Stable gay relationship is better than a 'temporary' one, says Cardinal Schönborn [CH-UK]

[edwest2]

It sounds like the Pope is telling us not to gossip about people.
Commenting on someone’s behavior to others does no one any good.

Gossiping is not at all the same thing as admonishment.
The Bible tells us we should admonish sinners about their behavior…
i.e. speak to *them *about their behavior.

Of course, we are all sinners…and when someone admonishes me about
my behavior, I should be humble enough to realize that fact.

Thank you for posting this.

Ed

 

[Megan7]

The article originally linked talked about recognizing the good even in essentially disordered relationships:

“The Church’s ministers, the cardinal said, should recognise what is good where it is found. For example, he said, a civil marriage is better than simply living together, because it signifies a couple has made a formal, public commitment to one another. “Instead of talking about everything that is missing, we can draw close to this reality, noting what is positive in this love that is establishing itself.””

He wasn’t limiting the discussion to homosexual relationships. I think we have to recognize that our current culture is steeped and saturated, totally immersed, in sexual disorder, of which same sex relationships and gay marriage are simply the most recent manifestation.

A few generations ago, parents would not have looked upon cohabitation by their children with significant others with equanimity. Now they do. They would not have shrugged their shoulders at a hook-up culture on college campuses, or at middle school kids engaging in sex. Now, it’s regarded as just something that happens, something normal, the way things are. They would have been outraged at the common availability of porn, and at the poisoning of the children’s mind and imagination from an early age. Now, it’s not much of a big deal.

The culture has fallen so far, so fast, that now we are limited to looking for the ‘good’ in fornication, in broken families, in sodomy, and in every possible deviation from the good. I have to wonder just how successful that project can be in reforming the culture. We’re saying in effect, the culture has gone down the drain and us with it, but let’s look for the good in that.

Jim, thanks for all of your posts:thumbsup: I agree with everything you have said. God bless you!

Besides daily prayer, daily Mass, Catholic devotions, avoiding the media (TV, movies, magazines, trashy books, etc.) Is there anything else we can do, to slow down what is going on with our culture?

Now, we even hear of boyfriends & or girlfriends staying the night at Catholic homes (with their boyfriend & or girlfriend/teenagers) Now, even Catholic parents have given into the culture I am sure that there is more I am not aware of…

Yesterday I saw a title on a yahoo article about how if we do not accept homosexuality we have deep psychological issues???

So, we went from homosexuality being a psychological disorder to people who do not accept it having the psychological problem??? :crying:

So, now besides being a bigot, I also have psychological problems because I do not accept same sex “marriage”/relationships???

I feel like I am in a very bad dream, and I end up in shock on daily basis of what is going on…

May Our Blessed Lord have Mercy on us all!

May Our Blessed Mother & Saint Michael the Archangel protect us from evil!

+PAX to you & yours!

 

[edwest2]

Jim, thanks for all of your posts:thumbsup: I agree with everything you have said. God bless you!

Besides daily prayer, daily Mass, Catholic devotions, avoiding the media (TV, movies, magazines, trashy books, etc.) Is there anything else we can do, to slow down what is going on with our culture?

Now, we even hear of boyfriends & or girlfriends staying the night at Catholic homes (with their boyfriend & or girlfriend/teenagers) Now, even Catholic parents have given into the culture I am sure that there is more I am not aware of…

Yesterday I saw a title on a yahoo article about how if we do not accept homosexuality we have deep psychological issues???

So, we went from homosexuality being a psychological disorder to people who do not accept it having the psychological problem??? :crying:

So, now besides being a bigot, I also have psychological problems because I do not accept same sex “marriage”/relationships???

I feel like I am in a very bad dream, and I end up in shock on daily basis of what is going on…

May Our Blessed Lord have Mercy on us all!

May Our Blessed Mother & Saint Michael the Archangel protect us from evil!

+PAX to you & yours!

You’re not the only one. But learn how it happened.

amazon.com/Marketing-Evil-Pseudo-Experts-Corruption-Disguised/dp/1942475217/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=

It didn’t happen without outside “help.”

Ed

 

[Megan7]

You’re not the only one. But learn how it happened.

amazon.com/Marketing-Evil-Pseudo-Experts-Corruption-Disguised/dp/1942475217/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=

It didn’t happen without outside “help.”

Ed

Dear Ed,

Thanks for your reply I also appreciate your posts & (name removed by moderator)ut. Thank you for the link, and the book rec. I will read up on this.

God bless you & yours,

+PAX

 

[JimG]

Jim, thanks for all of your posts:thumbsup: I agree with everything you have said. God bless you!

Besides daily prayer, daily Mass, Catholic devotions, avoiding the media (TV, movies, magazines, trashy books, etc.) Is there anything else we can do, to slow down what is going on with our culture?

