Pope Calls for Fresh Church Approach to Children of Gay Parents

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Whatever approach is taken, it will have to be a fresh one.

It is not like any society has had to deal with this before in a significant way.
 
“On an educational level, gay unions raise challenges for us today which for us are sometimes difficult to understand,” Francis said in a speech to the Catholic Union of Superiors General in November, extracts of which were published on Italian media websites on Saturday.

“The number of children in schools whose parents have separated is very high,” he said, adding that family make-ups were also changing.

“I remember a case in which a sad little girl confessed to her teacher: ‘my mother’s girlfriend doesn’t love me’,” he was quoted as saying.

The pontiff said educational leaders should ask themselves “how can we proclaim Christ to a generation that is changing?”

“We must be careful not to administer a vaccine against faith to them,” the 77-year-old added.

news.yahoo.com/pope-calls-fresh-church-approach-children-gay-parents-192102096.html

Melvin,

It is leading us to be able to proclaim Christ’s love.
 
He didn’t say anything even vaguely controversial here, all he did was say the Church needs to be able to reach out to children of same sex and divorced parents without pre-emptively alienating them.

I’m usually one of those who’s most concerned about Pope Francis’ comments, but even I will admit there is nothing concerning here.

In fact, in a way, this might actually be a good sign. It would seem the media is getting pretty desperate for “controversial Pope Francis quotes” if they have to resort to trying to spin this. Perhaps the tide is turning a little.

ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/what-did-pope-francis-say-about-the-children-of-homosexual-couples-8-things
 
Melvin said:
news.yahoo.com/pope-calls-fresh-church-approach-children-gay-parents-192102096.html

I have no comment…just wondering what all of this means, and where it is leading…
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I don’t see any reason to treat the children differently even if their parent(s) are engaged in sinful behavior. The child is innocent of the parent’s sometimes self destructive choices. I know this gets very dicey though when a child is at a Catholic school and the same sex couple raising the child shows up at an event making it clear they are engaged in a same sex relationship. How does the school handle these public displays? I don’t envy any teacher or administrator having to deal with all of these incredibly complex and nuanced issues.

Lisa
 
The comparison being made in the literature draws on the children of divorced families.
Brokenness is likely the key to any approach. The Gospelmessage is one of healing.

The one example that the Bible give us of how to deal with marital brokenness deals with the Samaritan woman at the well. Christ acknowledges the woman’s situation without any sense of condemning her, or even bringing up the idea that she needs to change that very broken marriage. Instead he only expressed his thirst for her, and promised that he had the water that would heal her.

These are in the main broken families and broken people.

Even then, broken people have their pride. They need to be needed. They need to be thirsted for even. What they don’t need is to be treated like charity cases, only with needs and nothing relevant to give. us.

People need to feel like they are needed. They need to be needed. They need to be thirsted for.

The simple fact is that the Church of Jesus, without broken people, is nothing. It is a wonderful thing in a way to be a hospital without patients, but only if that means the country is only populated by healthy people,
Jesus without broken people would have come into this world in vain. Indeed, he would thirst.
 
“Pope Calls for Fresh Church Approach to Children of Gay Parents”

So what is the existing approach, what is the proposed approach and how do they differ?
 
The fact the secular media is so awfully desperate to twist and change the Catholic Church SHOULD be an indicator the Church is doing things the right way. They seem to have finally come to realize they cannot defeat the Church in a full on assault so they have adapted their approach to slight twists of meaning in the hope it will eventually take hold in the minds of the common layperson. What does this mean? It means they attack what they know is right and by doing this so Catholics the world over should feel good about their faith. If the Catholic Church were weak and wrong, these attacks would not be happening. For proof, watch the weakened denominations which have embraced the agenda of acceptance of sin. They leave them alone.
 
An obviously misleading headline as Papa Francis knows that only a man and a woman can have children (except, of course, if the Lord intervenes).
 
KyrieEleison17 said:
An obviously misleading headline as Papa Francis knows that only a man and a woman can have children (except, of course, if the Lord intervenes).
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This sounds like a wonderful way to approach evangelism. If Sally has two mommies, just tell Sally that she doesn’t really have two mommies; the other woman is just a live-in sinner. That’ll be pretty effective. :rolleyes:

Our Holy Father is always concerned with bringing people to the Church. This means he is also concerned with calling people by the names they call themselves, so as not to alienate them.

If a crazy person believes he is John Lennon, then by all means address him as John Lennon – but show him the gospel!
 
Darryl1958 said:
The comparison being made in the literature draws on the children of divorced families.
Brokenness is likely the key to any approach. The Gospelmessage is one of healing.

The one example that the Bible give us of how to deal with marital brokenness deals with the Samaritan woman at the well. Christ acknowledges the woman’s situation without any sense of condemning her, or even bringing up the idea that she needs to change that very broken marriage. Instead he only expressed his thirst for her, and promised that he had the water that would heal her.

