On "Coming Out" From the Pulpit

[Teek]

The rest of your post sounds like an arguement in favour of fundamentalism. I wonder if you really intended that or just didn’t think it through?

I’m not sure how you define “fundamentalism.” If you mean an ideology that believes that the Church does not err in matters of faith and morals and is our sure guide to living the faith, then YES! It is an argument for fundamentalism.

I love what the Church teaches about the dignity and value of every single human life. I also love what the Church teaches about human sexuality. It is sacred and beautiful. It raises it to the level of a sacrament, which is why it is considered wrong to cheapen it.

I don’t want the Church’s teaching to change because the teaching is so beautiful. They aren’t against anyone. They are for what the human person IS, and for what sexuality IS.

Even more than that, Church teaching cannot change regarding these things. Even if the highest levels of authority in the Church were to declare them changed, God does not obey man.

The following quotes are from Francis Cardinal Arinze, who is very effective at explaining the Church and the Church’s teaching in our world today. These say what I only wish I had the eloquence to express so clearly.

If these quotes are “fundamentalism” to you, then yes, I am proudly in favor of fundamentalism.

————————————————
Cardinal Arinze:

“If you say, we cannot expect people to be chaste in that situation — to refrain from sexual relations — then you are challenging the fundamental teaching that sexual relations are correct only between husband and wife in a proper marriage, and that between any other two people, it is wrong, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual. It is wrong because it is against the order established by God the Creator.”

“You cannot name a situation which Christ did not foresee, nor can you tell us that you are wiser than Christ and that you can modify what he has said. We will then ask you, ‘who do think you are? Greater than Christ?’ He is the way the truth and the life.”

“Marriage is not a human invention. God created Adam, and God said, ‘it is not good for man to be alone.’ So, he created Eve. The first man and woman were created by God, which means marriage comes from the creating hands of God. It isn’t the pope who made it; it isn’t the United Nations; it isn’t the parliament of any nation — no matter how powerful — which means that nobody has the right, or even the power, to reinvent marriage.”

“All we have said now is about objective right and wrong,” he said, adding that only God alone can judge whether a person is culpable for the sins he or she has committed.

“Not even half a dozen Cardinals will judge that. God doesn’t need our help to judge that. So you can see [the Catholic religion] is all about honesty and openness before God, not about what people think of us,” he said.

Arinze rebuts cardinal’s claim that Catholic faith is unrealistic: ‘Who do you think you are? Greater than Christ?’ - LifeSite

'Have we any authority to say it is ‘unrealistic’ to expect people to keep any of the Ten Commandments?'

www.lifesitenews.com

 

[Edward_H]

This priest nailed it. Nailed it well. So solid and true.

 

[stupidisasstupiddoes]

So that’s a good reply, thank you. I guess it boils down to whether you believe in your heart that salvation is for the ~5% of people who frankly won’t have any trouble sticking to an ever tightening set of rules or whether you believe that salvation is really for the masses. Cardinal George Pell has said that in principle an athiest could end up in heaven so i take the latter view. The Bible is littered with references to the Jewish pharisees who were of the "5% arguement’ persuasion and i think their arguement lives on in many Catholics today.

A fundamentalist is simply someone who believes in a literal, unchanging interpretation of scripture. Catholics, by definition, should not be fundamentalists since the church will change it’s interpretation of certain things over time. Note that we no longer burn witches.

 

[Teek]

When the Inquisition burnt people for what they were doing, I heard the same speach: that the Church actually LOVED those people and was doing them good.

What I know of the Inquisition, it was primarily because the Church had been infiltrated by people claiming to be Catholic, but really sort of undercover and trying to subvert and undermine the Church.

They did inquiries to clear people of heresy, and if they were confirmed in heresy, they were excommunicated. It’s incontrovertible that terrible things were done during the several centuries described by the label “the Inquisition.” But it was not about forcing people into the Faith or doing people good by torture or execution. It was about trying to cleanse the Church of people who had infiltrated the Church to do harm to the Church.

And though it in no way excuses any of it, the Protestants has a similar Inquisition against Catholics, only worse. Look up priest hunters. The Catholic Inquisition was to defend against a sort of espionage bent on destroying the Church from within. The Protestant inquisition was about forced conversion. Thousands of Catholics killed because they defended the Catholic faith and refused to become Protestant. Hanged, drawn and quartered. It wasn’t pretty.

So I don’t buy the argument “the Church is not against homosexuals, is just against sodomy”.

I think the Church isn’t against anyone, it is for the Truth. It is against sin and evil.

 

[Teek]

When a religion based on some values and morality changes in a radical manner those values, it becomes something else.

Yes! It’s not even about gay marriage or any of the things people want to change! It is about trying to force a change of what can never be changed.

