If Jesus were here now would he care about gays getting married ? or about the homeless....the poor...the sick.....those that suffer? we all know the

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Maria_Emme

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Therefore as representative of Christ we are to follow His example, and as His Church more so…

Therefore I think its time for us to re evaluate our priorities and behave as Christ would want us to

The synod of the family forgets to focus sufficiently on the priorities I listed in title regarding poverty, sickness , injustice while giving attention to matters that are important to the world as I see it

We are not a reflection of the world, we are the Church of Christ

The dictates and mandates of the world should be irrelevant to us. We are Ambassadors of the Kingdom of God which has a completely different set of values, morals and priorities

The Church should always remember this

We are not to please the world, we must please God
 
I think it makes no sense to put gay marriage in the same basket as caring for the sick and the poor. Gay marriage is a western issue. Perhaps a white privileged male issue. I suspect Jesus would ask these people to sin no more and follow him. Reasonable response, I think.

Caring for those less fortunate is a very different issue - a moral issue that concerns us and requires something from us.
 
What are you suggesting we do? You’re not saying much. We all have different presumptions and assumptions about how the Lord would act in today’s world, or how we think Christians should act. This was the reason the last Synod was such a loud, messy affair: people clashed about what it is to be Christ.

I’ve been homosexually-attracted as long as I’ve been able to understand sexuality… and by far, the most welcoming Christians of all have been Catholics. None of them who have known about me have ever dealt with me in any way other than what I’d call Christ-like. They didn’t need a hierarchical definition of “charity” or an instruction on love. They had their upbringing on the Scriptures and the love of neighbour, presumably from holy families and good parishes. We don’t have to redefine everything at the top just because a few cardinals are having an identity crisis.

I personally object to institutional social justice, as you seem to be advocating in your post, Maria. Just as with conversion of souls to Christ, it’s never effected by cold, theoretical, or political means. We truly convert people to God by loving them, befriending them, and patiently waiting for them & with them. It’s the same with those who are poor or outcasts: we start by showing them the personal, intimate, friendly love that they probably do not know. Throwing money or soup kitchens at them just perpetuates their sense of distance from us.

Naturally, if you’re saying something else, then it would be nice to know what you mean…
 
I think you are confused. The synod on the family absolutely addresses the issues of those that suffer. A massive percentage of homeless people were raised in broken homes. Children from healthy, two-parent homes where both mother and father take have a strong marriage and are active in their childrens’ lives have a much lower incidence of drug use, depression, criminal activity, dropping out of school, risky sexual behaviors, all things that contibute to suffering and injustice.
 
Your presumptions are very off base. It’s not an either-or, it’s an all of the above. Christ would care just as much about the poorest human being on the planet as he the richest, and just as much about the greatest saint and the greatest sinner.

God, and by extension Christ, who -IS- God, would care for the poor, and he would admonish and guide the sinner. In fact, by Christ’s own words it’s pretty clear that he would focus more on the sinner, not less:

Matthew 10:28
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.
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During his ministry, he taught the virtue of aiding those in need, but we see a significantly greater focus placed on he ministry to sinners. Even the parables and instances in which we see that it is right to aide the poor have a greater focus on the moral repercussion of not aiding them than on the righteousness of doing so. A prime example of this is the parable of The Rich Man and Lazerus (Luke 16:19-31), which, while being about the virtue of the poor, is more focused on the pains that await those who sin by ignoring the poor.

This lovey-dovey feel-good Christ is not the Christ of history, nor of the Bible. Jesus frequently and unabashedly admonished the sinner, and he called people out when they were sinning without any reservations for status or “political correctness.” To claim that he would not address such a grievously-sinful aspect of our culture is to show a distinct lack of understanding of both His teachings and God’s will. I don’t say this to be mean, but rather to stress the fact that morality is morality, regardless of popular opinion, and immorality should be addressed with fervor and dedication.

Homosexuals who engage in the lifestyle are sinners, and it is or duty to love them enough to tell them so. This is not to be done in place of our other obligations to the poor, but in tandem with them.

