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Published: April 20, 2009
Banished priest now full-time ‘gay rights activist’
Fr. Geoffrey Farrow invited to speak at Dignity USA convention in San Francisco, along with other well-known dissenters from Church teachings
Fr. Geoffrey Farrow, the suspended Fresno diocesan priest turned full-time gay rights advocate, has been invited to speak at this summer’s 19th biennial convention of the dissident pro-homosexual group Dignity USA in San Francisco.
 On Sunday, Oct. 5, 2008, Fr. Farrow stunned parishioners at St. Paul Newman Center in Fresno by recommending they vote no on Proposition 8 and telling a local television news program he is a homosexual. He removed his belongings from his office at the Newman Center and from his residence at the rectory before the Mass, the diocese said in a statement. Five days later, Fresno Bishop John Steinbock removed Fr. Farrow as Newman Center pastor, took away his diocesan salary and health benefits, and told him not to return to the Newman Center or any other parish in the diocese.
In an April 14 post to his personal blogsite, Fr. Farrow confirms the Dignity USA invitation, and notes: “Presently, I am active with Love Honor and Cherish. This organization is working hard to place an initiative on the November 2010 California ballot, to repeal Proposition 8. Beyond that, I am speaking at various organizations both about Prop 8 and other such hate legislation. I’ve also been asked by various people to write a book about the treatment of LGBT people in/by the Catholic Church. I’ve written two chapters so far and am currently shopping for a literary agent.”
According to Fr. Farrow, Bishop Steinbock has violated Canon Law by refusing to provide for the priest’s support, but the suspended priest says on his blog the bishop’s decision has a bright side: “As a hospital administrator once told me about not accepting federal funds, ‘If you take their money, you have to take their rules.’ By not providing me with any monetary assistance, he has in fact freed me completely to work as an LGBT activist.”
Fr. Farrow says he received an official commendation from the City of West Hollywood, where he apparently now resides, “for my public statements in support of basic human dignity/civil rights for LGBT people.”
Since his suspension from active ministry, Fr. Farrow says he has adopted the following view of the Church: “As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, if you think of the Catholic Church as the hierarchy then, there is very little reason to remain a Catholic. On the other hand, if you see the Church as the People of God, a living community of faith, then there are many reasons for hope. Catholics in the pews disagree sharply with their bishops on a host of social issues and tend to be far more progressive than their protestant counterparts. Eventually, the bishops will get it, or will die off and be replaced by bishops who do get it.”
 Fr. Farrow will not be alone in his dissident sentiments when he attends the Dignity USA convention in San Francisco, scheduled for July 2-5. Also scheduled to speak is Sr. Jeannine Gramick, who in 1999 was prohibited by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from continuing any “pastoral work” with homosexuals because of her erroneous views on human sexuality.
Other scheduled speakers include Victoria Rue, described by Dignity USA as “a Roman Catholic Lesbian Priest.” Rue claims to have been ordained a deacon in 2004 on the River Danube and later as a priest on the St. Lawrence Seaway in 2005. Jesuit priest Fr. Donal Godfrey, currently executive director of university ministry at the University of San Francisco, will also offer a workshop. Fr. Godfrey is the author of Gays and Grays: the story of the Gay Community at the Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, a celebratory recounting of how the Catholic parish in San Francisco’s Castro District became perhaps the most notorious ‘gay friendly’ parish in the country. According to Fr. Godfrey, it was at Most Holy Redeemer that the rainbow flag, the emblem of the homosexual rights movement, was invented.
Because of its opposition to Church teachings on human sexuality and the all-male priesthood, Dignity USA has been forbidden to use any Catholic Church properties or to advertise its events in any official publication of the Church.
Despite what has been widely reported as a dwindling membership since its founding in San Diego in 1969, Dignity USA has managed to stay well exposed in the media. For example, in October 1986, after the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released its "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons,” and churches in the U.S. began evicting the group from parish premises, Dignity USA conducted a press conference outside the residence of the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States in Washington to protest the letter’s contents.
More recently, on March 18, Dignity USA joined Call to Action and New Ways Ministry – “three groups that support gay rights in the Catholic Church” – to condemn Pope Benedict XVI for remarks he made in Africa about the ineffectiveness of condoms in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS on the continent. Marianne Duddy-Burke, Dignity USA’s executive director, characterized the pope’s remarks as “amazingly insensitive,” adding, “Dignity USA has long called on the Vatican to acknowledge the importance of educating people on the proper use of condoms, and to support making them widely available as a way of saving lives of vulnerable people around the world.”
Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 12:12 AM By Sawyer
Why, Fr. Farrow, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for West Hollywood?
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 3:35 AM By mlizzy
That a way, Satan! Your audience is lapping up your nonsense left and right.
St. Michael the Archangel, pray for US.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 5:07 AM By Fr. M.P.
Fr. Farrow says "there is very little reason to remain a Catholic." Pray for this apostate. He is an example of how disordered lust rejects even God for perverse self-pleasure. He also says "Eventually, the bishops will get it, or will die off and be replaced by bishops who do get it." Actually Fr. Farrow, that describes those like you who reject God and His Truth.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 5:38 AM By St. Christopher
Fr. Farrow, Sr. Gramick,and the other "Catholic" homosexual apologists, are correct and incorrect on what they say. They are correct in noting that the average Catholic is "more progressive" than other Christians but are incorrect in believing that the Church will change. The Church will not change because it cannot do so, without abandoning the nature of its faith. While others may be seduced by the "civil rights" nature of the homosexual language, it is at base only a political demand to be permitted to act, and to be accepted as acting, consistent with its sexual inclinations. There is nothing here that is remotely the same as the race based civil rights movement, which served to address the adverse affects of discrimination on every element of life from where you could be education, who you could marry, where you could live, work, and the like. The homosexual movement says, I want to have sex this way, and the world must accept it. Unfortunately, many clergy in the Catholic Church are homosexuals or are friendly to their movement, so maintaining the Church's position is difficult. It will become more difficult as the world descends into the madness of recognizing homosexual relations as "normal" and worthy of secular support and enforcement. Then the Catholic Church, and its true members, will be persecuted. Add this to the controversy over abortion and the Church could well be in for rough times ahead. And didn't Christ predict that something like this would happen?
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 5:46 AM By anne
The purpose of priestly celibacy.
The priest has as the proper field of his activity everything that pertains to the supernatural life, that he may promote the increase of this supernatural life and communicate it in the Mystical Body of Christ.... And it is precisely because he should be free from preoccupation with worldly things to dedicate himself entirely to the divine service, that the Church has established the law of celibacy, thus making it ever more manifest to all people that the priest is a minister of God and the father of souls. By his law of celibacy the priest, far from losing the gift and duties of fatherhood, rather increases them immeasurably, for, although he does not beget progeny for this passing life on earth, he begets children for that life which is heavenly and eternal.
Father Farrow has, sadly, lost his identity.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 6:05 AM By Hattie
How sad for some Church leaders to teach and believe that "we are all made in the imge and likeness of God!" and then pick and chose who they think is worthy of God's love, acceptance and respect. May God have mercy on us all.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 6:31 AM By Stella
This does not come as a shock to me. I know and have worked for priests who while in the ministry support the gay lifestyle thru thier activities with Dignityand later left or were asked to leave the priesthood and then became very in the organization. Unfortunately, I also know one who ministers through Courage who should leave the ministry also because of his questionable behavior and counseling. To my great sorrow when I informed the bishop about his activities all that happened is that he was moved to another parish. Par for the course! I just pray that this priests activities do no cause problems for the diocese in the future, as they already have once in the past.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 7:02 AM By Chris
The above article appears to be an advertisement for the Dignity USA conference. Where is the objectivity and loyalty to Holy Mother Church?
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 7:14 AM By Central Valley
"Fr. Farrow stunned parishioners at St. Paul Newman Center in Fresno by recommending they vote no on Proposition 8 and telling a local television news program he is a homosexual."
The media may have been stunned by the news and the anouncment but many faithful and some priests were not. Farrow and his predecessor had been watering down the faith for a long time and the Newman center in Fresno. Farrow outed himself, although I find it hard that Steinbock or his inner circle can say they didn't know as there have been many letters and telephone calls to Fresno regarding Farrow and other priests in the diocese.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 8:01 AM By BA
This shouldn't surprise anyone. We need to pray for the souls of those who have "chosen" this lifestyle. May God have mercy upon them!
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 8:03 AM By Canisius
More sodomites trying to "affirm and sanctify" their perverted behaviour. They blame the Church for not handing out condoms, but never quetion whether committing acts "that cry out to Heaven for Vengeance" is the real cause of AIDS. Then again men that go to bath houses for intimate encounters are probably not candidates to listen to common sense.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 9:16 AM By Patrick
I feel sorry for those who define themselves exclusively as gay, seem to have no other life or goals. I wonder what cause they would take up if all the gay goals were achieved. Probably would go back the other way.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 9:35 AM By Virgo Potens
Fr. Farrow needs to be defrocked. For him to continue calling himself a Catholic priest while spouting his heretical views is a grave scandal. Is there a process for the laity to demand that Bishop Steinbock take this step? Or for finding out whether the laicization process has already been started?
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 10:15 AM By Life Lady
I think Father Farrow is the one who doesn't "get it" regarding the Church's views on homosexuals. It is and has always been the view of the Church, that homosexuals are due the same dignity of a person who does not struggle with the burden of same-sex atttraction. The Church views them as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and has and will always pray for their being unburdened by same-sex attraction. In addition, the sin of living with the same-sex and acting out their urges in a sexual manner with people of the same sex is sinful. As with any other unmarried person, we are all called to live chaste lives. That is "it" that Father doesn't get. Therefore, it follows that this man is in error, as are the others who call for that activity to be deemed "normal" when it is not. If you want the scientific or the personal or the psychological or the actual explanation, and can reason it out you will find that same-sex attraction and sexual activity between people who struggle with that burden, are acting in an unnatural way. They deserve better. As for the rest of the people mentioned in this article, we need to continue to suffer under their error, and to pray for them. Sad, so sad, that so much human potential is wasted in sin and degradation, as they represent a lot of hope gone astray. Just very sad.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 10:27 AM By father joseph, sj
I am very saddened that the Bishop made a decision to suspend Father Farrow. I do not agree with him; but, that does not mean he cannot be an affective priest as long as he remains within the vow of celibacy within the canons.
Taking away his salary and health care is un-called for in such a situation. I wish Father Well and I am deeply sorry that he could not continue in the diocese.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 10:30 AM By Thomas Edward Miles
Everyone needs to make a living!
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 10:57 AM By Dave
Hattie, NO ONE here has condemned any individual, told them they're not worthy of God's love, etc. But we do condemn immoral BEHAVIOR. As Catholics we're supposed to praise and encourage morality and condemn immorality. That's what we're supposed to do if we claim to love one another. It's not a loving thing to let someone speed unhindered down the long, easy road to hell. We're supposed to try and turn them from their path and help get them onto the road to heaven.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 11:16 AM By Jeanne
Let's keep it simple: I will not endorse sin; mine or someone else'.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 11:47 AM By Virgo Potens
Father Joseph, SJ: You obviously missed the part where Fr. Farrow abandoned his flock and "quit" the priesthood. Bishop Steinbock suspended him AFTER he did this. Now, if an employee of a corporation stopped showing up for work and went around bad-mouthing the company in public, would you expect the company to keep giving him salary and medical benefits?
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 12:04 PM By Dan
Fr. Joseph, I appreciate your concern for Fr. Farrow. But on reading of him, I wonder how effective he could be as a priest if his heart and soul were far from the Church and his attention turned decisively on gay rights. A man can serve only one master.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 1:19 PM By Marlene
Dignity USA? An oxymoron from a pro-homosexual group? What dignity are they talking about and for whom? Pray for their sinful souls to return to the Lord and follow His Ways and 10 Commandments, to fear God, to put aside their pride and arrogance and make way for the Lord. Sin-filled time on earth is not worth the loss of Heaven for eternity. Hate the sin, but love the sinner, that is what the Catholic Church teaches us. Hate the sin, but love the sinner.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 1:28 PM By Maryanne Linkes
We must pray for those who follow the devil and leave the grace of Christ and His Bride, Holy Mother Church. And we must pray for those vulnerable people they lead astray. Our prayers may be the only thing that keep them from eternal damnation.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 2:14 PM By BettyI
Right you are, Dan. A man can serve only one master. I have read that condom use actually increases the risk of getting AIDS. I think the argument was that homosexuals who use condoms believe that they are not at all at risk for AIDS and so they go on and on with more and more sex partners and often die shortly after buying all those condoms.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 5:33 PM By Joe
Sodomy is a particularly offensive sin against life and against "dignity" because it defiles the image of God that is the person and turns the sexual faculty inside out so that it is perfectly lifeless. Pray for this man for he is exchanging an eternity of Glory for an illusory good that is in fact nothing.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 9:05 PM By Wilma Lombardo
The chaste homosexual is the gold of the Church
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 9:47 PM By prayerwarrior4Jesus
Sin is sin, no matter how you package it! Not only is Dignity USA a totally misnamed group, it gives the members and their followers a false sense of truth, so they continue in the lie and satan tightens his grip on them. As someone else suggested, this man needs to be defrocked. He is leading many to hell, which is the exact opposite of what he was called to do. He has given up the precious gift of the priesthood and the Most Awesome Gift of being able to consecrate, for what? For a fleeting life of sodomy, sin and pain. Mother Mary, pray and intercede for this man and all those who are so deceived and blinded by the devil. Pray without ceasing for all our priests and religious.!
