Illinois bishop faces challenging audience at talk on same-sex marriage

  • Thread starter Thread starter gracepoole
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
40.png
Jesus:
But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh.
Click to expand...
Wow, God actually defined marriage as man and woman! Yes! - it was Jesus. See? It even says “Jesus” up there. Jesus defined marriage for us. So…

Dear Catholic-who-thinks-we-should-redefine-marriage:

How do 2 men become “one flesh” ? Can 2 women even pretend to become “one flesh” ? How can you not see that calling these things marriage makes a mockery of marriage?

Marriage means husband and wife for a simple obvious reason: the man-woman union is a union unlike any other.

There is no logically coherent reason to homosexualize marriage in the law. It would be like saying 2 men can legally be in a lesbian relationship. You can make such a law, but it makes no sense unless you obliterate the actual meaning of those things we call “words”.

Catholic Christians should oppose redefining marriage because the Church requires us to do so (see video below). But there are other reasons too, such as not having profoundly stupid laws which we then have to live under and abide by. Ann Coulter helps illustrate that point in less than 2 minutes in the second video below.

Vive la différence!
  1. Catholics and Legal Recognition of Homosexual Unions (Vatican document)
    youtube.com/watch?v=aXqEOTBR-D8
  2. THEY DON’T REALLY CARE ABOUT MARRIAGE (Ann Coulter)
    youtube.com/watch?v=rgw1WDL9wUc
 
gracepoole said:
The *conversation *is what’s awesome. Barring people from discussing their concerns about Church teachings is no way to persuade them to think differently.
Click to expand...
Yes, and the fact that it was a group of Catholics, to include a religious sister, who are products of Catholic education, arguing the false position is highly disturbing. Or at least it should be.
 
If someone finds the full text or video of the debate, please post it here.
 
jwinch2 said:
Yes, and the fact that it was a group of Catholics, to include a religious sister, who are products of Catholic education, arguing the false position is highly disturbing. Or at least it should be.
Click to expand...
Again, the Church isn’t going to persuade the faithful to abandon their questions by eliminating the conversation. If anything, I’d think this would do the opposite. Is this how the Church evangelizes – by telling people they can’t ask questions?
 
If you could organize a half-dozen very prominent Catholics—laymen as well as bishops—to just stand up and make a similar firm stand, it would start to jar the public thinking. . . and perhaps generate some second and more reflective thoughts on this subject.

The bishop makes a good first start to getting America more thoughtful.
 
I know this is a big issue but I always come back to why are so many people out there always trying to change their bible and not their lives?
 
Again, the Church isn’t going to persuade the faithful to abandon their questions by eliminating the conversation. If anything, I’d think this would do the opposite. Is this how the Church evangelizes – by telling people they can’t ask questions?
Click to expand...
The Church has remained strong, and will continue to do so, by not allowing the questioners, or the questioning, to change the answer.

It will be the island that you swim back to in eventuality. But go ahead, you go for your swim.
 
Captain_America said:
If you could organize a half-dozen very prominent Catholics—laymen as well as bishops—to just stand up and make a similar firm stand, it would start to jar the public thinking. . . and perhaps generate some second and more reflective thoughts on this subject.

The bishop makes a good first start to getting America more thoughtful.
Click to expand...
That is a great idea.
 
I highly recommend reading the full text of the bishop’s remarks.

He opens with the comments about Matthew Shepard and Mary Stachowicz, but a lot of people are missing the reason he brings it up:

My point is that, in the light of popular opinion today, I recognize that I have an uphill struggle to persuade people of the reasons why samesex relationships should not be legally recognized as marriages.

He condemns them both. I know a lot of people like to debate over whether Shepard’s homosexuality was truly the motive for his murder. Bishop Paprocki wisely does not get into that. I honestly don’t know enough about the facts of the case to say one way or the other, but I think it’s not necessarily going to work out well for us by going there. Even if it’s true that it’s drug related, saying so is not likely to change others’ minds and is likely only to make them think we are callous about the death of those who are not like us. Of course, I recognize that’s not what people are getting at. They are just trying to get at the truth of the matter. That’s all well and good. But we need to recognize that, even if we are right, making such arguments are only going to hurt our chances of convincingly explaining the Catholic viewpoint. It’s a distraction. Better for us to acknowledge that all brutal murders need to be condemned and move on to the next point.
 
**CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH

NOTIFICATION
REGARDING SISTER JEANNINE GRAMICK, SSND,
AND FATHER ROBERT NUGENT, SDS***http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c..._19990531_gramick-nugent-notification_en.html

Sister Jeannine Gramick, SSND, and Father Robert Nugent, SDS, have been engaged in pastoral activities directed toward homosexual persons for more than twenty years. In 1977, they founded the organisation New Ways Ministry within the territory of the Archdiocese of Washington in order to promote “justice and reconciliation between lesbian and gay Catholics and the wider Catholic community”.1 They are the authors of the book Building Bridges: Gay and Lesbian Reality and the Catholic Church (Mystic: Twenty-Third Publications, 1992) and editors of the volume Voices of Hope: A Collection of Positive Catholic Writings on Gay and Lesbian Issues (New York: Center for Homophobia Education, 1995).

