Obedient or not?

[StCsDavid]

The Archdiocese of Portland is making the following workshop available. If you were a priest or Catholic educator, and your pastor asked you to attend, would you be obedient?

Click this link to see a description of the seminar.

Here is the bio on the speaker.

Information on speaker…
From the “Jewish Weekly News”…
…According to the Rev. Jim Schexnayder of Catholic Charities of the East Bay, the Catholic Church is going through a transition and easing up on its anti-gay position, although the progress is slow.

“We are working with Catholic parishes to be more welcoming of gays and lesbians and their families,” he said. Teachers receive in-service sensitivity training, and Catholic high schools have gay-straight alliances and hold discussions on homosexuality. But a fundamental problem for the church still exists: "It’s OK to be gay, but to act on it is a sin."

The Catholic Church teaches that the only acceptable relationship is heterosexual, monogamous and non-contraceptive, according to Schexnayder.

“We have no tradition around same-sex marriages or other ceremonies,” he said. To navigate conflicts between church teachings and individual practices, Schexnayder talks to youths about sex in terms of spirituality and commitment rather than the specifics of a relationship.
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"The church is often in trouble because it operates as if everything is simple and clearly defined," he added.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

By your attendance, you are not ‘assenting’ to anything, right? Your presence as a Catholic does not ‘validate’ the session and make it ‘authentically Catholic because there are Catholics there’.

Further, I imagine that there are question-and-answer periods following the presentation–an excellent opportunity for addressing anything questionable that might arise and to witness to Catholic truth.

In fact, it might be for exactly that reason-- to know what is being ‘presented’, and to address or to make known to your pastor anything questionable-- that your pastor wants you to go.

So yes, I would obey. My pastor’s wanting me to go should not mean that he wants me to accept what is taught if what is being taught is wrong.

 

[1ke]

I’d go to hear what they had to say and see if it is in line with Church teaching or not (my guess is that it’s NOT). I’d be prepared with a list of very specific questions that would shed light on whether they were in conformity with Church teaching. I wouldn’t shy away from the hard questions.

And, then I’d be prepared with very detailed notes and all pertinent Church documents so that I could inform my pastor that we should not participate in such a program. OTOH, if it turns out to be in conformance with Church teaching then I’d report that finding to the pastor.