choose to act out sexually against other children in the class. The mental and physical welfare of the student body therefore demands that any such child be denied admission to any Catholic learning environment.

These are but two of the hundreds of issues that this document insufficiently addresses. It lacks clear remarks about avoiding the near occasion of sin and the danger posed to the faithful by close association with people who have these tendencies. It fails to stress that the condition is a disease of the mind, the soul and, eventually, the body. It mentions the definition of chastity promulgated by the Church, but does not insist upon reorientation as a necessary component of the cross these individuals must carry to make themselves worthy of Christ’s sacrifice, as the definition implies. In all, this document is a sad proof text of the Church’s teachings which is begging for revision by the Holy See.

Why should it promote reorientation? And why deny baptism to anyone?