All of that said, as another poster has said, you seem to misunderstand what the Synod was about, I can’t blame you for this since the media basically committed genocide with their hack-job coverage of it >_>

The Synod’s focus was on the family, and the media hijacked it as a tool to further their own agenda, and to spread hatred for the Church when She refuses to submit to their changing and worthless opinions. They spoke in length about the family, about the poor and the sick, and about the best ways to combat these unnecessary and preventable sufferings in our world. Homosexuality, and the re-admittance of divorced and remarried Catholics to the sacraments were barely footnotes in the greater context of the synod, and received far too much attention from everyone, including news agencies within the Church itself.
 
I think the mistake lies in thinking that for Him is is either/or.

Our LORD, when humanly alive, spoke at length about the poor. But He also told adulterers to sin no more, and was not afraid to tell people they might go to Hell if they did not repent their sins.

For Him, the issues were “both and”!

HE also did not allow concerns for people’s feelings to get in the way of the truth.

ICXC NIKA
 
Jesus would do today what He did then. Try to get sinners to repent. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. He cared mostly about souls and then he fed the hungry and helped the poor.
 
Is it known that that homosexuals choose the life or are born that way?

If they are born gay, then why does God say it’s an “abomination.”

Unless, He wants them to remain celibate, and accept the condition as an affliction like blindness or mental illness.
 
As others have pointed out - the title question to this thread is on the vague side and tries to bring in too many issues at once. It seems to be the musings in the mind of the OP, however well-intentioned, but maybe prematurely expressed before put in writing? :confused:

It might be better with some further clarification, or distilled down. Maybe there’s more than one potential topic there that could be more than one thread . . . hard to say. 🤷 If the main topic is the Synod, what is it that has sparked the thought that is trying to be expressed?

@ Praedicare - I’m gratified to hear that you have met charitable Catholics that have left you with a positive picture of how we aim to treat everyone. 👍 One hears stories of the blunders frequently enough that it’s good to hear when we “get it right.”
 
truetofaith said:
Is it known that that homosexuals choose the life or are born that way?

If they are born gay, then why does God say it’s an “abomination.”

Unless, He wants them to remain celibate, and accept the condition as an affliction like blindness or mental illness.
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We need to distinguish a disposition to do something vs. actual choosing to do something.
No one can say with real certainly that a disposition to homosexuality is inborn. The good news is that it is irrelevant because we can all choose how we act. I have a disposition to punch people in the face that cut me off in traffic. That doesn’t make it right to do so. Rick Warren correctly remarked that he had a desire to have sex with every beautiful woman he saw, but that didn’t make it right to do so.

So yes. Even if I have a tendency to kleptomania from birth, the Divine Law is that stealing is wrong and I am excepted to refrain from shoplifting all my life. Note that I am not “living a lie” by refusing to steal.
 
Maria_Emme said:
The synod of the family forgets to focus sufficiently on the priorities I listed in title regarding poverty, sickness , injustice while giving attention to matters that are important to the world as I see it
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This might be how pop media outlets paints the picture, but, that is just their propaganda to spin things to support their cause. It is not a factual representation of facts nor is it an objective look at the reality of the ongoings.
 
Zachary said:
This might be how pop media outlets paints the picture, but, that is just their propaganda to spin things to support their cause. It is not a factual representation of facts nor is it an objective look at the reality of the ongoings.
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Exactly. The Church’s mission includes speaking the Truth, which is just as much a priority as helping the poor. And Catholics don’t get to punt on the issue under the rubric of “Well that’s how the world is” (my bolding):
  1. The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions. The common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of society. Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity. The Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society itself.
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(source)
 
Scottgun said:
We need to distinguish a disposition to do something vs. actual choosing to do something.
No one can say with real certainly that a disposition to homosexuality is inborn. The good news is that it is irrelevant because we can all choose how we act. I have a disposition to punch people in the face that cut me off in traffic. That doesn’t make it right to do so. Rick Warren correctly remarked that he had a desire to have sex with every beautiful woman he saw, but that didn’t make it right to do so.

