I am confused

[BernadetteM]

In the past few weeks I have heard conflicting opinions on whether the Catholic Church has changed its attitude towards homosexuals.

One priest will say the the Holy Father said “who am I to judge” meaning the Church loves those who are homosexual and accept their decision to either be chast or to be active.

Others say the Holy Father meant that he cannot judge whether Christ will condemn those who participate in what the Church has always taught as a sin or whether they will be judged to hell or not.

This is confusing as I have never felt the Church condemned homosexuals because of their orientation, just that as hetrosexuals are to remain chaste until marriage or single, so are those who are homosexuals to remain chaste.

Does anyone understand the appropriate meaning of the Pope’s words. Has he changed the Churches belief on this subject?

Also the show I watched about both Protestants and Catholics only showed Catholic churches that were worshiping closer to protestants, especially Charismatic services, nothing traditional.

Yours in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

Bernadette

 

[DavidFilmer]

In the past few weeks I have heard conflicting opinions on whether the Catholic Church has changed its attitude towards homosexuals.

One priest will say the the Holy Father said “who am I to judge” meaning the Church loves those who are homosexual and accept their decision to either be chast[e] or to be active.

First of all, this “who am I to judge” comment was an off-the-cuff reply to a press question, not a Papal Encyclical or any other such “official” teaching. It’s similar to when Pope Francis said that notorious sinners such as gangsters were excommunicate, and people thought he had somehow pronounced a formal Papal Bull of Excommunication (when he actually meant a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication).

The Church loves everyone, including homosexuals. But the Church hates sin (without hating the sinner).and Illicit sex (sex outside of marriage) is a sin. It does not matter (to the Church) whether it is heterosexual or homosexual sex (or, even, masturbation).

Others say the Holy Father meant that he cannot judge whether Christ will condemn those who participate in what the Church has always taught as a sin or whether they will be judged to hell or not.

IF that is what the Pope taught (and I;m not saying it is) then it would not be anything new. The Church has never taught that any act condemns anyone to hell by the act alone.

This is confusing as I have never felt the Church condemned homosexuals because of their orientation, just that as hetrosexuals are to remain chaste until marriage or single, so are those who are homosexuals to remain chaste.

Wait. I thought you were confused about that. It sounds like you are not so confused.

Does anyone understand the appropriate meaning of the Pope’s words. Has he changed the Churches belief on this subject?

From your previous sentiment, I think you would agree that Pope Francis has changed nothing.

Also the show I watched about both Protestants and Catholics only showed Catholic churches that were worshiping closer to protestants, especially Charismatic services, nothing traditional.

That’s a whole 'nuther question, which has nothing to do with homosexual marriage. Feel free to open a thread on this topic, and I will reply.

 

[PennyinCanada]

The ‘who am I to judge’ quote is taken out of context. From my understanding, the part he said before that is very important. It was something like… If a homosexual wishes to lead a chaste life and …want to participate in the life of the Church, who am I to judge? Well isn’t that like all of us with our sinful tendencies? We are all sinners but we go to confession and participate in the life of the Church. We are making an effort to grow in faith. That’s what I remember from that remark. The cherry picking and twisting of meaning is suiting another agenda that is not Catholic.

 

[mikekle]

You are not the only one to be confused, I have never seen so many people out there that think the CC is ‘getting over’ the whole SSM thing, there are so many misinterpretations from this Pope out there, whats even worse, sooo many people are believing they are coming from him. There is a Francis quote going around on FB now that claims he said its perfectly OK to not attend mass, not give money to the church, plus, it says you can make a ‘church’ out of nature or anything else you enjoy, this one fake quote has hundreds of shares and likes?!

The thing I dont understand though, normally if you find your audience is not getting the message you are intending, you start being more direct when you speak, so these misinterpretations stop, yet it seems the Popes speech writers have not done this.

 

[Frankenfurter]

Regarding the gay lobby, he said:

“When I meet a gay person, I have to distinguish between their being gay and being part of a lobby. If they accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them? They shouldn’t be marginalized.”

Regarding approval of homosexuality, he said:

“A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being.”