From the beginning, in presenting the Church’s teaching on homosexuality, Father Nugent and Sister Gramick have continually called central elements of that teaching into question. For this reason, in 1984, James Cardinal Hickey, the Archbishop of Washington, following the failure of a number of attempts at clarification, informed them that they could no longer undertake their activities in that Archdiocese. At the same time, the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life ordered them to separate themselves totally and completely from New Ways Ministry, adding that they were not to exercise any apostolate without faithfully presenting the Church’s teaching regarding the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts.

(snip)

Given the failure of the repeated attempts of the Church’s legitimate authorities to resolve the problems presented by the writings and pastoral activities of the two authors, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is obliged to declare for the good of the Catholic faithful that the positions advanced by Sister Jeannine Gramick and Father Robert Nugent regarding the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts and the objective disorder of the homosexual inclination are doctrinally unacceptable because they do not faithfully convey the clear and constant teaching of the Catholic Church in this area.3 Father Nugent and Sister Gramick have often stated that they seek, in keeping with the Church’s teaching, to treat homosexual persons “with respect, compassion and sensitivity”.4 However, the promotion of errors and ambiguities is not consistent with a Christian attitude of true respect and compassion: persons who are struggling with homosexuality no less than any others have the right to receive the authentic teaching of the Church from those who minister to them. The ambiguities and errors of the approach of Father Nugent and Sister Gramick have caused confusion among the Catholic people and have harmed the community of the Church. For these reasons, Sister Jeannine Gramick, SSND, and Father Robert Nugent, SDS, are permanently prohibited from any pastoral work involving homosexual persons and are ineligible, for an undetermined period, for any office in their respective religious institutes.
I note that the Fishwrap forgot to mention this little detail about the good SIster.
 
On the above… 👍
"This event was billed as ‘Two Catholic Views of Gay Marriage,’ " he said. “But there is only one view that is authentically Catholic. The other view is dissenting.”
Click to expand...
Hurray for Bshp Paprocki…all we need to know is the above !
 
gracepoole said:
The *conversation *is what’s awesome. Barring people from discussing their concerns about Church teachings is no way to persuade them to think differently.
Click to expand...
Just curious. Are you interested in persuading people to follow Church teachings regarding homosexuality and, specifically, same-sex “marriage”?

Peace

Tim
 
jwinch2 said:
Yes, and the fact that it was a group of Catholics, to include a religious sister, who are products of Catholic education, arguing the false position is highly disturbing. Or at least it should be.
Click to expand...
Absolutely, I completely agree with you. And I find these numbers equally disturbing; Among Catholics, 54 percent back same-sex marriage, while 38 percent oppose it, the Quinnipiac University poll found, and a CBS News/New York Times poll in February found that 62 percent of American Catholics think same-sex marriages should be legal. And other polls cite similar numbers. Good grief, that’s downright abysmal! It’s becoming more and more obvious to me, that with every passing day,Catholics who stand tall with the Church find themselves in a shrinking minority. And I believe, that somewhere down the line, persecution is almost inevitable. All you have to do is a little bit of research to find that this is already well under way in other countries. Canada and Great Britain come to mind immediately. I just hope us *“faithful” *Catholics are well prepared for this!

Peace, Mark
 
Mark121359 said:
Absolutely, I completely agree with you. And I find these numbers equally disturbing; Among Catholics, 54 percent back same-sex marriage, while 38 percent oppose it, the Quinnipiac University poll found, and a CBS News/New York Times poll in February found that 62 percent of American Catholics think same-sex marriages should be legal. And other polls cite similar numbers. Good grief, that’s downright abysmal! It’s becoming more and more obvious to me, that with every passing day,Catholics who stand tall with the Church find themselves in a shrinking minority. And I believe, that somewhere down the line, persecution is almost inevitable. All you have to do is a little bit of research to find that this is already well under way in other countries. Canada and Great Britain come to mind immediately. **I just hope us *“faithful” ***Catholics are well prepared for this!
Click to expand...
The majority of posters on this forum should be ready since we do daily battle with the dissenting opinions of those who think they know better than the Church. I’m not worried…we know who wins in the end! 🙂
 
Orogeny said:
Just curious. Are you interested in persuading people to follow Church teachings regarding homosexuality and, specifically, same-sex “marriage”?

Peace

Tim
Click to expand...
I can’t think how my personal views are relevant here. But if you can show that they are relevant, I’ll happily answer.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top