Pope tells a gay man 'God made you like this'

[DustThouArt]

Damage is done. Most major news outlets have run with this. Rainbow warriors are having a field day with this. Good luck getting this back in the barn.

 

[exnihilo]

In my own experience accepting our current condition is key to overcoming it. Struggling against the very existence of the problem is frustrating and leads to despair. So I definitely see how one can need to accept, in a sense, his SSA, however it manifested.

 

[stege]

The Holy Father is the leader of the faith. I appeal to Rome, please lead! If this is what the Pope is teaching privately, teach it publicly. If this is not what he means, then please give us clarity! I know the pope has derided those like me who seek clarity, but it is hard to keep up without it.

 

[angel12]

If the Pope is saying that God affirms the goodness of homosexual desire, that is not remotely compatible with what the Catholic Church teaches, and with what Scripture makes clear.”

But that’s not what he said.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

The Holy Father is the leader of the faith. I appeal to Rome, please lead! If this is what the Pope is teaching privately, teach it publicly. If this is not what he means, then please give us clarity! I know the pope has derided those like me who seek clarity, but it is hard to keep up without it.

He told one man, in private council, that it is ok that he feels how he does. That God knows and understands.

He did not tell him to sin, or that it was OK to sin…just that God made him who he is and loves him.

What is being extrapolated from this is pure nonsense.

 

[livnlern]

Whoever handles the Holy Father’s dealings with the press isn’t doing his job as he should. We live in an age of sound bites and short attention spans. And the media look for comments that muddy Catholic teaching and twists it as much as possible.
We need to have clarity from the Pope. I realize he doesn’t speak English and maybe the translations are poor at times, but someone should be overseeing what is said and the implications of off the cuff comments. There’s too much confusion in the world as it is. We need direct comments from our Pope.

 

[tseleehw]

I would tend to agree. I am less concerned with the Pope’s exact comments than I am with the confusion that this story is causing among Catholics and the general public. Already the media is running with this story predicting that gay marriages are imminent in the Church. There will almost certainly be silence from the Vatican, and more people will think that the Church doesn’t care about sexual immorality anymore. Sadly, this has become such a common occurrence that I consider it a success when more than a week passes without a new story like this coming from Rome.

 

[billy15]

I find it very hard to believe that the Pope spoke verbatim what is being reported. Once again, Pope Francis is being misrepresented, and the media is running wild with it. Some people are already proclaiming that what this man said came right from the Holy Father. Let’s remember that this man’s comments are hearsay. I give Pope Francis the benefit of the doubt. But as others here have mentioned, such as Tseleehw above, this story is causing a lot of confusion for both Catholics and non-Catholics alike. The mainstream headlines keep getting more and more bold, distorting things about the Pope as they always do:

Detroit Free Press: Gay man says Pope Francis told him ‘God made you like this’ and ‘it doesn’t matter’

The Telegraph: Pope ‘says it is ok to be gay’ says Chilean clerical abuse victim after Vatican audience

New York Post: Pope’s ‘God made you like this’ remark to gay man signals new openness

The Guardian: The pope says God made gay people just as we should be – here’s why his comments matter

AP: LGBT community cheers pope’s ‘God made you like this’ remark

The secular media sees Pope Francis as someone who is going to bend to the modern world. He’s not. Yet they’re going to run with everything they possibly can to discredit the Church. Such media outlets won’t report on Pope Francis’ constant calls to holiness, which includes refraining from sexual activity outside of marriage. But they’ll report on hearsay and make it global news. It’s disgusting, and it keeps happening over and over again. I think it’s time, especially in this age of soundbites where no one does any digging into context on their own, that the Vatican’s press office stop allowing such disinformation to run rampant.

 

[philipl]

As long as what the Pope allegedly said also included, allegedly of course, that this man may not act upon those sexual feeling.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

I find it very hard to believe that the Pope spoke verbatim what is being reported. Once again, Pope Francis is being misrepresented, and the media is running wild with it. Some people are already proclaiming that what this man said came right from the Holy Father. Let’s remember that this man’s comments are hearsay. I give Pope Francis the benefit of the doubt. But as others here have mentioned, such as Tseleehw above, this story is causing a lot of confusion for both Catholics and non-Catholics alike. The mainstream headlines keep getting more and more bold, distorting things about the Pope as they always do:
…
I think it’s time, especially in this age of soundbites where no one does any digging into context on their own, that the Vatican’s press office stop allowing such disinformation to run rampant.