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 10:44 PM By Leo from Seattle
Eventually, the Church will recognize and celebrate the gifts of ALL baptized Catholics and honor the relationships and families of her Gay & Lesbian chiildren. I have no doubt it will happen. But, in the meantime, many progressive Catholics cannot wait. Everywhere one looks, there are authentic Catholic faith communities ministered by Gay, Lesbian and married priests, who conduct weddings for their same-sex-headed families. It is to these communities that my monies and energies go, not to churches controlled by an 18th Century, misogynist, homophobic, sexaphobic, pedophilic hierarchy. Oh . . . and I won't give the hierarchy and their reactionary supporters the power to decide who is Catholic and who is not. I remain defiantly and HONESTLY Catholic.
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Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 11:45 PM By PMG
Timothy Chap. 3 says that in the last days men will be lovers of self, more then loves of God. We are living in those days and the evil one is robbing, killing and destroying the souls of many in the clergy and religious life, and using them to be wolf in sheep's clothing leading others astray. Words like tolerance, and compassion, but this kind of tolerance and compassion is a pathway to hell. Real compassion is to teach God's truth, not the world's which is under the control of the evil one. God is the same yesterday, today and forever, God cannot and will not change and the church cannot go along with every whim of the hour, thus denying God's word. God loves all, but God does not love our sins, and Jesus had to die for those sins, so that we would not have to pay the price. What do we do with His sacrifice when we say my way, not your way God, we make a mockery of his suffering and death for us. That is what these people are saying, and so many others today, my way, not your way God, I will not serve. However, with out realizing they are serving someone by their rebellion and disobedience, satan the hater of their souls. I wonder if anyone realizes how thrilled he must be when he sees people go so far astray, feeling he has taken another soul from God. We have a free will and we all can choose to serve the flesh and the world which means serving satan or we can choose to serve God and that is true for any of us no matter what the sin we are hanging onto and trying to justify. God have mercy on us all and deliver us from our evil ways, and make us more like you and your son Jesus.
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Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 12:24 AM By Jay S.
Ironically, the priest who started Dignity wasn't even homosexual himself. He did leave the priesthood shortly after (secular sources use the misleading term "retired") and married a woman. He's an artist in the Fallbrook area.
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Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 5:51 AM By St. Christopher
Fr. Joseph, what kind of advice are you giving? We should all pray for Fr. Farrow, but he cannot be a priest. His homosexual identity makes it impossible for him to function in any way as a man consecrated to God, and dedicated to salvation. You can see by his statements what Mr. Farrow believes. His heart is focused on the homosexual life style. Your attitude enables homosexuals to consider entering, or staying with, the priesthood, with catastrophic results for the Church and its faithful. Clergy must stop apologizing for homosexual behavior, for female ordination, and for married priests. Fr. Farrow has no business in the Roman Catholic Clergy, although we should pray for him (in that the lifestyle he is living is sinful).
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Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 5:52 AM By Aaron
Fr. Farrow is exactly right: ..." if you think of the Catholic Church as the hierarchy then, there is very little reason to remain a Catholic. On the other hand, if you see the Church as the People of God, a living community of faith, then there are many reasons for hope..." I personally believe there is reason for hope as individual Catholics more fully understand the hand of God in their lives. The hierarchy of the church cannot change because they refuse to accept reality or admit errors. Thank God for people like Fr. Farrow who is willing to make a stand for what is right. When the church defrocks him for speaking the truth, it makes his message all the stronger.
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Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 5:53 AM By MarkF
Among the many things that are offensive about what Fr. Farrow believes, one that has gone unnoticed is that he denies the existence of people like us, i.e., people who believe in and support what the Church teaches. He talks about this as a struggle between "the people" and the Church's hierarchy as if no one else but the hierarchy believes that homosexual acts are a sin. It's very common for radicals to think that all people think what they think. Once they assume that no real person supports genuine Catholic teaching they often make the claim that to go against their agenda is somehow to be against the people, as if morality is decided by a democratic vote. Radicals also will insult those of us who are faithful with all sorts of insulting terms. In my own experience, I've noticed that all who oppose the homosexual agenda are called either bigoted or a hater. In their view those are the only two possibilities. Our side often will characterize people like Fr. Farrow in one of two ways as well, but with some difference. One is that we often assume that is his own personal temptations towards homosexual acts that has overpowered his fidelity to God and his Church. While no one can know another man's heart, this at least is a fairly reasonable assumption, and it is quite in line with St. Paul who in several passages says that all sin is a form of idolatry and in in Romans 1 says in particular that homosexual sin is a form of idolatry. I've often asked the people on here to observe that same thing - that as you can see with Fr. Farrow and with other frequent dissenters on here that homosexuality is in fact their real god. The other motive that the faithful often ascribe to dissenters is just that they are poorly catechized. And that's also not nearly as insulting to them as what we get in return from them, and also a lot more true.
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Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 6:36 AM By Richard Perozich
Our catechism 2333 tell us that we need to accept our given sexual identity as male or female, complimentary and for the union of man and woman, and work toward chastity. Sister Gramick and Fr. Farrow do not do so in themselves, and teach others to follow them instead of God. They are in great need of repentance. To stay in the church and present themselves as Catholic undermines the faith. Their gods are not Jesus Christ, but the gods of lust against whom almost every one struggles, but whom most of us will not bow down, worship and adore. Jesus came to free us FROM homosexual lust, not for it.
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Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 8:59 AM By TotaTua
Why OH why would someone who doesn't accept the rules set up by the game want to continue to play. No one rails against soccer because of offside rule (OK they rail), dems the rules we play by.
Don't want to play by the rules of the Magisterium then GO SOMEWHERE else, and be quiet about it.
I am so sick and tired of being castigated for being a member of a Church that has moral absolute rules and calls its members to obedience to the Magisterium.
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Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 11:07 AM By Dave
Sorry, Leo, but the Church will NEVER accept or condone homosexual relationships. Stop deluding yourself and either conform yourself to Christ instead of the other way around, or quit calling yourself Catholic. Don't stay in Holy Mother Church while conspiring to destroy her from within. You will NEVER be successful in doing so.
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Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 12:45 PM By Richard
It makes you wonder how many priests who serve the faithful on the daily basis would go ahead and do the same thing were they suspended.
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Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 1:52 PM By Anne T.
Jeanne, your proverb about not endorseing sin -- yours or other peoples is exactly right. I am going to write it down and give you credit, of course.
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Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 3:03 PM By Fr. J
He didn't even hold out for 30 pieces of silver. This poor priest has traded his Catholic faith for the vacuous applause of dissenters.
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Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 3:45 PM By Mark from PA
God bless Sister Jeannine Gramick. This sister has done much good. She has ministered to people who are hated and disdained by many. She has offered respect and compassion to those who face prejudice, discrimination and condemnation from others. Jesus said, "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do to me." I think Jesus would be proud of Sister Jeannine for following him. I don't think she needs to repent much. Those who are cruel to those they dislike are the ones in greater need of repentance. Editor's Note: In a May 31, 1999 notification, the Holy See’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith notified Gramick that she was “permanently prohibited from any pastoral work involving homosexual persons.” Investigation into Gramick's presentation of Catholic teaching on homosexuality began in 1984. In 1994, a commission under Detroit Cardinal Adam Maida found, said the notification, “serious deficiencies” in Gramick's “writings and pastoral activities, which were incompatible with the fullness of Christian morality.”
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Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 4:39 PM By Nina
So we as Catholics do not judge or condem the person, just the sin. And the sin is that the sexual act is "defilied" by being used for purposes other than procreation. So what about those straight Catholic couples that practice other sexual acts that have nothing to do with procreation? And what if this priest, despite being gay, was celibate? I dont know. I feel that we are on a witch hunt here. What if God actually made us (straight/gay) different, maybe for no other purpose than population control? I feel very saddened by my church. History does indeed repeat itself. Inquisition number two.
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Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 7:57 PM By Mark
I have news for people. I was in a large theological seminary in the East with students from 11 different religious orders. Easily half were homosexual. Some sexually active, some not. From my work with my local Diocese, I find about the same percentage among our priests. The vast majority hide their identity because of the railing judgments we see samples of here. What is it about the Catholic priesthood that attracts, and has attracted for a long time, such a disproportionate number of gay men? Fr. Farrow is different only to the extent he is honest and had the courage to say who he is. Don't be so harsh to judge. That priest who married you, baptized your children, and inspired you when you were down could well be gay too. He's just too scared to say it. Such dishonesty corrupts the integrity of the priesthood and does great psychic harm to our priests. Just try living a lie for years to please others and see what it does for your mental health. Let the one without sin cast the first stone.
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Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 8:14 PM By Kevin
No one likes organized religion any more. They want the alternative. Yet if he is due his salary pay him until this is sorted out officially.
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Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 9:53 PM By JLS
Nina, you're using incomplete information to construe your reasoning. When I was in the Baptist church before becoming Catholic, they taught us that all sins equal in seriousness. This, of course, is bunk. Homosexual sin is one of four that the Church teaches cries out to Heaven for vengeance. If you read Holy Scripture you find out that the sins God punishes most are idolatry and homosexuality.
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Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 9:54 PM By Central Valley
Pray God Fr. Richard Perozich is named the next bishop of the Diocese of Fresno. Oh, how we need a sheperd like him in Fresno.
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Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 10:15 PM By gravey
Shame on those who support Dignity USA, Call to Action or New Ways Ministry. Gramick is beyond hope and apparently Farrow is not far behind. The man is a fraud and entered the priesthood under a lie. The Church is clear: homosexuals are not to be ordained. This story and the dissenting comments reveal the problem within the Church: the lack of obedience.
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Posted Wednesday, April 22, 2009 2:42 AM By MarkF
Mark from PA, you forget the complete words of Jesus to the woman taken in adultery, "neither do I condemn you... go and sin no more." And Nina, there is a difference between Catholics who use birth control in private and Fr. Farrow who openly preaches dissent. One is done in secret where not much can be done about it. The other is done in public to mislead people. As for the real modern inquisitors, look no further than to the radical homosexuals and abortionists who have put that Protestant minister in Oakland in jail, who attacked an older woman carrying a cross, who use taxpayer money to kill the unborn, who use government commissions in Canada to restrict the right to preach from the bible, who booed Cardinal Arinze at Georgetown for daring to say that homosexual acts mocked the family, who jeered Sen. Santorum for saying the same things, who walked out when Bishop Soto said that homosexual acts were a sin, and most recently to this wretched, waspish man using a lost woman's name "Perez Hilton" who called Miss California the "b-word" for bravely speaking the truth. That is the real face of homosexuality. I've received much more verbal attacks and even physical threats from homosexuals for leaving the practice than I ever did from straight people for accepting it. I try to remember the word of Blessed John Paul II, "be not afraid," and to have faith that we are on the side of truth. The radical dissenters will attack us more, so be ready for that. But all of us - myself included - are surrounded by people who are hungry for the word of God. Have faith in God and in his Church. The attacks will be shrill. The victories will be quiet ones.
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Posted Wednesday, April 22, 2009 9:55 AM By Fr. J
Nina, the Church condemns those other sexual acts. Just because one person sins doesn't mean it's okay for everyone to sin. There is no witch hunt. We simply expect Catholic priests to profess the Catholic faith. If you want to know why God made us then take a look at the catechism. You don't need to guess or speculate. There is no inquisition here. Except the dissenters who want to rid the Church of the orthodox Catholics.
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Posted Wednesday, April 22, 2009 9:57 AM By Almond Milk
Fr. M.P. your post definitely spoke what were on my thoughts. This can happen to anyone, their faith can be lost if one allows their flesh to fall deep into darker sides of the secular world. Soon they will see the consequences of their choosing to sin, and for every person they help turn away from God with their talks, they will have to answer to God even more so, for leading others astray.
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Posted Wednesday, April 22, 2009 11:21 AM By Shanna
I am very surprised you haven't mentioned the young lady from California, entered in the Miss USA Pageant who was asked about same sex marriage. She was BOOED, and lost the title, some say because she said that because of the way she was raised, she believed that marriage was between a man and a woman. I don't agree with her, but I certainly respect her for her honesty. The editor replies: We will have a story on this subject in tomorrow's edition.
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Posted Wednesday, April 22, 2009 1:28 PM By Mary
As it's not dogmatic Catholic teaching that people can't support civil legislation for same sex couples (note I said same sex couples, not homosexual acts, which is different), where is the "dissent" in what Fr. Farrow says in this article? Of course there are people who'll say it's dogmatic teaching just like there are people who'll say that about voting for Obama, but that's prudential judgment, not dogmatic teaching.
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Posted Wednesday, April 22, 2009 4:06 PM By JLS
Mary, you are absolutely wrong. Church teaches dogmatically and infallibly that homosexual activity is grossly sinful ... This includes imitation marriages such as civil unions. This sort of thing has been tabued in the strongest of terms, and is documented in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. St Paul also notes that effeminacy is a sin. One of the first Commandments God gave to mankind is to propagate. When a couple of same sex people form a psuedo espousing of one another, this act flies in the face of God. God has called all people to holiness, which includes living up to the image and likeness of God, in which each one of us is created. Associations based on same sex attraction attack the intent of God.
