As a gay Catholic, it really saddens me that accepting an organization like Courage into the University of Toronto, which promotes chastity for homosexuals, is now regarded as offensive within the Catholic student community that many of the parishioners are leaving.
thestar.com/news/gta/article/1315648–gay-celibacy-group-prompts-u-of-t-parishioners-to-leave
We should all go and post on the article’s comment section, before the gay rights advocates start bashing the Catholic Church.
Analogy:
http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSTMpKoaCrktYP-LF47Aaw-Pac6zgoTnQ2NgoaT9SHG00YVxQXfKg
*The Catholic Church is somewhat like a hospital. Inside are healers, and people hoping to get better. Sometimes a sick person comes into a hospital not as a patient - and causes the place of healing to become a place where disease spreads.
It is rare that a person should*** want ****to do that … mostly when it happens, it is thoughtlessness or carelessness or a misguided sense of emotion to the eclipse of common sense.
But a good hospital will have rules to guard against such mistakes being made (
or malice perpetrated as the case may be). Therefore …
– a group visiting a hospital patient being treated for a lung infection - that informed him/her of a group that would help (him/her) stop smoking – should be welcome in a hospital.
– while a group of scofflaws who ignored the “no smoking signs” and snuck our patient a carton of Camels and a lighter on the sly …
ought NOT to be given “equal treatment” by the hospital staff.
The article was published Jan. 16. When did the 50 people “leave” the University parish?
The University was closed between December 22, 2012 and January 7, 2013 as far as classes go. People go home. Masses are still held but far smaller in attendance at times like that.
That kind of “truth” is very convenient for making a “post hoc ergo propter hoc” logical fallacy argument that sounds convincing - if influencing people is what one has in mind.
One actual guy who complained and one school official (“the University?”) are cited in the story. The group’s presence “prompting” people to leave seems highly speculative. Even though the reporter is somewhat evenhanded in the actual article - the headline ID’s it pretty easily as a “hit piece” aimed at Courage or the Church - who “prompted” other parishioners to leave.
The Pavlovian “celibacy” response can be relied upon to make this rather tame “tempest in a teapot” story a sensation.
The real “victims” in this story should be “Courage” actually (if anyone). Somehow though they seem to be being made the heavies here. Even if its members are sincere, believe they’ve BEEN helped by the kind of program that has been successful in helping people who’ve been overcome by such other powerfully enslaving behaviors as alcoholism, drug addiction and (heterosexual) sex addiction.
It doesn’t seem that Courage can draft members like an army during wartime - or that the University requires membership in it before one can enroll (as for example to obtain some jobs one must join a union). :hey_bud:
What’s more the Catholic position (the official one) regarding its well known teachings on … certain sins … should preclude surprise or anger that lay self-help groups in line with Church teachings should exist and function on a Catholic campus. And in this case, the University was not even involved much … the Newman Club was. The University’s name was played big to make the story bigger in my opinion.