God is God! He does set some pretty high standards, and then He gives us everything we need to become what He creates is to be—which is way more than we could ever fathom.

 

[Teek]

Cardinal George Pell has said that in principle an athiest could end up in heaven so i take the latter view.

Yes! We are bound by what God has given us as our assurance and guarantee: namely, Jesus Christ. He gave us the Church so we can know the way.

God, however, is not bound to the requirement He gave us. He can save whomsoever He saves. We commend them all to God’s mercy.

But we cannot know. We only know what God asked of us to do.

Talking about what the Church should teach is different than whether God can make exceptions to what He has revealed.

If I can make it to heaven after all of my ways of rejecting God through sin, especially after having been blessed to learn so much in my life about the moral life and still continuing to fall to sin—and He has mercy on ME, then of course we believe He will have mercy on people who are less deliberately disobedient.

But since our only guarantee is Christ—we do have a grave duty to try to lead everyone to that way. It’s the best chance we have! It’s the best chance they have! And they matter! To remain indifferent to their eternal destination is not love.

A fundamentalist is simply someone who believes in a literal, unchanging interpretation of scripture. Catholics, by definition, should not be fundamentalists since the church will change it’s interpretation of certain things over time. Note that we no longer burn witches.

A lot of the “witches” that were burned were Catholics, burnt by Protestant fundamentalists. You have the Salem witch hunt: not performed by Catholics. The Protestant priest hunt: killed Catholics, not done by Catholics. The Spanish Inquisition: done by Catholics and they executed traitors who had infiltrated the Church to destroy it from within after vigorous examination, most often clearing a person of guilt, and offering them a change to repent. Obstinate heretics were executed. Not non-Catholics, but people who had claimed to be Catholic who were not. The Catholic Inquisition witch-hunted Catholics.

So Salem witch trials: Protestants killed non-Protestants.

Reformist inquisition: Protestants killed Catholics.

Catholic Inquisitiom: Catholics killed Catholics (people initiated as Catholics, baptized as Catholics, attempting to destroy the Church)

The Church does not change its interpretation. It remains consistent. It unfolds but does not change, contradict, or do moral u-turns.

 

[stupidisasstupiddoes]

The Church does not change its interpretation. It remains consistent. It unfolds but does not change, contradict, or do moral u-turns.

Bit of a word salad game going on here. The Catholic Church definately does change its stance on things. Usually for the better too.

In 1441 Pope Eugene IV in Cantate Domino wrote: “The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the ‘eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels’; unless before death they are joined with Her.”

That’s very different to what Cardinal Pell was saying. Let’s not play semantic games here, you make a lot of very good points but to say the Church never changes it’s teaching on anything is patently false.

 

[Teek]

From the Pulpit especially, when we are supposed to be focusing on Christ, suddenly the priest is going to bring all focus and attention onto himself?

I have never heard a priest use his personal tendencies to sin in a homily. I have heard them discuss sin and how to overcome and approach it from just about every angle.

But they are there at the Mass to speak in the person of Christ the head. It’s not about the priest. If a priest were to be counseling or giving spiritual direction to a person and share their struggle and triumph and all of that in an attempt to help someone with their own battle, that would be awesome. Even if it was discussing same sex attraction, and so they “came out.” But why in a homily?

People commend it like it is humility. How is that humility? Is ostentatious humility even possible?

I can’t put the right words to it. It feels like the spiritual equivalent to listening to a symphony and one person is playing out of sync. You can’t pin exactly what is off about it and why, sometimes, but it is a jarring dissonance.

 

[ChunkMonk]

If a priest wanted to publish his struggles with sin I would usually advise against it, but wouldn’t necessarily have a problem with it.

But from the Pulpit? Absolutely not. That is not the time or the place to do so.

 

[Teek]

(Replying to @ChunkMonk— for some reason didn’t push the right reply arrow to indicate this in my post.)

That must be it! I have no problem with a priest trying to use his own life experiences, the way the Savior personally came to meet him to worth the vineyard and save souls.

But at Mass?

I’ve been on retreats where priests give talks where they go into their past. Father Calloway gave one once where he discusses how far astray he was when Mary came to meet him. It was powerful! Some of what he did was deeply sinful, and his humility was profound. He actually sounded proud—not of himself, but of the Lord, and Our Lady—proud that they could love deeply enough to come to rescue him.