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Posted Wednesday, April 22, 2009 5:18 PM By Mary
JLS, if you would read my post, you'd see I expressly excluded homosexual activity. Not all things called "marriage" or "civil union" involve sexual acts. California civil marriage law and civil union law (also known as domestic partnership law) do not require any sexual act or effeminacy or homosexual attraction. Just two adults willing to care for one another. Jesus said to not judge by appearances, but that's exactly what people do with words like "marriage", "union", "couple", etc. Do you think Catholic dogma says everyone named "Mary" must be Jesus's mother and everyone named "Jesus" must have been born in Bethlehem and everyone called a "priest" must be Catholic? Same with "marriage". It can mean one thing in one context and something different in another. Genuine Catholic dogma doesn't preclude it. As to your alleged commandment to propagate, Jesus said not everyone is called to propagate, that some were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced it for the kingdom of heaven.
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Posted Wednesday, April 22, 2009 6:38 PM By Mark from PA
Oh, so effeminacy is a sin too? How many years in purgatory do we get for that? Perhaps these poor guys get time off for being made fun of, harrassed, bullied, etc.
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Posted Wednesday, April 22, 2009 9:25 PM By Anne T.
Mary, when society allows two people to marry it is the same as giving their approval to them to perform the sex act. It is assumed by society that people who marry will probably perform the sexual act. Whether they do or not, marriage is society's approval of such. You know that, I know that, and everyone in their right mind knows that. It is common sense. Your post makes no sense at all.
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Posted Wednesday, April 22, 2009 10:28 PM By Lot
How terrible for former priests and nuns to mislead people struggling with vice by giving them public encouragement to continue on in sin against nature. Hell exists, it is eternal and in today's world many people are going there. Do not lose your soul for all eternity. Two men cohabitating is not "marriage", it is unnatural, it creates nothing, and is responsible for the spread of a disease that has killed millions. Marriage is rooted in human nature itself and the complementarity of the genders; one man and one woman procreating children and raising a family- the future of society.
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Posted Thursday, April 23, 2009 4:26 AM By MarkF
I Cor 6:9-10, "Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, Nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God."
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Posted Thursday, April 23, 2009 7:10 AM By Paul
I am a bit dismayed at how vehemently people get obsessed by the "sexual" sins. First of all no where in the gospels does Jesus mention "homosexuality" In fact, he does mention that drunks and tax collectors will get to heaven before the rest of us.
I'm also wondering how a man can be praised by the church for participating in warfare. Jesus told us to LOVE our enemies. He told us to do good to those who persecute us! In fact a young Catholic can go to war and kill someone who is a perceived threat. We not only allow it - but we will even send chaplains along to minister to them. Whatever happeneded to the fifth commandment - Thou Shalt Not Kill? Since Augustine we have made so many exceptions to this commandment of God - that it's violation hardly ever produces a reaction among anyone in the Church. But the Sixth commandment - everyone reacts! A man falls in love with another man and we are enraged. However, if he makes his living by killing other men - we applaud him.
Something has gone wrong!
By the way - I do not believe homosexual acts are moral - or any sexual acts outside of marriage, for that matter. But I am amazed at how people react in such harsh and condemnatory ways! It seems our sense of morality- based on the life of Jesus - is miscontrued. How about his constant invitation to love the poor and the broken? Why do we not judge others based on that lifestyle? How about naming the sin of non-forgiveness? How about the sin of condemnation instead of mercy?
I think this just hits too shamefully so close to home for some. May God hold ALL of us in His mercy - yes, there is even room in the Church for those who extend limitless mercy!
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Posted Thursday, April 23, 2009 9:14 AM By Almond Milk
The last time I heard was that mortal sins do not get you to purgatory, they only send you straight to hell.
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Posted Thursday, April 23, 2009 12:56 PM By Mary
Anne T, you'd do as well to say "it is assumed by society that people who hold hands will probably perform the sexual act." Virtually everything, no matter how innocent, has "society" assuming sex is probably going on. Now here's what society does NOT assume: Society does NOT assume that sexual acts will increase if people are allowed to marry. A marriage license is NOT a license to have sex. No license is needed for that. It's NOT because of how special you believe civil marriage to be that has society assuming couples left and right are having sex. Your notion that civil marriage is society's "approval" of sex is contrary to reality. The reality is society approves of sex without marriage. Civil marriage is society's approval of people sticking with the same partner.
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Posted Thursday, April 23, 2009 2:18 PM By Anne T.
Paul, Christ did not specifically mention homosexual acts because it was not a problem among the faithful Jews of his time and area. It was a problem among the pagans around them. Othodox Jews and most Conservative ones will tell you that. Don Feder, a Conservative Jewish author, has written many articles about the taboo against homosexual acts in the Jewish community -- both then and now. The prohibition against homosexual acts was and is part of the Ten Commandments. It was included in the Books of Moses under the Commandment against adultery -- as was incest and beastiality. It was unthinkable in Christ's day, and also now, for a faithful Jew to practice such a thing. When the Lord Jesus Christ told his disciples and the Rich Young Man to "Keep the Commandments" they knew exactly what he meant, and the prohibition against sodomy was one of them. St. Paul and St. Jude and other New Testament writers do mention it, though.
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Posted Thursday, April 23, 2009 3:36 PM By Fr. M.P.
Paul, when you reject God's Commandments, then you reject His Mercy. One must REPENT to obtain Mercy, and that means turning away from sin. No one with unconfessed mortal sin on their soul gets to Heaven. It only takes one mortal sin, and the soul chooses hell at their particular judgment day. God never sends anyone to hell. Rather the mortally sinful soul runs their by choice. Psalm 68[67]:2 "let them that hate him flee from before his face."
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Posted Thursday, April 23, 2009 7:53 PM By MarkF
Paul, the poor are not just people without enough to eat. In this country the poor are the people trapped in an empty materialistic, hedonistic society. Our problems in America are caused by spiritual hunger, and homosexuality is a part of that whole process. Homosexuality is not about two men loving each other. I wish I could show you all I've seen and all I've heard in my thirty years in that world. That we have so much homosexuality is a symptom of our problems, and it is a cause of increasing our problems.
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Posted Thursday, April 23, 2009 8:13 PM By Mary
Mark from PA, the Greek word "malakos" in 1 Cor 6:9-10 translated by some as "effeminate" has a meaning which surprises many people. Morally speaking, it refers to people who are spineless, lacking perseverance, morally soft/weak, etc. It fits with the notion that women are subordinate to men, such that they give in (like a finger on a soft peach) to the man's demands, but doesn't otherwise necessarily have a sexual meaning to it. It's also the same word translated as "fine" (or luxurious) in Matthew 11:8 ("Then what did you go out to see? Someone dressed in fine clothing? Those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces.") and in Luke 7:25, which relates to Luke 7:24 where Jesus speaks of "a reed swayed by the wind." In ancient Greece, Plato wrote "too much music effeminizes the male... making him into a feeble warrior." And Aristotle wrote, "the deliberate avoidance of pain... that most men withstand with success is soft (malakos) or luxurious, for luxury is a kind of softness (malakia); such a man lets his cloak trail on the ground to escape the fatigue and trouble of lifting it, or feigns sickness." Likewise with people "addicted" to amusement, "for amusement is rest, and therefore a slackening of effort." Other Greek writers spoke of cowardice, and of those societies who willingly lived under tyranny (rather than overcome it), as effeminate.
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Posted Friday, April 24, 2009 4:51 AM By Mark from PA
Yes, in those times women were considered subordinate to men and were to be submissive to them. So men that treated women as equals were considered suspect. "Feminine" qualities were looked down on. Christ and St. Paul had different attitudes towards women. Christ treated women as equal in dignity to men which was something amazing for that time.
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Posted Friday, April 24, 2009 6:01 AM By JLS
Paul, when you launch the tired and worn out "nowhere in the Bible does Jesus mention homosexuality", you appear to be making an appeal to the "fundamentalist" who strains to believe the exact literal meaning ... the problem is that such "literal meanings" are nothing more than spins. The Church on the other hand is an institution created by Christ, one purpose and authority of which is interpreting the words we find in Scripture ... AND refreshing us with the good news carried down century by century by our popes, bishops and saints. If you truly desire to know God's Word, then pray to Him while you read what His Magisterium says about the topics you seek to understand. There will be no new and revolutionary takes, btw ... just the same old glorious truth, which is always new as well.
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Posted Friday, April 24, 2009 12:28 PM By Anne T.
No, Mary, neither I or most people would assume that everyone who holds hands, or even kisses, will perform the sex act. Marriage is and always has been societal approval of the marriage act. We expect most people to consummate their marriage.
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Posted Friday, April 24, 2009 4:10 PM By Mark from PA
Mark F, you say "that we have so much homosexuality is a symptom of our problems." You surely know well that a certain percentage of people are homosexual. Some 5% of men are gay (some say higher) and 2% of women are lesbian. We are not going to change biological facts. Many people are not happy that gay people exist but there really isn't much that people can do about it. These people just can't be wished away and since we are a nation of laws they can't be gotten rid of. Christ calls us to love one another as we are all brothers and sisters; black, white, gay, straight, everyone.
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Posted Friday, April 24, 2009 4:17 PM By JLS
PA, Jesus teaches us that the Father does not hand us a serpent but a fish. Human nature is always the same; they were not monkeys then and we are not now: There is a God created relationship between man and wife, which is what God wants. Why do you rant against it?
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Posted Saturday, April 25, 2009 12:04 PM By Mary
Anne T, intelligent people do not assume that "everyone" who gets a civil marriage will have sex, because in fact, "everyone" who gets a civil marriage does not have sex. Do you assume Mary and Joseph were having sex? You might instead argue that "most" people assume that "most" couples who get a civil marriage will have sex, but then you might just as well also assume that most will also get divorced, commit adultery, etc. Today, civil marriage is not society’s approval of sex. Today, society approves of people having sex with whomever with nothing more than simple consent. Today, civil marriage is society’s option for people who want to settle down. In society today, it's settling down, not sex, that is the "marriage act". Whooping it up is optional, and for "most" people that begins well outside civil marriage.
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Posted Saturday, April 25, 2009 5:36 PM By MarkF
Homosexuality is not biological. It is a learned behavior that is caused by problems relating to gender in the early years (birth to about four or five years old). I spent my last thirty years around gay men and there was a not single one who did not fit into this pattern. In fact, I still talk to many homosexuals and they will admit to me one-on-one that they fit into this pattern. What is natural is for men to be men and for women to be women. Some young boys are deeply wounded and grow up to become homosexuals. This is what happened to me and to every other homosexual out there. This is not the fault of the kids, yet it is the result of sin in the world. Where the family is strong (no divorce, strong mothers and fathers) we don't see a lot of homosexuality. Now that the family in America is collapsing we see a lot of homosexuality. There is not a shred of evidence that we had this many homosexuals in the past, so this notion of homosexuality is founded on a myth. And I cannot let it go when someone says that Jesus and St. Paul differed in what they said. The bible does not contradict itself and St. Paul said nothing that contradicts what Jesus said. This statement was said in an effort to make the bible a pro-homosexual document when it is not.
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Posted Saturday, April 25, 2009 6:45 PM By MarkF
Continued: There is no evidence to support figure that 5% (or even 2%) of all people are homosexuals. These figures come not from science but from secular, anti-Catholic people who are pushing an agenda. We cannot know how many people in say, 1500 were homosexual because there is no data. We have no data for the year 1900, or the year 1000. We have no data on the prevalence of homosexuality in rural Asia, or rural Africa even for our own day. How is it that the radical secularists push the 5% or 10% number when we have only evidence for our own times? But we do know from the inspired word of God that homosexual acts are a grave sin and we can see around us that the increase in homosexuality only comes when the family is distressed.
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Posted Saturday, April 25, 2009 10:42 PM By Lot
Mark from Pa- - Of course we must love and respect everyone, but also speak the truth. As Christians we love the sinner (we ourselves are such) but HATE THE SIN. It doesn't help people to rubber stamp their sin. And, as has been repeatedly stated by civil rights leaders, don't equate the struggle of black americans with homosexuality.
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Posted Sunday, April 26, 2009 11:58 AM By Jim Stevens
MarkF, it is not the Church's position that homosexuality is not biological, nor is it the position of science. Even though science says even "learned behavior" is biological, science does not say that homosexuality is nothing but learned behavior, nor does the Church say that.
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Posted Sunday, April 26, 2009 2:00 PM By Mark from PA
Sadly Lot, most people that hate that sin don't particularly care for the people either. Lets be honest here.
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Posted Sunday, April 26, 2009 3:05 PM By JLS
Mary, marriage without the consumating sex act is no marriage in any sense of the meaning. And same sex people claiming to be married to each other, whether civil or religious, is absolutely deceptive. There is no such thing as same sex marriage ... only the absurd fantasy. Neither is it a money or care issue, as you claim; if it were, then there would be no need whatsoever to push for govt recognized same sex marriage, none at all ... the state could way more easily legislate money for that situation, and call it what it is, whatever that would be. Your idea that laws should be made to suit most people is nonsense ... sometimes most people are so wrong that all hell breaks loose. Hitler was what most people wanted, and what they got surprised them. The devil is what Eve wanted, and what she got, which surprised her.