People outside the Catholic faith get confused because they don’t understand the idea that the church is here for sinners - we are all sinners, and all need the church and the church is perhaps the only thing that actually cares about saving souls.

The Pope also said about sin:
" But one can sin and then convert, and the Lord both forgives and forgets. We don’t have the right to refuse to forget … it’s dangerous. The theology of sin is important. St. Peter committed one of the greatest sins, denying Christ, and yet they made him pope. Think about that."

So the Pope is focusing on the person, rather than the behaviors and sins. He is a saint and is the presence of Jesus here with us.

The non-Catholic media doesn’t understand him.

 

[3_Dog_Night]

**The thing I don’t understand though, normally if you find your audience is not getting the message you are intending, you start being more direct when you speak, so these misinterpretations stop, yet it seems the Popes speech writers have not done this.
**

This is exactly the problem. It is a continuing problem that I believe is undermining the credibility and teaching of the Catholic faith. I am reminded of the serpent in the garden of Eden asking Eve whether God really said … and then clarifying for an evil purpose.

 

[Neofight]

The non-Catholic media doesn’t understand him.

And, unfortunately, not understanding him is not limited to the non-Catholic media…on other topics, he is even misunderstood by Catholics who want to make what he said support their own views, hence the blowback by American politically conservative Catholics (emphasis on politically conservative not to be confused with those labelled by themselves as other as Traditional Catholics) on the Pope’s recent encyclical.

 

[pianistclare]

**The thing I don’t understand though, normally if you find your audience is not getting the message you are intending, you start being more direct when you speak, so these misinterpretations stop, yet it seems the Popes speech writers have not done this.
**

This is exactly the problem. It is a continuing problem that I believe is undermining the credibility and teaching of the Catholic faith. I am reminded of the serpent in the garden of Eden asking Eve whether God really said … and then clarifying for an evil purpose.

The Pope speaks from the viewpoint of the Gospel message. Of course people who deny the Gospel and renounce Christ wouldn’t “get” it. Same with people who interpret the Bible to suit their personal opinions.
The Pope writes his own words.
We don’t need anyone to give us credibility. Jesus Christ did that when HE instituted the Church.
Try not to worry. The Lord will never abandon His church.
It’s all about education. So many people can’t even begin to understand where we come from on many topics. Try to deal with them with patience, prayers, and love.

 

[steve_b]

In the past few weeks I have heard conflicting opinions on whether the Catholic Church has changed its attitude towards homosexuals.

One priest will say the the Holy Father said “who am I to judge” meaning the Church loves those who are homosexual and accept their decision to either be chast or to be active.

Others say the Holy Father meant that he cannot judge whether Christ will condemn those who participate in what the Church has always taught as a sin or whether they will be judged to hell or not.

A person who dies in mortal sin will be condemned to hell.

• 1 Corinthians 6: 9 - 10 no sexually immoral πόρνοι , , nor idolaters, nor adulterers , nor male prostitutes, nor homosexual offenders ]10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

B:

This is confusing as I have never felt the Church condemned homosexuals because of their orientation, just that as hetrosexuals are to remain chaste until marriage or single, so are those who are homosexuals to remain chaste.

You are correct. Homosexual orientation isn’t the sin, it’s acting out sexually on it, that is the sin.
B:

Does anyone understand the appropriate meaning of the Pope’s words. Has he changed the Churches belief on this subject?

That phrase has been sooooo taken out of context. Jesus is being taken out of context as was the pope.

Jesus did say “Who made me judge”.

However, If we took that statement out of its context, which is what most do, that statement would then contradict what we pray in the creed every Sunday at mass, when we say “he will come to judge the living & the dead”.

So here’s the context in how Jesus used the phrase

(all emphasis mine)
The Parable of the Rich Fool

Lk 12:13 One of the multitude said to him, “Teacher, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or divider over you?” 15 And he said to them, “***Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” *** 16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

See the context?

Jesus isn’t going to break the very commandment He initiated. “Thou shall not covet…”

Jesus isn’t going to help one brother covet his brother’s goods, anymore than the pope is going to say same sex marriage is okay, nor homosexual sexual activity is okay.