So yes. Even if I have a tendency to kleptomania from birth, the Divine Law is that stealing is wrong and I am excepted to refrain from shoplifting all my life. Note that I am not “living a lie” by refusing to steal.
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Thank you for your answer, Scottgun. I understand your comparison of inborn disposition to homosexuality & kleptomania. The only thing is, it seems easier to never shoplift than to never have sex your whole life. If it’s inborn, God has placed a heavy burden on these people! BTW, I’m straight but have gay family & friends.
 
truetofaith said:
to never have sex your whole life. If it’s inborn, God has placed a heavy burden on these people!
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Remember that there are lots of straight lay people who never get married. They don’t get to morally have sex either. People mistakenly think that the Church just singles out homosexuals, but offenses against Chastity include any sexual contact outside of the context of a man and a woman married to each other. That means no masturbation or pornography, fornication, cohabitation, etc.

This is why I’ve often reminded people that the current onslaught to normalize homosexual acts is driven primarily not by homosexuals, but by ideologically-addled heterosexuals. As one person with SSA, but determined to live chastely put it: “It’s despicable because they [heterosexuals championing homosexuality] don’t know what they’re doing. They just bandwagon on someone else’s slave morality to the degradation of everything around them. And worst of all, they’re Zealous about it. They get mad, scary mad about it.”
 
Papa Francis had a majority of Cardinals supporting the original wording of the letter, but did not have a super majority, so subsequently the wording was changed. I will continue to pray that His Holiness will not stop preaching the Gospels and continue to fight against those who would love to see him gone from the Seat of Peter and a dogma driven administrator placed in that seat. I have never been one who took conspiracy theories to heart, but in this case, I just keep remembering the Borgia…:eek:
 
Jesus is here now. He lives in the tabernacle of every Catholic Church. He does not approve homosexual behavior any less now than he did during his earthly ministry. The Judaic culture from which arose Christianity certainly did not accept homosexual behavior and Jesus did not change that. His Church continues to teach the consistent moral law.
 
Scottgun said:
Remember that there are lots of straight lay people who never get married. They don’t get to morally have sex either. People mistakenly think that the Church just singles out homosexuals, but offenses against Chastity include any sexual contact outside of the context of a man and a woman married to each other. That means no masturbation or pornography, fornication, cohabitation, etc.

This is why I’ve often reminded people that the current onslaught to normalize homosexual acts is driven primarily not by homosexuals, but by ideologically-addled heterosexuals. As one person with SSA, but determined to live chastely put it: “It’s despicable because they [heterosexuals championing homosexuality] don’t know what they’re doing. They just bandwagon on someone else’s slave morality to the degradation of everything around them. And worst of all, they’re Zealous about it. They get mad, scary mad about it.”
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I know staying celibate until marriage is for everyone, not only gays, but eventually a straight person will marry or choose to remain celibate as a priest or nun. A gay person has no other option, since gay marriage is not valid, than to enter the religious life, never have sex or commit sin.
 
truetofaith said:
I know staying celibate until marriage is for everyone, not only gays, but eventually a straight person will marry or choose to remain celibate as a priest or nun. A gay person has no other option, since gay marriage is not valid, than to enter the religious life, never have sex or commit sin.
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This is incorrect. There are plenty of lay people that never get married ever AND do not enter religious life. I know several people well out of the typical marriage age who are still single and their prospects diminish of ever being married. Also there are several accounts of people with same-sex attraction who have gotten truly married (i.e., to someone of the opposite sex) and leading happy and procreative lives. This is because living in truth, while sometimes difficult, is not impossible unless one is stubbornly determined to pretend it is.
 
Scottgun said:
This is incorrect. There are plenty of lay people that never get married ever AND do not enter religious life. I know several people well out of the typical marriage age who are still single and their prospects diminish of ever being married. Also there are several accounts of people with same-sex attraction who have gotten truly married (i.e., to someone of the opposite sex) and leading happy and procreative lives. This is because living in truth, while sometimes difficult, is not impossible unless one is stubbornly determined to pretend it is.
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Agreed, …my two aunts never married, never had boyfriends, took care of their parents and were very religious, but didn’t become nuns.
The point is …the homosexuals in this discussion are not of that mindset.

Actually I think we got off the original topic! :rolleyes:
 
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