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Posted Sunday, April 26, 2009 4:50 PM By Mary
MarkF, you're contradicting yourself. First you began by claiming there's "not a shred of evidence" on how many homosexual persons there were in 1900, but then you claimed it's increasing. How can you say it's increasing when there is no reliable baseline to compare it with? Even today, there's no reliable number on how many homosexually-inclined persons there are. The figures are all over the place. What's clearly changing since 1900 is public attitudes toward it, such that people feel less inclined to hide in the closet about it. In other words, publicity and honesty about one's sexual inclinations have increased. But there is no valid evidence that homosexuality itself is increasing, or decreasing. Claims that divorce, childhood "wounds" and "distressed families" are somehow significant causes of homosexuality have not been substantiated with quality empirical scientific studies. There is in fact no more evidence for such causes than there's evidence that there's a pollutant chemical in milk or in vaccines, or radiation from TVs, etc. which causes it.
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Posted Sunday, April 26, 2009 4:56 PM By JLS
The development of the brain is affected by nurturing and abuse ... ie, the brain's "hardwiring" is determined in large part by the environment, the interactions of the people in the developmental period of the baby and child. A genetically normal baby can be messed up by abuse, and this abuse can hard wire the brain into the disorder of same sex attraction. Jesus calls us to become holy ... He also has demonstrated that He wants us restored to health, which means restored from any disorder. We are not called to rest in our mess, but to clean up our act ... a life long event, which few ever achieve. Moving forward means turning away from sin and correcting the effects of sin.
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Posted Sunday, April 26, 2009 7:19 PM By Mark from PA
JLS, where did I ever rant against marriage? My parents have been married over 60 years and most of my aunts and uncles had (& have) long marriages. When I was a young person I didn't even know of many people who were divorced. I think the problem of single mothers is a serious one because fathers are important to children. The Church's ideal of "perfect marriage" is a beautiful thing. It is sad that few can attain the perfection of a chaste marriage. You said that without the consumating sex act there is no marriage. There are marriages of elderly people where the people may not be physically able to "be fruitful and multiply." The woman and man may no longer be fertile but the Church will still perform these marriages will they not? (Take for example a couple in their 60's where a woman has had a hysterectomy and a man has had his prostate removed and the people are just getting married for companionship.)
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Posted Sunday, April 26, 2009 8:55 PM By MarkF
JIm, you're right. The Church does not have a position on the cause of homosexuality. But you're also wrong to say that just because many ideologically driven scientists are pushing the idea that the origins of homosexuality are biological does not mean that they are right. The biological argument cannot explain how homosexuality appeared in ancient Greece and then spread along with Hellenistic culture throughout the Mediterranean, and then declined along with the decline of that culture. The biological theory cannot predict why the rate of lesbianism is half that of male homosexuality. And you ignore the point I made, which also cannot be refuted, that we cannot say that a given percentage of the people are homosexual throughout time. At best, we can only say that we don't know. But the fact that the homosexual activists make the claim that homosexuality is a constant and steady presence in all societies in all times (in the face of no evidence that it has been) shows that their bias overrules the evidence. There are other scientists who know that the origin of homosexuality occurs in early childhood. This is also what I've seen in myself and in all the other homosexuals I've known closely. One-on-one, away from the glare of attention, most homosexual tell me that their father was either absent, aloof, distant or abusive, and that their mother was domineering or clinging. Many others were also sexually abused by adults of the same sex as kids. People don't want to talk about all this, and the prevailing secular culture is unwilling to admit that homosexuality is a symptom of it's own lack of health. Where family life is strong, we don't find much homosexuality.
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Posted Sunday, April 26, 2009 8:58 PM By MarkF
Mark from PA, it is not the inclination that incurs the wrath of people on here, it is the behavior, the behavior of supporting a dangerous and spiritually unhealthy lifestyle. If the inclination alone provoked anger, then the solid faithful people on here would hate me too. I've experienced much, much more abuse and even threats for leaving homosexuality then I ever did for promoting it.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 3:57 AM By Jim Stevens
MarkF, perhaps you misread my post as I did not say what you claimed I said. Perhaps you also do not have a full appreciation of "biological", as biology is the (natural) study of living organisms, and in that sense every (natural) theory about homosexuality as it pertains to living human organisms is necessarily “biological” by definition. Perhaps you've confused biology with simple genetics to the exclusion of the environment. If so, that would be another misunderstanding. Biology includes, but is not limited to, genetics as well as the organism's interactions with its environment, including social interactions. As such, a proper and complete biological theory would in fact cover everything you've mentioned. Science is of course nowhere close to having all the answers. So let me just touch on a few other misconceptions. Biologists do indeed have a number of theories about why the rate of lesbianism is seemingly less than the rate of male homosexuality. And as to claims of constancy over time and culture, history does suggest that homosexuality has constantly been present across a wide variety of cultures throughout time, but “constantly present” should not confused with necessarily meaning a constantly fixed percentage. As to “spreading” and “decline”, there is no proof that the percentage of persons who were “homosexually oriented” increased, spread or declined. Rather, what you refer to is a cultural practice of say pederasty. Here I’m not so much differentiating homosexuality from pederasty (although there are significant differences) but differentiating so-called sexual orientation from sexual practices of a culture.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 3:59 AM By Jim Stevens
MarkF, to continue, as to “scientists who know that the origin of homosexuality occurs in early childhood,” that is somewhat of a misstatement of their position. A qualified position is that the “development” (rather than “origin”) extends from the prenatal period into adulthood, and that it’s not apart from biology. You also spoke of what some people have said to you “one-on-one, away from the glare of attention,” but without exception, what anyone says is always a product of what the person has been led to say, whether interpersonally, socially, culturally, biologically, etc. In particular, what people tend to recall or claim about their earliest years (“birth to about four or five years old”) has little evidentiary value. Looking back, the average age of earliest memory in Western cultures is age 3 to 3½ years, and memories are few before age seven. Moreover, recollections are always tinted in light of the person’s present thinking, and thus recollections of “absent, aloof, distant or abusive father, and domineering or clinging mother” are not objective without independent corroboration. Perhaps it’s your experience that “most” homosexual persons you know have such a history, but I and other researchers have not found likewise.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 4:21 AM By Jim Stevens
MarkF, finally, the “theory” that early childhood experiences cause homosexuality / homosexual orientation is not proven any more than the reverse “theory” would be proven that such early childhood experiences are in fact caused by the child’s developing homosexual condition which existed in some way or potential from the beginning (before birth). To quote “ex-gay” therapist Dr. Satinover, M.D., “From a very early age, potentially heritable [i.e. inborn] characteristics mark the boy as ‘different’.” In other words, the child’s DNA along with hormones in the womb and other prenatal biological factors marked the child as “different” (common codeword for homosexual). Dr. Satinover says this makes the child more “sensitive” and because “his father [subconsciously] really disliked and rejected his son's sensitivity,” the relationship soured between father and son. Thus it’s not so much that the child’s sexuality was disordered by a bad parental relationship as it was instead that the parental relationship was causally effected by the child being “different” (homosexual) from the beginning. Of course, we don't always think of a very young child as sexual, and I don't mean to imply the young child is sexual from the beginning in the conventional sense that adults typically imagine, but it's nevertheless Church teaching that "sexuality affects all aspects of the human person" (CCC#2232), and Church teaching does not limit that to only the adult person. Notably, "all aspects" does not exclude relationships with parents and peers, or how "different" or "sensitive" a child might be.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 4:45 AM By Mark from PA
Mark F, I am intelligent enough to realize that a lot of people hate the inclination too. A lot of people just don't like gay people and I suppose I have to accept that.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 6:12 AM By RR
Mark from PA: You say, "because fathers are important to children," but yet from prior posts on other topics you support lesbian couples adopting children. It's contradicting.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 6:44 AM By Grisha
Mark F: You write: "Where family life is strong, we don't find much homosexuality." My aunt and Uncle raised 7 children in a traditional Catholic family where Sunday mass was never missed, frequent sacraments, Catholic schools,
lots of love and support. I know because I spent several summers with them. As everyone got older, some distinguished themselves in Vietnam and in the fire service and all honored and respected their mom and dad until the end of their days. Three of the 7 turned out to be gay. My sister and I, on the other hand were raised by our single mother and dad was, during our formative years absent, aloof, distant and sometimes psychologically abusive. We both turned out straight. While I don't believe we know what causes some of us to be homosexual, our own family's experience has been that lack of a strong, loving family life isn't it.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 7:58 AM By MarkF
Mary, I'll grant you the point that since we have no reliable numbers from previous times, we cannot be totally sure that the amount of homosexuality is increasing today. But what cannot be denied is that it is a more prevalent thing that it was up till the last thirty years. But the cause of this was not that society became more accepting of it. Rather it is the other way around, that society became more accepting of it because the gay groups pushed for it. I should know about this. I was part of that whole process myself. The other thing that I know first hand is what gay people really are like, and thirty years of experience has shown me that what people have known all along is right, that when a little boy does not connect with his father, or is sexually abused, he is very likely to turn out to have a homosexual inclination. The genetic model does not fit with reality, as it cannot predict that there is half the rate of lesbianism compared to male homosexuality. But the developmental model can predict that. There is less lesbianism because that mother daughter bond is harder to break then the bond between a son and his father. That bond has to grow and develop and can be easily disrupted or thwarted, while the bond between a child and his mother is almost always present right from the start. The genetic model also doesn't explain the fact of so much mental health problems in homosexuals. Google the words "mental health problems" and homosexuality and you'll find a pro-gay British study that shows that the most open and accepting young gay men still have more mental health problems than other people. No matter how accepted homosexuality is, you'll still find that the actual practice of it is downright pathological and the lives of people caught up in it are very troubled. Just take a look around at people like that Perez Hilton guy, or Boy George, George Michael, Michael Jackson, Lindsay Lohan, Rosie O'Donnell.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 9:43 AM By Almond Milk
Homosexual disorder is that, a disorder and definitely not a healthy one. When one lives out those fleshly lustful desires then the person falls deeper into sexual mortal sins. There are many sexual unhealthy sins and homosexuality is definitely one of many different types. Yes MarkF I have met homosexuals who embraced homosexuality because they were once molested by an adult. The hurt and pain is deep and many find it easy to embrace that lifestyle because they don't have a deeper relationship with Christ to help them heal that pain. Some block that memory off for good. They're looking for love in the wrong places, what they call love, really isn't. Our country is in trouble now more than ever because we are condoning adoption just to anyone, even homosexual couples, our country is in trouble because it wants to redefine marriage and scandalize our poor innocent children. Contraception, Abortion, homosexual lifestyles, drugs, pagans etc etc We are in trouble... as Christian's we have more battles to fight because our future generation is counting on it. Look at the legalization of abortion, people didn't fight enough to stop it and now it is out of control and we are seeing more selfishness abrupt from people, we are seeing more cultural problems, the divorce rates are high and now our kids are having to be indoctrinated to condone homosexual sins! The great evils have unleashed but not without a heavy price.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 12:52 PM By Phil
All of you dissenting from the teachings of the Church notably sexual and conjugal morality i.e.gay marriage.The Church cannot change this because it is grounded in natural law. It's a scandal when some Catholics are selective in their adherence to the moral teachings of our faith: Pick and Choose doesn't do it ! Your genuflection is aimed towards evil. Even if the State recognizes this sick union as legitimate, it would not be so before God.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 1:52 PM By MarkF
Jim Stevens, I said that biology and genetics can’t predict why lesbianism is about half the rate of male homosexuality, not that they can’t invent a guess as to why that is. What you’re saying is that your model can guess that this is so because of some sex-linked gene that is more common in males than in females. But that is just a guess. The genetic theory that you’re using wouldn’t predict this, while the idea that homosexuality is caused by lack of connection to the parent of the same sex would expect that it’s easier to make male homosexuals than it is to make lesbians because the male child has a larger leap to make to go from closeness to the mother to the father. As to the rate of homosexuality, you are granting me my point when you say that we really don’t know. What I was shooting down was the notion that there’s always been the same number of people with a homosexual inclination over history because it is something that is inherited. That’s an argument that I’ve heard that said that since it’s always been around at the same rate, that means it’s normal.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 2:00 PM By MarkF
Jim Stevens, I have to say I am shocked when you say that we can’t listen to what people say about their own lives, “but without exception, what anyone says is always a product of what the person has been led to say…(and) has little evidentiary value.” I’m not talking about the so-called recovered memories, which are suspect, but rather what people know about themselves from their own experiences. And what I’ve seen, what I’ve heard from people is that many homosexual men know that their father was aloof, uncaring, or frightening, or that they were sexually abused as kids. I’ve talked to transsexuals and transvestites who said that their mothers used to dress them up as little girls when they were kids. This isn’t anything more than plain common sense…what happens to little kids affects how they are as adults. If you start with a premise that you throw out all of the evidence a psychological and interpersonal origin for homosexuality, no wonder you support the biological and genetic model.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 2:16 PM By Mary
MarkF, just because some study shows a correlation between mental health problems and homosexuality does not in the least substantiate your claim that homosexuality is the cause of those problems. For example, you cited a British study, but I also read a British study today which reports an increased incidence of mental health problems among a wide number of ethnic and racial minorities. By your logic, simply because they experience a higher incidence of mental health problems, it must be their ethnicity, race and sexual orientation which are the cause of their mental problems. But that kind of overly simplistic logic ignores poverty, racism, homophobia, etc. as causes. You can try to claim that these things don't exist any more in today's "more accepting" society, but they surely do still exist, very much so. There is also no such as "the" "developmental model" of homosexuality. What you've been describing in your posts is actually just one of many developmental hypotheses. The particular developmental hypothesis that you advance, which centers around parental bonds, has not been scientifically substantiated. You try to compare it with a purely genetic model, but that just shows that you don't understand that no modern scientist is claiming that homosexuality is purely genetic. Likewise, no scientist can substantiate that homosexuality is purely a matter of parental bonds. In fact, the parental bond model that you've been proposing must not only explain cases of homosexuality where there was allegedly a weak parental bond but must also explain (1) the huge numbers of homosexual persons where there's no evidence of weak parental bonds and (2) the enormous numbers of heterosexual persons who had just as weak parental bonds as homosexual persons and yet they're heterosexual. The hypothesis you've been proposing does not adequately explain the vast majority of cases.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 2:18 PM By MarkF
Grisha, I really don’t want to get into a fight with you because you seem to be a very kind person and not at all given to meanness or to hostility to the Church. When I said, “Where family life is strong, we don't find much homosexuality,” I was talking in broad terms, of societies as a whole. What I meant was that we’ve seen the rise in homosexuality in the West at the same time as we’ve seen the breakdown of the family, and that the two are related. I don’t know your cousins at all so I won’t guess as to what’s going on there. But when I’ve talked to other men with a homosexual inclination, the things that many of them tell me about how they grew up are not the kinds of things that are shared easily or readily. They are the kinds of things that they are likely only to share with other people who have a homosexual inclination. And certainly, there are many people who no one can be sure why they have a homosexual inclination. Some people cover up what happened to them as kids. Some traumas happen totally in secret. Some families are good at covering things up. And some, we just don’t know. And there is also what I’d call the ideology of homosexuality, by which I mean that many people adopt this ideology about it that says that it is a totally wonderful thing, that there are no problems ever in homosexual life that can’t be explained away by blaming it on Christianity, and that no homosexual ever experienced one unhappy day in his childhood, except from Christianity, and that all homosexuals were raised by Ward and June Cleaver, i.e., people lie to protect homosexuality as it is the thing that defines them. But the overall picture is still pretty clear in broad strokes, and that is that where there is not a solid bond with the parent of the same sex when the child is very young, that child is much more likely to become someone with same-sex attraction as an adult.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 2:22 PM By MarkF
Mark from PA, then why do the solid Catholics on here accept me? If the inclination alone is what people hate and not a person's behavior then why am I not hounded by these so-called bigots?