If a journalist asks the pope, “what do you say to a homosexual who says they want to have a relationship with Jesus”, and the pope answers, “who am I to judge that”, he’s NOT saying in context what the loons reported him saying.
B:

Also the show I watched about both Protestants and Catholics only showed Catholic churches that were worshiping closer to protestants, especially Charismatic services, nothing traditional.

Yours in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

Bernadette

Having not seen the show, I can’t comment.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

In the past few weeks I have heard conflicting opinions on whether the Catholic Church has changed its attitude towards homosexuals.

One priest will say the the Holy Father said “who am I to judge” meaning the Church loves those who are homosexual and accept their decision to either be chast or to be active.

Others say the Holy Father meant that he cannot judge whether Christ will condemn those who participate in what the Church has always taught as a sin or whether they will be judged to hell or not.

This is confusing as I have never felt the Church condemned homosexuals because of their orientation, just that as hetrosexuals are to remain chaste until marriage or single, so are those who are homosexuals to remain chaste.

Does anyone understand the appropriate meaning of the Pope’s words. Has he changed the Churches belief on this subject?

Also the show I watched about both Protestants and Catholics only showed Catholic churches that were worshiping closer to protestants, especially Charismatic services, nothing traditional.

Yours in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

Bernadette

The Pope has not and indeed cannot change Church teaching on this subject. The quote you reference that many people seem to think shows that he has is taken so drastically out of context it’s not even funny.

Here is the full text:

REPORTER: I would like to ask permission to ask a somewhat delicate question: another image has also gone around the world, which is that of Monsignor Ricca and news about your privacy. I would like to know, Holiness, what do you intend to do about this question. How to address this question and how Your Holiness intends to address the whole question of the gay lobby?

POPE FRANCIS: In regard to Monsignor Ricca, I’ve done what Canon Law orders to do, which is the investigatio previa. And from this investigatio there is nothing of which they accuse him, we haven’t found anything of that.

This is the answer. But I would like to add something else on this: I see that so many times in the Church, outside of this case and also in this case, they go to look for the “sins of youth,” for instance, and this is published. Not the crimes, alas. Crimes are something else: the abuse of minors is a crime. No, the sins.

**But if a person, lay or priest or Sister, has committed a sin and then has converted, the Lord forgives, and when the Lord forgives, the Lord forgets and this is important for our life. When we go to confession and truly say: “I have sinned in this,” the Lord forgets and we don’t have the right not to forget, because we run the risk that the Lord won’t forget our [sins]. **That’s a danger. This is important: a theology of sin. I think so many times of Saint Peter: he committed one of the worst sins, which is to deny Christ, and with this sin he was made Pope. We must give it much thought.

But, returning to your more concrete question: in this case, I’ve done the investigatio previa and we found nothing. This is the first question. Then you spoke of the gay lobby. Goodness knows! So much is written of the gay lobby. I still have not met one who will give me the identity card with “gay”. They say that they exist. I think that when one meets a person like this, one must distinguish the fact of being a gay person from the fact of doing a lobby, because not all lobbies are good. That’s bad. If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge him? The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this in such a beautiful way, it says, Wait a bit, as is said and says: “these persons must not be marginalized because of this; they must be integrated in society.”

The problem isn’t having this tendency, no. We must be brothers, because this is one, but there are others, others. The problem is the lobbying of this tendency: lobby of the avaricious, lobby of politicians, lobby of Masons, so many lobbies. This, for me, is the more serious problem.

Take those two bolded parts in conjunction. The first explains what is meant by “seeks the Lord and has good will” in the second.

So the Pope basically said “confession works for gay people too.” Part of the reason people got so confused about this is, I think, because much of the world does not understand confession, so could not understand the context, so substituted their own. They hear “a sin can be forgiven,” and not really understanding either what a sin is or what forgiveness is, they translate in their minds to “that thing must not really be bad.” (Hence the hubbub over Pope Francis’ extending the ability to deal with the sin/crime of abortion to all priests as well - somehow, the extension of mercy to the sinner gets confused with acceptance of the sin.)

But as a general rule, if someone tells you the Pope has changed Church teaching, they’re almost certainly wrong - if you want to a source to trust, the Vatican itself releases statements about such confusion. Father Federico Lombardi is the name you want to look for for clarifications.