Isn’t it funny?

When Pope Benedict was often misquoted and demonized by the media. He is seen with a child and accused of being a pedo. Tons of Darth Sidious memes. Whose fault was it? The media. Everyone railed against the media. No one so much as sneezed in his direction that somehow it was his fault.

Pope Francis comforts a child saying that God is loving and all hell breaks loose that he is saying atheists get a free pass to Heaven. Pope Francis comforts a man who is struggling and suddenly it’s a sign to the entire world that the Catholic Church is going to approve gay marriage.

Seriously people?

It’s the media that’s bending and distorting things to the biggest extremes possible. The fact that they were so hellbent on ensuring Pope Benedict’s firm determination was incorrectly turned into overbearing rules and that Pope Francis’ Jesus like mercy is turned into a mockery of tradition just shows you how terrifically afraid they are that people are going to know what’s actually going on. They don’t want Pope Benedict to be kind because that makes him human and means that maybe he does know best. They don’t want Pope Francis to follow rules because that makes him part of the hierarchy that refuses to do what they want.

So sit and they pry and they twist. They knive a way to drive Catholics further and further apart.

They’ve done a good job. You have a whole subset of Catholics who are “holding out judgement” on a man who has only done good but does not act like anyone they’ve ever seen.

 

[stpurl]

You’ve nailed it Xanthippe.

It’s what I’ve said from the get-go.

The media twisted Benedict’s words and actions to make him seem as if he was nothing but legalistic, rigid, authoritarian. . .and tried to encourage Catholics (and sadly, succeeded with many) to dissent, call Benedict names, and disagree with him.

The media is doing the same thing with Francis, only in this case, since they already had a group of pre-made dissenters whom they had wound up into hating Benedict’s ‘rigidity’, they are using Francis and painting him as the antithesis of Benedict. So they win in several ways.

If any ‘moderate’ Catholic was thinking that the media was being unfair to Catholics under Benedict, over the last 5 years the media has been full of positive things about Francis. So guess what --those Catholics are starting to think, “Hey, it’s not the media that’s the problem --look how they love Francis” . . . and of course, with Benedict conveniently ‘retired’ and not able to be sanctified (and he probably won’t be, nor will Pius XII, as both have been ‘whipping boys’ for decades), and with Benedict also rarely speaking, the average Catholic doesn’t even remember much of the media ‘blitzkrieg’ against him.

And you have the dissenters who are made to feel that they were right all along. Benedict WAS the problem, right? Francis is doing everything ‘right’. Catholics can hold up their heads again with pride (among other things). We’re a moral force again, even with the ‘pedophile scandal’. And so any mention of anything that even seems to be linked to ‘bad old times’ is going to be pounced on.

Congratulations, media (and those behind it). You just change the focus and now you can try to get two groups of Catholics hating each other for supposed ‘wrongs’ and pretend that you weren’t the instruments. You can fake news all you want and just drive the wedges in further.

Except there are starting to be too many people who see through you. You’ve gotten full of pride, and careless. You don’t bother to check to see whether you’ve told the same lie (consistency) or whether you just couldn’t resist going just a little too far and getting ‘caught’.

 

[Maxirad]

https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2018/05...ope-francis-told-him-being-gay-doesnt-matter/

 

[billy15]

I remember, too, when the media totally twisted Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s words on condoms. Headlines were talking about a shift in “policy” and that it was a “game-changer”. It was none of those things. It was one of the rare times Pope Benedict wasn’t presented as too “rigid” (as if orthodoxy could be rigid, but the mainstream media rarely, if ever, realizes that).

However, MSM outlets did make reports when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith clarified things. The CDF released a letter in direct response to what the media had misinterprted and twisted, saying in part:

The idea that anyone could deduce from the words of Benedict XVI that it is somehow legitimate, in certain situations, to use condoms to avoid an unwanted pregnancy is completely arbitrary and is in no way justified either by his words or in his thought.