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 5:20 PM By Almond Milk
Mary homosexuality is complex in nature.... there are many reason as to what lead a person into that disorder/spiritual sin. I'm sure MarkF was just stating some of them and they are darn good ones. Now with your usage of the word "homophobia", don't go there because I can start another topic and you might not like it. Homophobia is just another word used to intimidate those who oppose those sexual sins it is not a disorder!
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 5:52 PM By RR
MarkF: Excellent post to Mark from PA @2:22. He can't comprehend that it is the ACTIONS of ACTIVE homosexuals that we don't like; not the person or inclination. I will give him that some people, unfortunately, in society do not like gay people, but unfortunately, it goes both ways too. Some gay people do not like heterosexuals and their beliefs; for example Miss California. That gay man hated Miss California and called her a *%&$@ on Youtube. Mark from PA: I think Catholics on this blog have demonstrated in their posts that they do not hate homosexuals, but they hate the sins of ACTIVE homosexuals. In fact, it is just the opposite. We care about not only them, but their souls. I think from your posts that you were a very good dad. So, I would like to ask you a question. IF your son was committing a sin that you knew was mortal, wouldn't you do everything you could to let him know that it was mortally sinful and that it was taking away sanctifying grace, which is necessary for salvation? Of course you would. That is what the Catholics on this blog are trying to do. Help these ACTIVE homosexuals see their sins & actions are mortally sinful. All it takes is one mortal sin to take away sanctifying grace and send a soul to hell.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 6:25 PM By JLS
PA, try to remember the part of your education about the birds and the bees. It is not a question of fertility, but the marriage act is required to consumate the marriage. You can find this in the CCC or the Code of Canon Law. Also, how do you know how many people live valid marriages? And what's this with you "ideal marriage"? Why are you conjuring up ideals? That stuff is for non-Catholics.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 6:26 PM By Mark from PA
Mark F, many of the people here that dislike the homosexual inclination accept you because you never miss a chance to denigrate gay people. You say a lot of negative things about gay people that fit into the negative stereotypes that some have about them.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 6:28 PM By JLS
Jim Stevens, what in the world are you talking about? "... biology is the (natural) study of living organisms": "Natural study" "Natural theory"? These terms have no meaning, Jim. There are studies of nature, and theories of nature, though. Is that what you mean?
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 6:31 PM By JLS
Jim S., " finally, the “theory” that early childhood experiences cause homosexuality / homosexual orientation is not proven any more than": Whoa, you're sure coming up with some lulus. It is obvious to almost anyone that what children encounter affects the way their brains develop ... don't need scientists for this at all.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 6:36 PM By JLS
PA, you're confusing the hatred of homosexual orientation with hatred of homosexuals. I hate the orientation, and I do not like to associate with homosexuals, but that does not mean that I hate homosexuals. The orientation is a disorder; which means that there is a problem with such people. It is now the rule that seminaries are not allowed to admit same sex orientation men even if they are chaste. There is a set of behaviors common among this disorder which irritates many people who do not have that disorder. Take a look at all the trouble being caused by the homosexual activists. You will find the glaring explanation right there.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 6:41 PM By JLS
Mary, we have the revelation from God on these matters. Why would you try to discredit it by modern science?
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 7:15 PM By Katie
Good for Father Farrow! One reason why I decided to not go to church anymore is the way my CCD teacher talked about gays. It hurt me so much to hear her saying that gay marriage is comparable to beastality. I love the church's message on poverty; it has the strongest voice of all Christian denominations on that issue; but I think that the church should let people be able to live their private lives in the way that they choose; but still encourage to love and care for the poor. If the church will change it's mind on gay marriage and birth control, I will be more than happy to return.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 8:18 PM By MarkF
Mary, to boil it down to simple terms, once you've spent as much time in the homosexual world as I have, you'd find it a lot easier to believe that the origins of homosexuality are in childhood problems. I've never met a gay person who does not think that the homosexual world is a mess. There are some nice people out there, but when it comes to their sexual and emotional lives, there's an awful lot of chaos. The only people who think that there is no difference between the straight experience and the gay experience are well meaning liberals.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 9:24 PM By JLS
MarkF, because you're preaching and teaching the good news of Jesus Christ.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 10:22 PM By Anne T.
MarkF, have you ever noticed how people such as Larry Flynt and others who own pornographic magazines try to keep those who are down in the "gutter" with them from rising up out of there. Misery loves company, and they love to profit from other people's misery. That's why those who are still in the homosexual lifestyle harass you when you tell the truth. Many of us still have you in our prayers. Keep the Faith! and we don't hate you.
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Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 11:50 PM By Jim Stevens
MarkF, I didn’t propose a genetics-only answer to the complexities of sexuality, nor did I say “we can’t listen to what people say,” but your misunderstandings of what I’ve said well demonstrate some truth to that. What I said was this: People respond as they’ve been, in some way, led to respond. For example, you were led by your erroneous/limited understanding of “biological” to think I was giving a genetics answer, and you responded in keeping with that. But I’m not promoting any genetic theory as the answer (nor am I denying the science that shows that genetics plays a developing role in sexuality, including in homosexuality). That many homosexual persons might describe their fathers as “absent, aloof, distant or abusive” may well be so, but so too can a billion heterosexual persons also describe their fathers as such. In fact, many a person, with sufficient training and understanding, can describe his father as absent as well as present, and as well distant as near, and as well abusive as caring – depending on the perspective, mood, context, etc. But without objective standards, it’s merely a matter of subjective perspective. So how is the parental relationship truly tied into all this? Well, according to Dr. Satinover, that you have a homosexual inclination today is not apart from the fact that you were “different” from the beginning, in that your genes, your brain physiology, your prenatal hormonal environment, etc. all participated in making you “sensitive”. And whatever relationship you had or didn’t have with your parents, i.e. that the “father really disliked and rejected his son's sensitivity,” along with however you might view that relationship looking back today – that's all secondary to the fact, to the “origin”, to the cause that you were “different” from the womb. Daddy didn’t make you “different”, for you were already “different” from the womb.
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Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 4:01 AM By Jim Stevens
Similarly, according to the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, among respondents 15-44 years of age, 50% more women than men reported having had a same-sex sexual partner in the previous 12 months. Specifically, it was 4.4% of women but only 2.9% of men. And equally, 4.1% of both men and women aged 18-44 self-identified as either homosexual or bisexual. In short, the belief that "lesbianism is half the rate of male homosexuality" is not supported by these significant studies.
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Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 7:27 AM By Grisha
Mark F: I agree with you that we don't know what exactly causes one person to be heterosexual and another homosexual. I also realize that antidotal evidence such as my own family's case have limited value projecting national or global trends. Still - that so many on my mother's of the family, raised by my diferent aunts and uncles spread all over the state are gay is interesting. I believe that Freud argued that sexuality is a continuum i.e. that all of us are bisexual with the vast majority skewing on the extreme heterosexual side of the spectrum. One of my physicians suggested that there is a combination of genetic and environmental factors. He posited that two individuals might have the same degree of inclination towards their own gender but one lives a lifetime in rural Georgia and never knowingly meets another gay person and the other moves to San Francisco. As I've said before here, what does worry me is that someday science will definitively answer this question and then figure out a way to tell if a baby in the womb will have a proclivity to homosexuality. Unfortunately there would be many parents who would use that as a reason for an abortion and try again for a "normal" child. Could this scenario ever occur? Maybe, maybe not. I hope I've just read too many science fiction novels.
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Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 10:29 AM By Jim
Jim Stevens/Mary, are either of you saying that because there may be biological predispositions that this means God created homosexuals?
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Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 12:57 PM By Mark from PA
Jim Steven and Grisha, I agree with much of what you are saying here. From what I have read homosexuality tends to come from the mother. I think part of it is that the "father really disliked and rejected his son's sensitivity." So it was not the father's dislike that makes the sons gay, it is the sons' homosexuality that creates a rejection. In other words, if the son had a different nature the father would like the son. Many dads want their sons to be a "chip off the old block." I am lucky because my parents pretty much accepted me for who I am. My family was into baseball and my brother played from little league into college but I was never interested. He tried to play football and baseball with me but I didn't like to do it. It wasn't the way I was raised, for some reason I just never got the "baseball" gene. Grisha, I also find that troubling that at some point we will be able to tell if a child in the womb has a proclivity to homosexuality and this could lead to these children being aborted because some parents may not want a child with what they consider to be a disorder.
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Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 1:38 PM By Mary
MarkF, I've spent as many years as you in the "homosexual world", and in the "straight world", and in the many other alleged worlds. Got the t-shirt too. The Church has been looking at it for millenia, and I, the Church and science all continue to say the psychological issue remains largely unresolved. That's Church teaching and it's the position of science too. As to the idea that the "homosexual world is a mess", that's a perspective akin to saying "the USA is a mess" or "the world is a mess". There are problems everywhere, and yet the Church does not teach that I must only say bad things about the world. I love the world! Indeed, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son! Yes, sin is bad just as bad is bad, but did/are you not see anything good out of your homosexual experience? Because the Church teaches that God brings good out of everything, even out of evil. To miss that is to miss out on the glory of God.
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Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 4:03 PM By Jim Stevens
JLS, when I said “biology” is the (natural) study of living organisms, I put “natural” in parentheses to contrast it with “supernatural”, because Ouija boards, séances, prayers and other supernatural invocations are (generally) not considered to be the biologist’s methods of study. As you see, I also put “generally” in parenthesis, because biology does not have to be so limited. And yes, “it is obvious to almost anyone that what children encounter affects the way their brains develop,” but concurrently, the children’s encounters are being shaped by their brain development. For example, when you go shopping, you already have a brain, and it’s not only being shaped by your experiences at the store but also shaping your experiences at the store. Neither “experience shaping your brain” nor “brain shaping your experience” is before or after the other. They are concurrent, or indeed, one and the same process, not two different processes. Like the chicken and the egg, your future experiences will mold your brain (and other biology), and your brain (and other biology) will mold, if not also bring about, your future experiences. And this all begins before birth. Like I said, from the beginning, your experiences are not separate from your biology -- the study of living organisms. Indeed, the ancient wisdom, “Know yourself”, is basic biology.
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Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 5:35 PM By MarkF
Mary, to say that there are problems everywhere and thereby say that the homosexual experience is the same as the heterosexual experience is really just being willfully blind. I've said this a lot - take a look in the back of any gay newspaper or magazine. It's all there for anyone to see. But you also ask a much more interesting question, do I see anything good coming out of my homosexual experiences? One, it was through a homosexual relationship that I met my best friend. I could write a book about the problems that gifted man has, and about how strongly I feel sorry for him. It was through him that I came back to the Church, though he does not know he did, nor did he intend for that to happen. I've also met some other guys who I don't have any contact with anymore who I still have some affection for. I also think that God has shown me the truth about homosexuality for a reason - so that there could be some people who speak with experience, from the inside and thereby help other people. Overall my problem is more with the whole of the secular culture - birth control, the lack of quiet fidelity, decency, righteousness, honor. Homosexuality is not a problem, it is a symptom of the problems in the straight world. The real problem for us as Christians is to reach out to the victims of this culture in a way that reaches them and does not alienate them. I believe that America's problem is not material poverty, but spiritual poverty, and that spiritual poverty kills more people that any other cause. And the problem of spiritually poverty is more neglected than homelessness and immigration.