These are in the main broken families and broken people.

Even then, broken people have their pride. They need to be needed. They need to be thirsted for even. What they don’t need is to be treated like charity cases, only with needs and nothing relevant to give. us.

People need to feel like they are needed. They need to be needed. They need to be thirsted for.

The simple fact is that the Church of Jesus, without broken people, is nothing. It is a wonderful thing in a way to be a hospital without patients, but only if that means the country is only populated by healthy people,
Jesus without broken people would have come into this world in vain. Indeed, he would thirst.
Click to expand...
Well stated! I know people say love the sinner, hate the sin is trite, but it is an approach that focuses on loving the person without loving what they are doing, nor being dishonest about it.

I suspect MOST children have parents who engage in sin ;). Unfortunately many are hidden so when the adulterous parents show up at a school event, no one is the wiser. The tricky part will be dealing with the sometimes very militant gay/Lesbian parents who want to shove “Heather has two mommies” in the face of say a Catholic school or even at church. Again I don’t envy anyone dealing with this type of confusion.

Lisa
 
Children with gay parents are long existing in the church. What is the current approach? Doesn’t the church treat them with love and inclusion right now? Don’t we teach the Gospel message to those children that marriage is between a man and a woman according to the Scriptures? So what is the fresh approach? Are we going to shift the inclusion of those children from that “they are loved by God but their gay parents are wrong” to “they are loved by God, and their gay parents are right?”

A fresh approach must be different from current approach. Are we going to make “acceptance” equal to “agreement”? Are we going to accept both sinner and sin so all will live in harmony? Is that a fresh approach? So what does this “fresh” mean?
 
The Pope has called homosexual adoption “child abuse,” So it would follow that we are to approach the abused with kindness and caution. All I see here is the Pope making a statement about how to help abused people. Sounds pretty Catholic to me!👍
 
Prodigal_Son said:
This sounds like a wonderful way to approach evangelism. If Sally has two mommies, just tell Sally that she doesn’t really have two mommies; the other woman is just a live-in sinner. That’ll be pretty effective. :rolleyes:

Our Holy Father is always concerned with bringing people to the Church. This means he is also concerned with calling people by the names they call themselves, so as not to alienate them.

If a crazy person believes he is John Lennon, then by all means address him as John Lennon – but show him the gospel!
Click to expand...
No one is advocating telling an abused child that their parents are abusers. But we do have an obligation to help them deal with and overcome that abuse.
 
PTL said:
Children with gay parents are long existing in the church. What is the current approach? Doesn’t the church treat them with love and inclusion right now? Don’t we teach the Gospel message to those children that marriage is between a man and a woman according to the Scriptures? So what is the fresh approach? Are we going to shift the inclusion of those children from that “they are loved by God but their gay parents are wrong” to “they are loved by God, and their gay parents are right?”

A fresh approach must be different from current approach. Are we going to make “acceptance” equal to “agreement”? Are we going to accept both sinner and sin so all will live in harmony? Is that a fresh approach? So what does this “fresh” mean?
Click to expand...
The Pope didn’t say we need a “fresh” approach, that phrase and idea was created by the writer of the article.

This is all the Pope said:
"I remember the case of a very sad little girl who finally confided to her teacher the reason for her state of mind: ‘my mother’s (female) fiancé doesn’t like me.’
The percentage of children studying in schools who have separated parents is very high.
The situation in which we live now provides on with new challenges which sometimes are difficult for us to understand.
How can we proclaim Christ to these boys and girls? How can we proclaim Christ to a generation that is changing?
We must be careful not to administer a vaccine against faith to them.”
 
McCall1981 said:
The Pope didn’t say we need a “fresh” approach, that phrase and idea was created by the writer of the article.

This is all the Pope said:
"I remember the case of a very sad little girl who finally confided to her teacher the reason for her state of mind: ‘my mother’s (female) fiancé doesn’t like me.’
The percentage of children studying in schools who have separated parents is very high.
The situation in which we live now provides on with new challenges which sometimes are difficult for us to understand.
How can we proclaim Christ to these boys and girls? How can we proclaim Christ to a generation that is changing?
We must be careful not to administer a vaccine against faith to them.”
Click to expand...
Exactly what I was thinking. Due to the Forum’s requirement that threads be titled with the actual title of the article, we must remember that the title given by a source like Yahoo is going to be something concocted by one of their writers. So already we are dealing with media spin. Common sense and putting on our thinking caps each time we are faced with such an article is the first step toward not getting drawn into thinking the Pope (or whoever the article is about) said something he/she didn’t really say. :sad_yes:
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
No one is advocating telling an abused child that their parents are abusers. But we do have an obligation to help them deal with and overcome that abuse.
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I don’t disagree. My point was about the vocabulary we use to do it. We need to make sure this vocabulary does not alienate these children. This is what the Pope means by “administering a vaccine against the faith” – causing a person to stop listening to you, before you have even said anything.
 
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