Priest leaves vocation for politics

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I don’t know how I feel about this. I hope things work out for him though.
 
What are the rules about public appointments and priests? He will likely be announcing his engagement too? We need priests, and, this seems to be an instance … whether he could continue as a priest or not, … an instance where he is taking a job away from another person. We have parishes closing in northwest Ohio, from the lack of priests, so, I can say that he is not considering the whole church, as those with closed parishes are told to do! So, he might be marrying! Other than that, time will tell about a calling away from the priesthood. It could be some deep unbelief in God’s plan, … or a disagreement with the bishop. Shock does come to mind for someone so high up. I think there are some problems with priests, because, some of them are overeating.
 
It’s hard to really comment without knowing anythig else about him. But a wise priest I know once recently said that FAR too many priests in the last 50 years or so made it all the way through seminary, to ordination and beyond on the primary motivation being their desire to do something to help people. If you feel your call in life is to help people, don’t be a priest. Be a social worker, or a nurse or one of a million other things. Priests are first and foremost called to offer the sacrifice of the mass to God and to provide the sacraments to people. Seminary formation lost sight of that for more than a generation and it has cost the Church dearly. Don’t get me wrong, helping people is noble and good. But the priesthood is NOT primarily a social working position, it is a sacramental identity.
 
Apparently not everybody was happy with the move:
Some of Abercrombie’s supporters, though, questioned the appointment.
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“One has to question whether he will be effective in counseling runaway gay youth,” said Jo-Ann Adams, chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Hawaii’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender caucus. “Many of the (homeless) people here are thrown out of their homes when their parents find out that they are gay.”
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JHow said:
Apparently not everybody was happy with the move:
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Why wouldn’t he be able to counsel a youth in a runaway situation? How does being gay make the circumstances of running away any different?

I’m sorry I just fail to see how counseling a youth for ‘running away’ might be equivolent to condoning a homosexual lifestyle.

Its like saying Catholics can’t counsel a woman considering divorce on her wardrobe choice, or something. The two issues are totally different and don’t rely on eachother.
 
JHow said:
Apparently not everybody was happy with the move:
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Homosexuals should be treated with the love and compassion due to all of God’s children regardless of how far they have fallen, for all can be redeemed
 
Charlotte408 said:
Why wouldn’t he be able to counsel a youth in a runaway situation? How does being gay make the circumstances of running away any different?

I’m sorry I just fail to see how counseling a youth for ‘running away’ might be equivolent to condoning a homosexual lifestyle.

Its like saying Catholics can’t counsel a woman considering divorce on her wardrobe choice, or something. The two issues are totally different and don’t rely on eachother.
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Because “running away” is a euphemism. Some kids just run away from bad situations. What the person was referring to is the phenomena where gay youth are kicked out - forced to leave home. So counseling doesn’t involved talking the youth into returning home, but also involves dealing with their sexual identity.

But I agree with you that an ex-Catholic Priest is not incapable of dealing with that compassionately. Most clergy, and most Catholics (mostly outside this forum) seem pretty compassionate and charitable in their interactions with individuals having same sex attraction.
 
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