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Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 6:28 PM By Mark from PA
JLS, you said that seminaries are not allowed to admit same sex orientation men even if they are chaste. I don't think this is true. If a man is a chaste, celibate virgin he would surely be allowed to enter a seminary regardless of his sexual orientation. In fact the Church does not require people to proclaim their sexual orientation. If a man is not or never has been sexually active, his sexual orientation is not anyone's business. Some Church teaching even seems to say that people should not label themselves as gay or homosexuals. I think it is a private matter and if people do not wish to share their sexuality with others they have a right to privacy. I know that some Catholics want no gay priests, no gay seminarians and no GLBT Catholics. If they could have their wish we would all be gone. Editor’s Note: In 2005, the Congregation for Catholic Education issued its “Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocation with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders.” The document said, in part, that, “in accord with the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments,” the Congregation for Catholic Education “believes it necessary to state clearly that the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture'… Such persons, in fact, find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women. One must in no way overlook the negative consequences that can derive from the ordination of persons with deep-seated homosexual tendencies."
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Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 8:10 PM By JLS
Katie, your CCD teacher was mistaken about gay marriage being like beastiality ... homosexualism is much worse.
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Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 8:17 PM By JLS
Jim S, you're making simple things into complex, convoluted and confused nonsense. One studies natural things or supernatural things ... study is a verb or a noun; the things studied are natural or supernatural. Study means what one does, and typically implies a discipline for doing so. One studies neither naturally nor supernaturally ... one simply studies. Maybe what you're about here has to do with some philosophy of the nature of the human being that is other than the common concept. If so, please reveal this.
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Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 8:25 PM By JLS
PA, there is a lot of Church doctrine which you dispute. The Pope laid this one out this past year. How did you miss it? CCD dealt with it on at least one thread. It is because the Church knows that sexual orientation is critical for men ... same sex attraction is a grave disorder, and it permeates a man's behavior and character. It is bad for young seminarians to be subject to such a disorder in a superior. It is also bad for parishioners to have to put up with a homosexual priest ... As I've explained before, the behavior and orientation are objectionable to many many men. A chaste man afflicted with same sex attraction has the obligation to God and neighbor to strive to be healed from this affliction. Jesus demonstrated over and over how He healed and cured and exorcised people ... all for the purpose of restoring them to the way God intends ... and so they might experience great joy, and for a witness to man of the power and intent of God to wrest man from evil. Homosexuality, in the sense of same sex attraction, is indeed an evil that man needs to be freed from.
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Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 8:38 PM By Mark from PA
So are people with homosexual tendencies supposed to announce it to the world so they can be discriminated against? "While profoundly respecting the persons in question." The rest of the statement makes it crystal clear that the authors do NOT respect the persons in question.
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Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 8:45 PM By Fr. M.P.
We continue to see how Mark from PA denies Church teachings. Mark, real Catholics do not want priests who adamantly live in sin, regardless of the type. Homosexual behavior is what led to 80% of the abuse, since it was with adolescent boys, which type of behavior is desired by the North American May-Boy Gay Love Association.
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Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 10:15 PM By Mary
MarkF, are you saying there's something in the back of gay newspapers/magazines that I can't find in straight ones? There's porn, solicitations, gadgets, wild parties, etc. for every market. Oh, and I don't say anything about "the" homosexual experience or "the" heterosexual experience, whether to compare or contrast them, as they're both fictions, stereotypes, dim representations of stale notions of reality. Likewise, I've never had "the" American experience, "the" victim experience, "the" single-person experience, or "the" married-person experience. Indeed, I can't even say that I've had the "Mary" experience -- if there's even such a thing -- as it would still be a work in progress.
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Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 11:20 PM By Almond Milk
Yes God loves us all, that is why he gave us laws and His plan to help us live a happy life and share it with others but when some fall away from that natural law/plan there are consequences. Not everyone is saved, embracing mortal sins are a fast way to get to hell.
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 4:03 AM By MarkF
Mark from PA, you are not a homosexual, you are a person with same-sex attraction. It is not who you are. It is something you do, even it is something you only think about. You've bought into the gay lie. Jesus came to cleanse us of our sins.
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 9:11 AM By prayerwarrior4Jesus
If anyone is interested in finding out how we as a Catholic Church got so out of line with God's Will and with the teachings of the Catholic Church, especially with homosexuality in the priesthood, contraception and abortion, I urge you to read the book "Saving Those Damned Catholics" by Judie Brown. The secularization of the Catholic Church in this country started right after Vatican II by those who purposefully distorting the teachings of the Council to change the Catholic Church in America. Their goal? To make the Church conform to the culture instead of the other way around. We are all suffering the results of those who went before us and may still be among us. God help us all and may He remove all those who are destroying the Church from WITHIN as well as from outside.
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 12:59 PM By JLS
The Bishop of Providence, Rhode Island, has published a letter rallying the flock to the attack by the homosexual agenda. These bishops lately are really beginning to speak clearly and in unison, with growing power.
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 2:13 PM By Mark from PA
Actually Mark I never refer to myself as a homosexual and I also do not refer to myself as a person with same sex attraction. I don't even use the expression same sex attraction. I never even heard of this expression until a few years ago. It was a term invented by fundamentalist groups and is not used at all by reputable medical professionals.
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 2:35 PM By MarkF
When the Pope asked that the seminaries not ordain men with a long standing homosexual inclination he was acting on the behalf of all the children who may be molested. I am full aware that there are many men who have same-sex attraction who are chaste and are fine priests. But the experience has shown that as a whole, they present a danger to the Church. So some men who may make fine priests will be denied the chance, but the Pope wisely chose to protect the children, even if by doing so some innocent adults will be denied the chance to become priests. To Mark from PA, what the document asks of men is to be honest about themselves, even if their honesty leads to a consequence. This is called integrity and courage.
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 2:57 PM By Mark from PA
Father M.P., if a priest is gay and faithful to his vows of celibacy, he is not "adamantly living in sin." In truth most, of those men who broke their vows did so with adult women. But since it involved adults this was kept secret. I think if a priest fathers a child then he should be removed from the priesthood (unless he is a married priest). If a priest belongs to NAMBLA he should be removed also. (Surely few, if any, belong to this group.) There was a priest in the Boston Archdiocese who was sympathetic to this group and unfortunately he was enabled in his sinful behavior. This "priest" currently sits in a jail cell paying for his crimes and rightly so. I don't want priests who break their vows.
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 3:45 PM By Mary
MarkF, morally, the thoughts involved in same-sex attraction are not acts imputable to the human person unless the person "puts them forth deliberatively and with self-determination." On the physiological level, when person B enters the room and person A is attracted to person B, there might be thoughts arising in person A's brain, but those thoughts are not "done" by person A any more than they're "done" by person B when he entered the room. Likewise, person A's attraction to person B also involves persons C, D, E, F, G, etc. -- indeed the entire human race, socially and genetically -- along with the environment in programming person A's brain to respond as it does. As such, same-sex attraction is not something person A "does" any more than it's the complex operation of the universe as a whole, of which person A is a speck.
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 3:53 PM By Mary
MarkF, "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" is not the same as "long-standing homosexual inclination". There is much which has long-standing which has little depth. That is why the writers of the seminary guidelines chose to say "deep-seated" rather than "long-standing".
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 4:17 PM By Mark from PA
"I am full aware that there are many men who have same sex attraction who are chaste and are fine priests." (This is true.) "But the experience has shown that as a whole, they present a danger to the Church." (If they are chaste and fine priests they do NOT present a danger to the Church.) "So some men who may make fine priests will be denied the chance, but the Pope wisely chose to protect the children, even if by doing so some innocent adults will be denied the chance to become priests." (You don't need to protect children from innocent adults.) This statement is so sad. You need to re-read what you wrote several times, Mark and think about it. Are you saying that these chaste men who may make fine priests should leave the Catholic Church and join the Episcopal Church or another faith where their gifts will be appreciated? If they are not wanted in the Catholic Church should they leave?
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 5:17 PM By Mary
The same CCE document the editor cited previously goes on to say: "Different, however, would be the case in which one were dealing with homosexual tendencies that were only the expression of a transitory problem... such tendencies must be clearly overcome at least three years before ordination to the diaconate." According to that, persons with homosexual tendencies [that are not "deep-seated"] could be admitted to seminary but these persons must "clearly overcome" those tendencies prior to ordination. Unfortunately, terms such as "homosexual tendencies" and "deep-seated" and "overcome" are not clearly defined. For example, does "homosexual tendencies" have a scale of 1 to 10 and if you score 8 you're too high but if you score somewhere around the middle of the scale (where most men would fall) or less it's ok? And if your score goes from 8 to 4, are you said to have "overcome"? And if a man finds looking at other men to be enjoyable but has no interest in engaging in homosexual acts, does he have "homosexual tendencies" or is that term supposed to just mean a tendency to actually engage in homosexual acts? The editor responds: The document is clear, and its meaning transparent, even in the portion you cited, to wit: "only the expression of a transitory problem." Bottom line -- a self-identified homosexual who sees homosexuality as part of his personal identity should not be admitted to the seminary, much less ordained.
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 6:04 PM By JLS
PA, if a homosexual man is not processing out from that condition, then his sin is sloth, one of the seven deadly sins.
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 6:06 PM By JLS
Mary, the articulations of escape from responsibility will not gain Heaven for you or any you persuade.
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 7:03 PM By Anne T.
In one article I read in a Catholic newspaper the writer, a priest, said that a priest represents Christ the bridegroom with the Church being his bride. He brought out most beautifully that in order for a priest to truly sacrifice what he should for the Church, a wife, he had to have an attraction to women in the first place, or he was not really, truly sacrificing anything for his bride the Church. I thought that was both true and beautiful. He explained it fair better than I just did. I heard it explained by another priest when he said that just after he was ordained he saw a lovely women in a pew and a glance passed between them, and that all of a sudden he felt a deep sadness that he would never have a wife and a family. He went on to say that immediately he had a thought from the Lord, or the Holy Spirit, that he would have a most beautiful bride, the Church, and many spiritual children. If you read Holy Scripture you will always find that when marriage is represented, whether it is between a real man and a woman, or Christ and His Church, it is never represented as being same sexed. So goes The Canticles of Canticles ( the Song of Solomon). So it shall ever truly be. There has been, and is, at times a few married priests, but a same-sex couple will never fill the symbols layed down in Holy Scripture by the God of the Old Testament or the God of the New. Marriage is between a man and his wife, a woman. Always. Always. For only a man and a woman can be truly fertile, whether physically or spiritually.
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 7:05 PM By Anne T.
As the "Wedding Song" goes, "Woman takes her life from man and gives it back again, and there is love."
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 10:17 PM By Mary
Dear Editor, even your example of "a self-identified homosexual who sees homosexuality as part of his personal identity" can itself be nothing more than "the expression of a transitory problem". And even 20 years can be "transitory". Like I said, the document does not define its terms. Bottom line -- the document expressly admits that people with "homosexual tendencies" of a "transitory" nature can be in the seminary. Exactly what that means is a matter of interpretation.
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Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 11:15 PM By JLS
The image of Christ the Bridegroom is not something made up along the way by clergy, but is solid Gospel. Also read Song of Solomon, and compare: The one is the prophesy, and the other is the fulfillment explained. Then of course one goes the next step and studies up on the nature of the HolyTrinity, especially the relationships among the three Persons of the Godhead and of that to us. Ever wonder why no other religion on earth or in history makes love it's center stage actor? Because they can't; the actor is Jesus and He has made the earth His center stage; He gives this, Himself, to the Church, and the other can only try to copy or imitate.
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Posted Thursday, April 30, 2009 2:09 AM By MarkF
Mark from PA said, "Are you saying that these chaste men who may make fine priests should leave the Catholic Church and join the Episcopal Church or another faith where their gifts will be appreciated? If they are not wanted in the Catholic Church should they leave?" I am saying that if someone places their homosexuality, or their other desires to sin over their desire to serve God that they have left the Church themselves. I am saying that if someone places the "gay agenda" over the Church that they have left the Church themselves. I am saying that if anyone follows the "gay culture" that places the love for homosexuality over that of love of God, who goes through the scripture and rejects the parts of them that are against homosexuality and who contradicts the historic teachings of the Church fathers, doctors and saints, as well as the Popes, has already separated themselves from the Church by their own choice. I am saying that a person whose agenda includes spreading a gospel that is different from the gospel that Jesus and his Church teaches should not be in a teaching position within the Church. I am saying, along with Blessed Pope John XXIII and Pope Benedict XVI that the Church should chose to protect innocent children from sexual predators, even if that means that some men who MAY not do this end up getting excluded from the priesthood. I am saying that there are no gifts that sin bestows, other than the gifts that come through repentance of that sin. I am saying that those who support and preach dissent from the truths that lead to salvation have already left the Church spiritually. No one wants to see anyone leave the Church, but if someone's mission in life is to change the Church from within on matters that affect salvation they have already left the Church spiritually, and if after repeated efforts to bring them back in to the Church, the bible is clear that such people are to be excluded from the Church physically.
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Posted Thursday, April 30, 2009 6:29 PM By Mark from PA
Just wanted to share this with you, Mark. We had our last Bible study class tonight. At the end our priest gave us a test. It was from a bishops' group. It had questions on our faith and was named, "Just How Catholic Am I?" I got a perfect score.