That was an amazing gift. I am trying to picture if he did that at Mass. Parish Mission: yes. Retreat: yes. Mass:

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I’ve heard priests use their own life experiences in the homily, but only as examples to illustrate whatever point is being made in the Gospel that week, or the overall theme of the Mass. For example, if the Gospel is about giving to the poor, the priest might tell a story about an experience he had making a contribution to a charity. If the Gospel is dealing with Jesus selecting disciples, the priest might tell a story about how God called him to be a priest. When I went to a special Mass in honor of Padre Pio, the homilist was actually a priest who had written letters to Padre Pio as a child, and he told the story of his correspondence with Padre Pio. This is all fine because it fits in with the gospel or the special occasion being celebrated at the Mass.

However, I am not sure how a priest who is presumed by the congregation to be celibate at the current time could tie his sexual preferences, whether gay or straight, in with a particular Gospel or feast day in order to justify bringing them up in the pulpit at Mass.

 

[Kei]

don’t fall for the black legend!

It depends what crusades you mean. But if you like not being under control of the caliphate, then maybe you should be glad they happened.

 

[Teek]

In 1441 Pope Eugene IV in Cantate Domino wrote: “The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the ‘eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels’; unless before death they are joined with Her.”

That’s very different to what Cardinal Pell was saying. Let’s not play semantic games here, you make a lot of very good points but to say the Church never changes it’s teaching on anything is patently false.

The key is “unless before death they are joined with Her.”

The Catechism describes how non-Catholics can be joined with her. And how you can remain outside of the Church. This is not a change. This is an unfolding of the deeper meaning of what came before.

From the Catechism (I added the bold):

836 "All men are called to this catholic unity of the People of God… and to it, in different ways, belong or are ordered: the Catholic faithful, others who believe in Christ, and finally all mankind, called by God’s grace to salvation."
…
“Outside the Church there is no salvation”

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. **Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.**336

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337

848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."338

 

[stupidisasstupiddoes]

I think we’re back into word salads. If you look at the context of Cardinal Pell’s remarks, he was clearly not talking about isolated tribes in the amazon who haven’t heard the gospel. Are you saying that if we asked Pope Eugene IV whether athiests could enter heaven, then he would have said yes?

 

[Teek]

I think we’re back into word salads. If you look at the context of Cardinal Pell’s remarks, he was clearly not talking about isolated tribes in the amazon who haven’t heard the gospel. Are you saying that if we asked Pope Eugene IV whether athiests could enter heaven, then he would have said yes?

CCC 846
“Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.”

No, I guess I am saying that Cardinal Pell would likely agree with Pope Eugene IV that those that know and reject the Catholic faith or Christ in the manor described in the above quote from the Catechism are not able to enter Heaven, whether they are isolated tribes in the Amazon or not. If he didn’t agree he would be wrong, according to the Church.

Not according to me. I’m an idiot doing my best to come to know Truth.

I’m sorry to push it, but I don’t feel that it is semantics. I tend to be very detail oriented and analytical. I really enjoy “word salads” because words have meaning. So you may be right. I probably wouldn’t even realize it.

 

[stupidisasstupiddoes]

I don’t think you are an idiot. What i like about thr Catholic church (as opposed to the Protestant faith) is that it at least tries to create a coherent theology covering all aspects of life. As we both acknowledge, that’s incredibly difficult and I’m just more comfortable with “we don’t know” as an answer. We don’t really know if athiests can enter heaven, maybe they can turn to God after death, maybe they can’t. We can tie ourselves up in knots trying to work it out but ultimately we don’t know and personally i don’t care because the Catholic church wasn’t created for the benefit of athiests! The Church feels a need to have a position, which i understand, but it falls outside the realm of certainty as far as i know.

 

[Teek]

As we both acknowledge, that’s incredibly difficult and I’m just more comfortable with “we don’t know” as an answer. We don’t really know if athiests can enter heaven, maybe they can turn to God after death, maybe they can’t. We can tie ourselves up in knots trying to work it out but ultimately we don’t know and personally i don’t care because the Catholic church wasn’t created for the benefit of athiests! The Church feels a need to have a position, which i understand, but it falls outside the realm of certainty as far as i know.

100%, I agree!

I don’t think it is wrong to admit a possibility for it, relying on God’s mercy, and I don’t think that admitting a possibility for it denies that the only way to salvation is in the Church.

I’m actually rather relieved that the Church doesn’t teach that if you aren’t Catholic there is no chance at all.

That feels wrong to me—doesn’t have the same resonance as the Living Word. It’s more of the dull thud of a human door slamming shut.

 

[guanophore]

It would be absurdly innapropriate for a priest to talk about his own battles with lust from the pulpit.

I don’t think making a disclosure about one’s sexual orientation equates to “battles with lust”, but the homily is not an appropriate venue for any such talk. One could talk about the gift of chastity, but it should be in the context of whatever the readings are for the Mass.

 

[PJM]

Either DON"T become a Catholic Priest OR stay deeply in the closet. the

 

[adgloriam]