Now, we even hear of boyfriends & or girlfriends staying the night at Catholic homes (with their boyfriend & or girlfriend/teenagers) Now, even Catholic parents have given into the culture I am sure that there is more I am not aware of…

Yesterday I saw a title on a yahoo article about how if we do not accept homosexuality we have deep psychological issues???

So, we went from homosexuality being a psychological disorder to people who do not accept it having the psychological problem??? :crying:

So, now besides being a bigot, I also have psychological problems because I do not accept same sex “marriage”/relationships???

I feel like I am in a very bad dream, and I end up in shock on daily basis of what is going on…

May Our Blessed Lord have Mercy on us all!

May Our Blessed Mother & Saint Michael the Archangel protect us from evil!

+PAX to you & yours!

Thank you for the kind words. It is true that the world seems to have descended into moral blindness. But there is hope, and perhaps a turning point. I don’t know that political argumentation does much good anymore since unreason permeates public discourse. But as you mention, we must rely on prayer, penance, devotion, daily Mass. I am glad that Pope Francis has announced a year of Mercy, as the world is in great need of mercy.

 

[LongingSoul]

The world is not all that bad. As modern democracies we model cultural virtues like social welfare, accessible medical care, state programs for all types of disadvantage. We strive to reject discrimination based on race and creed and offer help and financial aid to other countries in the spirit of global brotherhood. There are many ways that the world respects life that were lacking in the cultures of past centuries when children were worked from a young age and treated appalling by the state. The mistreatment and death of the undesirable classes was a blip on the radar of the upper classes. Justice systems were biased and discriminatory. It is not that long ago where in America, the killing of a black slave attracted a mere fine.

When Pope Francis said this…

“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”…

I feel sure he was trying to say that obsessive focus on these issues like political keystones, actually distorts the truth of the world. It distorts all that is good about the world and leads people to talk in terms of doom and decay. It’s not a new human problem because it was also one of the things Pope St John XIII commented on in his opening address to Vatican II.

*In the daily exercise of our pastoral office, we sometimes have to listen, much to our regret, to voices of persons who, though burning with zeal, are not endowed with too much sense of discretion or measure. In these modern times they can see nothing but prevarication and ruin. They say that our era, in comparison with past eras, is getting worse, and they behave as though they had learned nothing from history, which is, none the less, the teacher of life. They behave as though at the time of former Councils everything was a full triumph for the Christian idea and life and for proper religious liberty.

We feel we must disagree with those prophets of gloom, who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand.

In the present order of things, Divine Providence is leading us to a new order of human relations which, by men’s own efforts and even beyond their very expectations, are directed toward the fulfilment of God’s superior and inscrutable designs. And everything, even human differences, leads to the greater good of the Church.*

The two most fundamental questions that emanate from the human heart are ‘who made me?’ God and ‘why did God make me?’ God made me to know him, love him and serve him in this world, and to be happy with him for ever in the next.

What people are looking for in human relationships is really God and instead of seeing no good whatsoever in any relationship that doesn’t confirm perfectly to the ideal… it is reasonable to believe that there are some aspects in every relationship that demonstrate godliness as in care for another and sacrifice. It has to be a positive thing to acknowledge what’s good to distinguish it from what’s bad.

 

[ToeInTheWater]

Since I seem to be one of the few on CAF who don’t think homosexual sexual sin is OBVIOUSLY SOOO MUCH WORSE than heterosexual sexual sin…most US posters I’m sure know of the mass shooting in the Colorado movie theater. Some of the victims were men who died protecting their girlfriends. I won’t speculate about any particular person’s sex life, but I assume not all those relationships were chaste.

Yet, I doubt anyone would state “how can there be anything good about a sinful relationship based on fornication?”

Or what if a man in an adulterous affair, gives up his life for that of his mistress?

Or what if, indeed, a man in a same-sex relationship did so for HIS lover?

Anyway, I guess if people are just intent on winning the “culture war” at all costs, then demonizing those with SSA is just another war strategy, and it might even work.

If people really want to convert hearts and minds in this issue, however, I suspect the returns won’t be as fruitful.

 

[Tomdstone]

Since I seem to be one of the few on CAF who don’t think homosexual sexual sin is OBVIOUSLY SOOO MUCH WORSE than heterosexual sexual sin…most US posters I’m sure know of the mass shooting in the Colorado movie theater. Some of the victims were men who died protecting their girlfriends. I won’t speculate about any particular person’s sex life, but I assume not all those relationships were chaste.

Yet, I doubt anyone would state “how can there be anything good about a sinful relationship based on fornication?”

Or what if a man in an adulterous affair, gives up his life for that of his mistress?

Or what if, indeed, a man in a same-sex relationship did so for HIS lover?