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Posted Thursday, April 30, 2009 7:39 PM By Mark from PA
So Mark F, you are saying that it is OK to punish innocent men for the crimes of others? I am talking about celibate, chaste men. How is being celibate and chaste placing a desire to sin over the desire to serve God? So if a man "looks" or "sounds" gay, it is OK to discriminate against him even though he is celibate? Would you say that it would be fair to deny a celibate gay man the Sacrament of Holy Orders, when men who have been sexually active with women are ordained? I am saying "celibate" gay men here. I do not think sexually active gay men should be ordained. I want to make that clear. I am not advocating ordination to the priesthood for sexually active men. (An exception is married men who are given dispensation.)
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Posted Thursday, April 30, 2009 7:47 PM By Elaine
JLS, every religion on earth has God/love as center stage, for religion is defined as the moral virtue by which a person is disposed to render to God the worship and service he deserves, expressing the deepest aspirations of the human person. If it's not, it's not religion.
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Posted Friday, May 01, 2009 12:39 PM By MarkF
I said what I said. Take it up with Pope Benedict or with Blessed Pope John XXIII. The Church chose the safety of the children over the risk of repeating the abuse scandals.
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Posted Friday, May 01, 2009 4:20 PM By Mark from PA
Mark F, keeping celibate gay men from the priesthood or removing celibate gay men from the priesthood will not protect one child. All it will do is satisfy people that dislike gay men and want them out of the Church.
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Posted Friday, May 01, 2009 5:56 PM By Mark from PA
So Mark, do you think that "celibate" gay priests should be removed from the priesthood? Do you think that "celibate" gay seminarians should be removed from the seminaries? Do you truly believe that these men who are faithful to their vows of celibacy pose a risk to children?
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Posted Tuesday, May 05, 2009 5:52 PM By Mark from PA
"The safety of the children over the risk of repeating the abuse scandals." Mark, since you say that you lived the gay life for 30 years, you surely know that most gay men do not go around molesting children. What would your reaction back then have been to someone that labeled you a child molester because you were gay? You state that you have many gay friends. Are any of them child molesters? Probably not, but you see fit to erroneously state that by keeping gay men out of the priesthood, the Church is keeping out child molesters when you surely know that these are two entirely different things.
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Posted Tuesday, May 05, 2009 8:57 PM By JLS
PA, there is more to misleading children than sexually abusing them. Homosexual men do not provide good leadership nor role models for children. Not only for children but for adults such as seminarians. You should educate yourself by reading some of the books that have recently documented that situation.
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Posted Wednesday, May 06, 2009 4:56 AM By Fr. M.P.
Search for St. Peter Damian's Book of Gomorrah and read it for a 1000 year old perspective on the matter. And our own statistics show that 80% of the priest abuse was homosexual related.
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Posted Wednesday, May 06, 2009 7:41 AM By MarkF
Since you asked - I know a gay man, a medical doctor, who stole drugs from the hospital and gave them to a 13-year-old friend of his son and had homosexual intercourse with the drugged boy. I know another gay couple who gets teenage boys from the state as foster parents and engages in voyeuristic behavior that violates the privacy of the teenage boys. I know a prominent gay man who used to be a TV weatherman but who is now in jail for sexual contact with a minor. I know a gay man in his fifties who talks about "helping" teenage runaways, and tells me that he has no problem with having sex with them. This man himself was sexually abused when he was a teenager. I know a county sheriff in his forties who has had sex with his own father since the time he was a kid until the present time. They also have other men join in on this. I know several who told me that they had sex with their own step-fathers from the time they were pre-teens until they left home. One of these guys is an alcoholic with other severe mental health problems. I know a group of gay men who extol the "virtues" of having sex with their own fathers, and who disowned me when I told them that "this is probably not the best thing." I know married several men who tell me that they have sex with their own teenage sons. I really hope that the editors publish this. In the past they have been too squeamish about details like this, but it is time that the truth gets out there. From my past experience, I know the response I get from people who only seek to praise homosexuality as something wonderful - I get blamed for all this. Go ahead. I've heard it all before but whatever insults or threats I get, I won't be quiet anymore.
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Posted Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:42 AM By RR
MarkF: O my gosh!!! When I read your post my stomach did a flip. I thought ACTIVE homosexuality was horrible and sinful before, but now after reading your post, it does need to be stopped and the filth let known. It's not only morally wrong, but this behavior is illegal. People need to stop accepting this behavior as normal or an inclination and expose it for what it is, FILTHY and MORTALLY SINFUL! Thank you for exposing their filth and hopefully Mark from PA and ACTIVE homosexuals are reading this. God bless you for turning your life around to God and the faith and exposing the ACTIVE homosexual lifestyle for what it is, MORTAL SIN, DISGUSTING, AND PERVERTED.
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Posted Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:56 AM By Mark from PA
Good grief, Mark F, where did you get all these friends? But again, I am talking about "celibate" gay men being priests. Most of your friends are probably not Catholic. Should the "celibates" be tossed out of the Church too?
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Posted Wednesday, May 06, 2009 11:15 AM By Sue
MarkF, Sounds like you run with the wrong crowd. Never heard of one person knowing so many people like this. The real world is full of straight people doing equally horrible things.
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Posted Wednesday, May 06, 2009 12:38 PM By Sue
Also, MarkF, how come we never read anything about any of this? Where is the documentation or proof?
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Posted Wednesday, May 06, 2009 12:50 PM By JLS
Sue, back in the sixties I ran with many wild characters, although it was not a gay convocation. When you're in it, you have lots of company. What MarkF is saying is that it is not good to be running wild. His posts make clear the amazing conversion to Christ in his life. That is what he draws on, and that is what I draw on ... the redemption part of the reason for the Crucifixion and Resurrection ... Jesus is titled the Redeemer. Redemption is and was the purpose of His mission, of His Incarnation, etc. It would be good for Catholics to consider this essense of the meaning of Catholicism. Even the smug and lilly white souls who dream they have no need of redemption ... I've got news for you.
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Posted Wednesday, May 06, 2009 1:50 PM By Page
Wild behavior comes in all varieties, heterosexual and homosexual, but it defines neither heterosexuality nor homosexuality. What it defines is wild behavior.
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Posted Wednesday, May 06, 2009 2:22 PM By Sue
My comments were directed at MarkF's prolific group of friends. I am glad that you and he have repented from your active gay lifestyles. As for your comments on smug lilly white's -- you sometimes make no sense. It's as if you just like to hear yourself talk. I am still asking MarkF for proof of these people he is accusing. And yes, maybe you should, yourself, consider the essence of the meaning of Catholicism. You seem to have missed it.
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Posted Wednesday, May 06, 2009 4:25 PM By Mark from PA
Mark F, I have never heard of a case of men having sex with their sons or step-sons. It must be very rare. There are on occasion in my area court cases of girls who have been abused by fathers or step-fathers. This is much more common. However, this does not reflect on heterosexuals as a whole any more than your example reflects on homosexuals. RR, the things Mark F is describing are illegal and most gay people are probably also disgusted by such abuse and do not accept it.
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Posted Wednesday, May 06, 2009 6:09 PM By MarkF
I really expect the usual attempts to blame this all on me, to say that I it's my fault for who I know. I won't whitewash my past and my own sins, but what I know is not based on my hanging out with a particular set of people. I know all of this because I dare to ask people what they do, and for some reason they tell me. Everyone has a unique gift. Mine seems to be that I can get people to tell me things they don't tell other people. I can't tell you how many times I've been told "I've never told anyone else that." How come you don't hear about this? Many reasons. It's too powerful for most of the media to handle, and it does not conform to their image of what homosexuality is like, so it never gets printed. But also you don't hear about it because many of you chose to ignore it when the evidence is right in front of your face. My God, we all know about the sex abuse scandals that happened in the Church. We all know about "cruisy bathrooms" that are in every single community in this country. Just google those words and you'll find plenty of sites that announce where these places are.
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Posted Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:09 PM By GregS
MarkF, I don't mean to question your veracity, but I do find it remarkable you have personally encountered so many dispicable gay people. I hope you have reported them to the authorities. They should be locked up if they exist. Personally, as an out gay man and father, I am sure I know far many more gay people than you. I personally know of no gay person that wouldn't be just as sickened by such behavior as you.
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Posted Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:14 PM By Cathy J.
Just saw all of this. Mark from PA your comments are right on. Thanks and I couldn't agree more.
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Posted Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:06 PM By Regina
Married men having sex with their own children or adopting or fostering children to molest them is one of the strange things some heterosexual men do. Some men advocate having sex with little girls. Some advocate having sex with their mothers and school teachers. There are even women who promote it too. It's not a gay thing. I don't even think it's a heterosexual thing. It's a strange thing.
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Posted Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:24 PM By JLS
Good point, Page; and I always like to leave it at that stage of articulation. Part of the responsibility of getting redeemed from such ways of life that are not Godly is to be wary of the power of memory and not let those old ways rise up like the zombies they can easily become.
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Posted Thursday, May 07, 2009 1:55 AM By RR
MarkF: Apparently to some, if they haven't heard of something it doesn't exist. Some people are really in denial and I'm not talking about the river. I may have been naive on this stuff, but as perverted as ACTIVE homosexuality is, it's totally believable. I believe everything you said and just because it isn't let known doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Do people really think ACTIVE homosexuals are going to publicly admit this stuff? Do people really think that the ultra liberal media is going to publish or let known anything against ACTIVE homosexuals? Do people think that ACTIVE homosexuals are going to openly & publically admit they have sex with their fathers and their children? The father of lies is in control of these ACTIVE homosexuals; so why can't people see that? ACTIVE homosexual supporters will always say, " heterosexual people equally do this too." Well, that may be, and it is mortally sinful, filthy, illegal, and perverted then, too. Come on people! Stop making excuses for this sinful, filthy, perverted lifestyle! God's wrath is coming!
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Posted Thursday, May 07, 2009 4:58 AM By irene
Sadly, Fr. Farrow will become the new poster boy for the advancement of the Gay movement in our country - what a find, a Catholic and a priest to boot - they will think they've struck gold with this one. Sad, too, that sin is disguised as good these days (acceptance of homosexuality as a social justice issue) and its being promoted by many who are in religious life which is mind boggling to me. God help us all.
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Posted Thursday, May 07, 2009 7:54 AM By Grace56
MarkF is so right when I was in high school oh so many years ago my best friend was a homosexual. When he got a "lover" I became immersed in the Gay life as a "friend". The shocking thing was how much homosexuals idolize youth.
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Posted Thursday, May 07, 2009 8:22 AM By Grace56
BTW Homosexuals haveing sex with their sons or siblings is not hard to find in the web there are web pages devoted to it.
Put that in Google
Dad And Son Gay Sex
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Posted Thursday, May 07, 2009 11:05 AM By Mark from PA
That isn't so shocking Grace because straight people idolize youth also. How many young female stars are there? Actually older women have it harder than older men in this regard.
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Posted Thursday, May 07, 2009 1:12 PM By Amanda
Grace56, have you tried Googling heterosexuals having sex with their children and siblings? It's easy to find. On the web there are jillions of pages devoted to it. Put that in Google: Father Daughter Sex. Or Google: Mom Son Sex.
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Posted Thursday, May 07, 2009 6:40 PM By MarkF
Hmmm.... what do the gay elites think of this sort of behavior in private? In public they decry all this stuff, but what do they think in private. Inspired by that young woman named Lila who poses as a pregnant teenager to find out what Planned Parenthood really does in private, I've started to correspond with several gay authors and public figures to see what they say when they think they are talking to a pro-gay young man. I've created a character who says he was sexual abused by an older uncle when he was a kid and who still endorses this sort of thing. The character also says things like that the Pope should be arrested, that the Church should be regulated by the government or banned, that marriage should be allowed for multiple of people - three men, three women, between fathers and sons. None of the gay authors or activists said anything other than approval for any of this. These are some of the same people who rail against the Church for the sex abuse scandals, and who call the Pope a Nazi, but when confronted with a person who appears to have been a victim of sexual abuse, and who talks about supporting this sort of thing, they offer nothing but support - in private. Some of these people are pro-homosexual Catholics. I'm still working on collecting more information, and just like Lila I will publish it only when I'm done collecting it all. And Greg S., I do still know lots of gay people. I know one gay man in particular who is a great father, and yes many gay people would be sickened at this. What I've seen of the gay male community is that they fall into three broad categories - extremely promiscuous, extremely kinky or extremely lonely. What I posted above was a snap shot of one segment of the extremely kinky group. I could write more about the other segments, but I was asked about this sort of thing. And thank you to RR and to Grace56.
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Posted Sunday, May 10, 2009 1:59 PM By Mark from PA
So Mark F, you think it is OK to write to public figures and authors and make up a character (lie)? Don't you consider this to be bearing false witness, a sin against the 8th commandment?
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Posted Monday, May 11, 2009 9:41 AM By JLS
PA, you evidently did not study the threads some months back wherein lying was treated exhaustively. I contended then as now, that putting on an act to either homosexual activists or abortionists can not be deceptive if the goal is good. Now, there is the rebuttal that this would be the error of the ends justifying the means, but that is wrong: The reason it is incorrect is that it assumes that the perverts and butcherers can see or even want to see what is true. Those souls revel in delusion. A back fire in order to put out the big fire is not a violation, but a saving remedy. It is not akin to deception, which the 8th Commandment requires. What MarkF is getting at is that to save souls, one has to engage the souls ... can't be done from a distance, but has to be done personably, which may or may not involve offensive or playacting gambits.