Now that doesn’t mean this has to necessarily be done in this case. But at other times, especially in the case of the Scalfari comments on hell, a detailed response such as the above response on the condom issue would be really welcomed. Especially since the soundbite culture has only gotten worse since 2010.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

You do know that there is a whole history going back to Roman bath houses that blamed “evil” young boys on “seducing” grown men into pedophila, right? Victim blaming is a huge issue an that the man is homosexual often gets very twisted. It’s akin to that middle school teacher who had a baby from her 12 year old student and basically served no jail time…way too many modern educated people still saw the innocent boy as a willing participant and not incrediblely victimized.

 

[Inisfallen]

Especially given that a Catholic source reported it as well, the story seems credible. But why would God create someone gay? Isn’t it a disordered orientation?

God creates people with, say, Down’s Syndrome. That’s a disorder of sorts.

Edit: I’m not in any way likening homosexuality to Down’s Syndrome. I am pointing out that disorder is a part of creation.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

Especially given that a Catholic source reported it as well, the story seems credible. But why would God create someone gay? Isn’t it a disordered orientation?

Why would God create someone with no arms and legs?

Even if people are born gay, it would just be another effect of original sin. Being born homosexual does not mean that homosexuality is right

Which has nothing to do with the discussion because the Pope wasn’t speaking about homosexual practices…just that God loved the man the way he was created…and that is likely with homosexuality.

 

[bobperk]

A defect of the eye or other faculty of the senses is a deprivation of that organ towards its intended function. And a blind person’s lack of sight or a deaf person’s lack of hearing does not incline the person towards sinful desires or behaviors.

So the parallel to homosexual inclination is not exact, because those desires can lead to sin. It would also imply that God did not know what he was designing in the form of the human body. For the blind person desires to use his eyes to see but cannot, whereas a homosexual inclination leads to desires where an organ intended for reproduction is purposed towards areas of the body which are not part of the reproductive function.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

A defect of the eye or other faculty of the senses is a deprivation of that organ towards its intended function. And a blind person’s lack of sight or a deaf person’s lack of hearing does not incline the person towards sinful desires or behaviors.

So the parallel to homosexual inclination is not exact, because those desires can lead to sin. It would also imply that God did not know what he was designing in the form of the human body. For the blind person desires to use his eyes to see but cannot, whereas a homosexual inclination leads to desires where an organ intended for reproduction is purposed towards areas of the body which are not part of the reproductive function.

No, it’s not really “that different”.

Your implication is that feelings are sins. Feelings are NOT sins. Conditions as a result of sin are allowed by God…and God loves each person dearly how HE allowed them to be born.

For what it’s worth, many deaf people have no desire to hear.

Some people are born autistic and don’t want to be neurotypical.

We know now that they can be polymaths or tetrachromats who have abilities beyond our understanding. Does that make the rest of us handicapped?

What makes homosexual desires so “special”? Nothing. EVERYONE must control their sexual desires from puberty to the grave. Priests and religious give up sexual satisfaction. This is no different than a homosexual person. (although it may be prudent for those who have sexual desires not to live in close contact to those who they have a propensity to be sexually attracted to) And as a note, so long as man parts end the act in woman parts the church has no prohibition from where those parts go on the body before that moment.

Homosexuality isn’t in “God’s design”, it’s a result of the fallen world.

 

[bobperk]

Well, perhaps we are more on the same page than I originally thought after reading your post. My comment was directed toward the claim that God designed homosexuality, which is different than people being born with a deprivation of faculties due to Original Sin.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

Well, perhaps we are more on the same page than I originally thought after reading your post. My comment was directed toward the claim that God designed homosexuality, which is different than people being born with a deprivation of faculties due to Original Sin.

Seems like we may be.

God didn’t create sin. Humans brought that into the world.

God created that man, sin and all. To only allow people who are perfect the right to hear that God made them who they are would mean that only Mary and Jesus had that right.

I think what many people don’t understand is that for too long those who were born “defective” were denied a very essential part of their humanity…the understanding that God, and only God, is the one who authored our lives.