Anyway, I guess if people are just intent on winning the “culture war” at all costs, then demonizing those with SSA is just another war strategy, and it might even work.

If people really want to convert hearts and minds in this issue, however, I suspect the returns won’t be as fruitful.

The Bible refers to homosexual relations as an abomination. I didn;t see where it referred to fornication or adultery that way.

 

[esieffe]

Cardinal Schönborn: The Church’s negative “judgment about homosexual acts is necessary”, he said, “but the Church should not look in the bedroom first, but in the dining room! It must accompany people.”

In my humble opinion, Cardinal Schönborn’s point is that there is good and bad in everyone, but what good does it do to categorically reject the good in any person based on one aspect of his or her life?

We are all sinners, and we are all children of God. Not one of us is perfect, but not one of us is beyond salvation. I think that behavior on the part of professed Christians that makes a judgement to reject and discourage what is good in a person is responsible for pushing that person away from salvation, and I cannot imagine that Christian behavior of that sort pleases God.

When we reject others as unworthy and when we deny mercy to others, it is our own salvation that is in jeopardy.

Bravo! I feel this is the true sentiment of what the Cardinal was trying to express!

 

[Thomas_White]

Our Lord was condemning hypocritical judgment, not judging in general. In St. Matthew vii. 4 “Or how sayest thou to thy brother: Let me cast the mote out of thy eye; and behold a beam is in thy own eye?”, Our Lord was speaking of hypocrisy in which we correct the minor faults of others while we are committing the same faults even to a greater degree. Our Lord further explains what He is saying in the next verse: “Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam in thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye”. It is clear from the part in which Our Lord says “then shalt thou see to cast out the mote of thy brother’s eye” that we are permitted to judge, just as long as it is without hypocrisy since we won’t have any effect if it is.

There are other verses in the Bible in which we are actually told to judge and admonish sinners. In the Epistle of St. James v. 19-20 “My brethren, if any of you err from the truth, and one convert him: He must know that he who causeth a sinner to be converted from the error of his way, shall save his soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins.”

In Ezechiel iii. 18-19 " If, when I say to the wicked, Thou shalt surely die: thou declare it not to him, nor speak to him, that he may be converted from his wicked way, and live: the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at thy hand. But if thou give warning to the wicked, and he be not converted from his wickedness, and from his evil way: he indeed shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul." You may read more here, in particular the subtitle Judge Not Lest You Be Judged Judge Not - Tim Staples

There is a difference between correcting or providing instruction and direction to a person that errs and a judgment of their perceived faults. I am not so sure that the words of Matthew 7:1 do not mean precisely what they say: “Judge not, that you may not be judged.”

I do not find where Christ actually says it is for us to judge. But there is this verse:

“For as the Father has life in himself, so he hath given to the Son also to have life in himself: And he has given him power to do judgment because he is the Son of man.” --John 5:26-27

 

[zamyrabyrd]

Since I seem to be one of the few on CAF who don’t think homosexual sexual sin is OBVIOUSLY SOOO MUCH WORSE than heterosexual sexual sin…most US posters I’m sure know of the mass shooting in the Colorado movie theater. Some of the victims were men who died protecting their girlfriends. I won’t speculate about any particular person’s sex life, but I assume not all those relationships were chaste.

Yet, I doubt anyone would state “how can there be anything good about a sinful relationship based on fornication?”

Or what if a man in an adulterous affair, gives up his life for that of his mistress?

Or what if, indeed, a man in a same-sex relationship did so for HIS lover?

Anyway, I guess if people are just intent on winning the “culture war” at all costs, then demonizing those with SSA is just another war strategy, and it might even work.

If people really want to convert hearts and minds in this issue, however, I suspect the returns won’t be as fruitful.

The gay agenda, and note that I didn’t write individuals with SSA, is a particularly dangerous social phenomenon. Of course we can thank the sexual revolution for leading to it but this is really a giant step up or down whichever they way you want to think about it, because it threatens the institution of marriage and family and by extension, society itself that depends on that very important unit.

To give a small minority who want that piece of paper which in itself is already a small percentage of the population the right to upend all of the traditions and mores of thousands of years is a very expensive present and self-destructive. A previously cited article shows that this document cannot even guarantee that they stay together which is the premise of this thread. They break up quicker and more frequently than hetero couples.

Psychologically there is not the opposite attract complimentarity, so even commonsense would infer that the emotional pressure would be too much. This is the reason for the safety valve of making their relationships “open”, which is yet another insult to the definition of marriage.

There are gay people who think that marriage should not be destroyed as they also have parents, and others who want to live their lives in peace but again refer to the social agenda that is using this to marginalize Christianity and to create modular human beings without history or family, so must depend on the State.

The whole irony is people complain about the restrictions of religion but by comparison to the totalitarian model, following the rules of nature and God gives true freedom.