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Posted Monday, May 11, 2009 4:13 PM By Mark from PA
JLS, I don't think being a homosexual has any comparison to having an abortion or performing an abortion. You are putting two completely different things together. Some gay people are pro-life and I don't think it is fair to lump the groups together.
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Posted Monday, May 11, 2009 4:44 PM By MarkF
JLS and Mark from PA, I too have had my qualms about whether or not this is lying. I really don't know if it is or not. What is true is that no one said that what Lila Rose did was a sin too. This is the young woman who poses as a pregnant teenager in order to expose the real actions of Planned Parenthood. Why bring this up with what I've done and not with what Lila Rose did? Anyways, like I said before, I am not entirely comfortable with the ethics of doing what in essence is something like an undercover investigation. What my goal was is to prove that what these radical homosexual and dissenting Catholic groups say in public is one thing, and what they say in private is another. I am particularly bothered by those people who cry out for tolerance of their homosexuality but show zero tolerance for the views of the Church. What I'm finding is that these people have no love for the Church, only for their own homosexuality. This is part of a bigger pattern, and one that I used to participate in myself - that homosexuality often becomes a god in its own right. But these people will feign a love for the Church in order to make try to change her. Now I do not think that Mark from PA is like this at all, however much I may disagree with him. I do not think his sole reason for being in the Church is to change the Church. I do wish that he would find it in himself to accept the Church's teachings on homosexuality. The Church needs the help of all of her sons in this matter.
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Posted Monday, May 11, 2009 5:59 PM By Mark from PA
Mark, if you want to help these people, pray for them.
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Posted Monday, May 11, 2009 7:58 PM By JLS
No, PA, you continue to propagandize according to the homosexual activist political pitch that confuese homosexual with homosexual behavior. This, PA, is a persistant violation of the Commandment against deception ... a mortal sin. And in doing so, you consistently bear false witness against those who actually spell out the teaching of the Church which is that they are two different types of thing ... one is sinful and the other is a disordered condition. Many have asked you to own up to this trick you're pulling, but you never respond to the request.
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Posted Monday, May 11, 2009 8:08 PM By JLS
MarkF, Lila Rose did not sin. We had a thorough discussion citing many solid sources. A sinful lie is one thing; and another is a lie which is not sinful: the key is the intention to deceive. Now, also, the concept of deceive needs to be understood: it has to do with either the devil or not. There are many cases in which a lie is not a sin, and a few of these cases were posted. Read the CCC on lying, and find that every instance of it carries a qualifier such as "lying to deceive". If for example, PA were hiding from unjust persecution and I knew where he was, and I had the power to reveal it to his persecutors when they asked me, then I could tell them, or I could say I did not know, or I could send them in the other direction so he could escape ... I would be sinning if I revealed it, since I would be increasing the sin of the persecutors and contributing to the persecution of an innocent person. If, on the other hand, I told them that PA had hours before hopped a freight heading for the border, then tell me if you think my lie would be a sin. Also, MarkF, in the case of undercover investigation, consider the wisdom of Solomon about no matter what one says it will be taken to the ruler by a bird, which may be where we get the saying, "sing like a canary". Consider that we also are meant to be peaceful as a dove and wise as a serpent ... see what I'm saying?
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Posted Tuesday, May 12, 2009 6:36 PM By Mark from PA
JLS, I am not confusing the two, I am just saying that some people hate the behavior and hate the orientation and don't much care for the people either. The Catholic Church does not teach that the orientation is a sin. A small number of Catholics think it is and many evangelical Protestants think it is. As has been stated here, the Church views it as a disorder.
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Posted Tuesday, May 12, 2009 7:27 PM By MarkF
My goal in writing to pro-homosexual activists and pro-homosexual Catholics is to find out what they really say and believe when they are not in public, since I suspect that what they say in private is very different from what they say in public. I'm afraid that prayer will not help me reach that narrow goal. To Mark from PA, again, why don't you accept what the Church has consistently taught on this matter for close to two thousand years? You know what the Church teaches; it's not like you're not informed. I am curious as to your reasoning.
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Posted Tuesday, May 12, 2009 9:14 PM By Elizabeth R
Mark from PA. Thanks for your explanation. You make it clear and understandable.
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Posted Wednesday, May 13, 2009 10:17 AM By Mark from PA
Mark F, the Church considers the homosexual orientation to be a disorder. I acknowledge that this is what the Church teaches. The Church has not taught this for 2000 years because this was not understood 2000 years ago. Sodomy was considered a sin but the orientation was not recognized. Do you understand my reasoning here? I am trying to answer your questions. I acknowledge also that the Church sees gay people as inferior and defective. I am only aware of this in the past couple of years in reading Church documents. It is sad for me to realize that in the eyes of the Church I am pretty much a second class citizen.
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Posted Wednesday, May 13, 2009 7:06 PM By MarkF
Mark, why do continue to attack the Church by saying that she treats you as a "second class citizen?" This is all in your head. Why do you take what the Church says and use it to beat yourself up with, and then blame the Church for doing it? Have you ever tried to accept what the Church teaches and free yourself from the gay ideology? If you're celibate, then what is it that you get from all this? If the Church is right about all the other things, then how can you cling to the gay ideology, which is contrary to Catholic teaching?
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Posted Wednesday, May 13, 2009 10:35 PM By talitha kumi
Mark F is right. I personally know of a father who had problems, probably from way back, that molested and raped his very young son. that son spontaneously hung himself at age eighteen. A week later the father very much on purpose hung himself. They are buried side by side. I am not in the same circles that Mark F runs/ran/knows; but I know of many wounded children who have grown into offending adults. It is a cause of deep sorrow to me and makes me ever mindful how inportant it is to pray and fast and trust in The Word of God and Holy Mother Church. Also to revel in and to protect innocence. A happy childs laughter is like a waterfall of jewels.
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Posted Wednesday, May 13, 2009 10:47 PM By Ralitha Kumi
Google NOT these horrible sights. This is a path to mortal sin; and grossly disgusting. As JLS said abuot witches; they are there, you don't need to do the research. One thing can lead to another: bad to worse to no way back. (without repentence before death and death can come in an instant.) I know (of) four people who simply dropped dead. Not to mention surprise death by accidents and the like. Don't engage in behaviour that offends Almighty God.
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Posted Thursday, May 14, 2009 3:26 PM By Mark from PA
Mark F, one reason I feel like a second class citizen in the Church can be found in the document, "Some Considerations Concerning the Response to Legislative Proposals on the Non-Discrimination of Homosexual Persons." I was in a discussion with a man on another site two years ago and said that gay people were considered equal in the Catholic Church and not discriminated against. The man posted me a link to this document. It shut me up quick. I never knew that the official Church felt this way until I read the document. The document says that human rights are not absolute and can even be denied to people who are "disordered." It also said that if homosexuals tried to push for non-discrimination laws they should not be surprised if irrational and violent reactions follow. So if gay people are vicitms of violence it is their own fault. So it is not just in my head it is in a document and and it is painful to read.
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Posted Thursday, May 14, 2009 7:46 PM By MarkF
Mark but you refuse to separate out the inclination from the behavior. The behavior demeans human freedom. Abstaining from it brings true freedom. True human freedom means freedom from sin. I found that out the hard way. From the document: "What is at all costs to be avoided is the unfounded and demeaning assumption that the sexual behavior of homosexual persons is always and totally compulsive and therefore inculpable. What is essential is that the fundamental liberty which characterizes the human person and gives him his dignity be recognized as belonging to the homosexual person as well." The Church, even with your opposition is struggling for YOUR freedom from homosexuality. "As in every moral disorder, homosexual activity prevents one's own fulfillment and happiness by acting contrary to the creative wisdom of God. The church, in rejecting erroneous opinions regarding homosexuality, does not limit but rather defends personal freedom and dignity realistically and authentically understood." More from the document: "There is an effort in some countries to manipulate the church by gaining the often well-intentioned support of her pastors with a view to changing civil statutes and laws. This is done in order to conform to these pressure groups' concept that homosexuality is at least a completely harmless, if not an entirely good, thing. Even when the practice of homosexuality may seriously threaten the lives and well-being of a large number of people, its advocates remain undeterred and refuse to consider the magnitude of the risks involved." Mark I'm sorry but that describes you very well. Even when presented with the truth that homosexual actions are devastatingly destructive, you still cling to the gay ideology. What I still don't know why, is why you you do that? Why do you have such faith in your own homosexuality? What good has it brought you versus what good God has brought you?
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Posted Thursday, May 14, 2009 8:00 PM By MarkF
You brought up another interesting point that I wanted to address separately. You were shocked that the document says that human rights are not absolute. They are not. Oliver Wendall Holmes famously said that the right to freedom of speech does not mean that one has the right to yell fire in a crowded movie theatre. The Church's position is that homosexual activity is a grave threat to the family and to human life. I've experienced that first hand. The Church is not advocating discrimination against people, but is saying that society has the right to protect itself from the behavior. You deny human freedom when you refuse to separate the inclination from the behavior. The bottom line is that you refuse to accept the truth that homosexual behavior is a sin and is dangerous. The Church and my own experience, as well as the experience of many others like me, teaches us otherwise. From that assumption flow all of her concerns and conclusions - that in the interest of protecting society and the family, homosexual behavior can not be accorded the same protected status as the marital family.
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Posted Thursday, May 14, 2009 8:15 PM By MarkF
Finally, you said that the Church said that the says that violence against gay people is their own fault. That's not what the document says. It says that violence against gay people is deplorable. But it also admits that homosexual behavior threatens society, and it does. Life is complicated and people are fallible. If a person who yells fire in a movie theatre gets beat up by the angry crowd, is it unreasonable to say that their own actions had a part in this, even at the same time saying that such actions against the person are deplorable? This is what the document is saying. I have to say that it is also typical Ratzinger in that it is very truthful, but very politically incorrect. It's the kind of thing that easily gets distorted by the media. The truth of it is lost unless you believe that homosexual actions are a threat to the person and to the family though. This is your mistake and also that you confuse the person with the behavior. The behavior is both destructive and is also a choice. You think that the behavior is good and that the person has no choice but to act on the desire. God proved to me that he is more powerful then my own nature which is to sin. I don't know how you can find that for yourself other than to say to give up your devotion to homosexuality and to pray to God to help you to do that. Perhaps you should bring all of this to a priest for help with it. I really believe that you have faith in God. Ask the Blessed Virgin Mary for help with this too, but please talk to a priest about all this. You're too good of a Christian to stay where you are with this.
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Posted Thursday, May 14, 2009 8:24 PM By Mark from PA
Mark, I don't feel that I follow gay ideology. It is just that when I read things from Catholics who have an intense dislike for gay people it makes me think of what an outsider I am in my Church. I never felt like this until a couple of years ago when I read certain things. I had such an intense love for the Church but now when I read of how many people want people like me out of the Church it makes me think. I suppose I had an idealized view of the Church and wasn't aware of how some people were lesser in the eyes of the Church.
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Posted Friday, May 15, 2009 4:16 AM By MarkF
Why are you unable to separate out the individual from the behavior? Why do you define yourself with a behavior that you say you've never done? Maybe it is too broad a stroke to say that you follow the gay agenda, but you certainly subscribe to the idea that the inclination is something that identifies the person. And you also seem to downplay the danger that the behavior, especially the legally sanctioned behavior does to the person and to society. The behavior is dangerous, but the person is never defined by their behavior. What the Church is holding out is freedom. I really think that you should talk to a solid, orthodox priest in your own area about all of this.
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Posted Friday, May 15, 2009 4:25 AM By Mark from PA
Actually, Mark, my orientation is not something that I discuss with people. It is just how I was born. It is something that I accept, not something I have a "devotion" to. I suppose you could call me dishonest because I am afraid of hated and discrimination so I don't talk about this with people. Since I am married and basically lead a chaste life it was never that big an issue.
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Posted Friday, May 15, 2009 4:07 PM By Mark from PA
Mark F, I never said a person is defined by their behavior. I treat people as individuals. I dislike stereotyping of people. I dislike objectifying people. (I find that some of the people that dislike gay people do this.) I do not define myself by sexual behavior and I don't define other people by sexual behavior either.
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Posted Friday, May 15, 2009 7:50 PM By MarkF
Mark, you most certainly do. When you use terms like "gay people" you are defining the person by the sexual acts and inclinations. When you read the Church's documents that only talk about the behavior of homosexuality and read into that hatred of the person, you have confused the person with the behavior.
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Posted Sunday, May 17, 2009 2:59 PM By Mark from PA
I use these terms in discussions, Mark. It is hard to discuss this without using the term gay or homosexual. In speech I actually don't use the term homosexual and would never refer to myself with this term. I think people are under no obligation to share their orientation with others. That is why I believe that (gay) celibate virgins surely have a right to attend seminaries. Their sexual orientation is nobody's business if they don't want it known. Why should people announce it to others when it will expose them to prejudice and discrimination? Do you feel that people have a right to privacy in this regard?
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Posted Monday, May 18, 2009 3:37 PM By Gerald
MarkF, numerous Church documents including the Catechism commonly use terms like "homosexual persons", "homosexual people", "handicapped people", "disabled persons", etc. These phrases, along with "gay people", can all be used to refer to people who have particular characteristics. There is nothing intrinsic to any of these phrases which says they "define" rather than describe anyone.
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