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Published: March 10, 2010
Our Prodigal God
Gay Retreat in Menlo Park
Father James Schexnayder’s gay identity “emerged” in the late 1970s, according to the Religious Archives Network, a LGBT website. In 1986 he was asked by then-Bishop John Cummins to start an HIV/AIDS ministry in the diocese under the auspices of Catholic Charities.
In 1995 Schexnayder was elected chairman of the board of the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries, a group whose relations with the U.S. bishops conference have waxed and waned.
 Saturday, March 13, Schexnayder will lead a retreat for “gay and lesbian Catholics and other Christians” at Vallombrosa retreat center in Meno Park, owned and run by the diocese of San Francisco. Pre-Cana retreats are held at Vallombrosa.
In a California Catholic Daily story on February 26, 2009, just before Father Schexnayder was to lead last year’s gay retreat, this last paragraph explained the homosexual priest’s distinctions:
At a January 2002 talk at Santa Sophia parish in Spring Valley (San Diego diocese), Fr. Schexnayder said, “Regarding sexual behavior, the Catholic Catechism... does not use the word ‘celibacy’ for gay and lesbian people; the word is ‘chastity,’” which, said Schexnayder, is “about successful integration.” As for homosexual unions, “I don’t think the Church is going to deal with gay and lesbian marriages, but in its history and those who have done research on this, the Catholic Church and other Christian churches like the Orthodox church, have in fact in history blessed same-gender unions as spiritual bondings, and there are saints who have had very committed relationships.”
Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 3:21 AM By BJ
From the Old Testament through the New, right up to the last page before Revelations, the practice of homosexuality is clearly profoundly rejected Biblically. There is no way that the Bible can be revised or rewritten to allow for any particular wish list
of those who refuse to accept its authority. If you insist that sinful behaviour is not sinful because it is innate, or born of
'love', you are simply rejecting your cross, and committing spiritual suicide, rather than live with the pain. We can all learn profound truths by observing the physically afflicted who make the best of their sometimes apparently impossible conditions and go on to lead meaningful, inspirational lives, rather than take the easy way out. The person who is afflicted with any cross must at least try to live with it...... it's futile and superficial to try to legislate for the affliction to be 'disappeared', when deep down we all know that it is a very real problem.
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 5:35 AM By ted
Since the Church teaches that chastity among those who are not married requires abstinence from sex, this priest is simply playing with words. "Successful Integration" in his word play seems to mean some form of gay "marriage," but it can't be acceptable in terms of Church teachings. Unless he's planning a retreat where the Church's teachings are followed and taught, the diocese should not allow it.
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 7:00 AM By Sawyer
Fr. S seems to be a deeply confused man. Deeply confused about Catholic faith and his role as a priest.
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 7:45 AM By East Coast Tom
I hope that the retreat center is thoroughly cleaned, fumigated and exorcized after the gay retreat and before the next Pre-Cana retreat.
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 8:28 AM By Doc Mugwump
Unbelievable. Let's just rewrite history, rewrite doctrine and redefine Catholic teaching on homosexuality all in one fell swoop. Why is this man still a priest in good standing with any diocese? Lord... forgive us our sins as we forgive those who tresspass against your Church...
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 8:55 AM By ELIZABETH
IF THIS WAS THE GROUP 'COURAGE' THEN I SAY THAT'S GOOD, BUT NOT THIS NONSENSE!!!!!!!!
AB NIEDERHAUER WE NEED YOU TO PUT A STOP TO THIS!!!!!
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 9:29 AM By Willi H
Yey another example of the fruits (no pun intended) of the heresy and apostasy that is tolerated by the Church, especially the American Church! Traditionalists are suppressed and this is encouraged by the Bishops! When Traditionalists go it alone (outside the "official" Catholic Church), this is one of the reasons why!
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 10:00 AM By Laurette Elsberry
I would urge all CalCatholic readers to look into the CalCatholic archived articles and the San Francisco Faith articles that were published before CalCatholic began (all accessible through this website). Those archives contain a wealth of information on Fr. Schexnayder and his machinations to make evil look good and good appear to be evil. I have seen him in action. It is unbelievable that he is still allowed to speak at Catholic facilities. Well, considering that Vallombrosa is owned by the San Francisco Archdiocese, I guess it is not surprising. I wonder if the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are on the agenda.
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 10:07 AM By TotaTua
Tom - that was exactly what i was thinking, blessed salt and holy water all around.
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 10:19 AM By WOODY GUIDRY
MY OPINION is that Father James is NOT toying with anybody-or confused either. CHASTITY is the act that lay people have ALWAYS toyed with-and Father has the chore to make the practice of our Faith a practice of extending the love of God to those laden with problems of nature. OF COURSE, one who has not practiced chastity in male/female relationships will not realize the difficulty in the dual relationship of CHASTITY with one of the same gender! I am suspicious of those who are ready to condemn the saints who were SSA and were able to love and be chaste at the same time. THEY HAVE PROVED IT IS POSSIBLE-AND CAN BE DUPLICATED BY THOSE WHO TRULY WANT GOD'S LOVE IN A DIFFICULT (that's a mild adjective!) TIME. If you are not chaste, then master that virtue before you try to appear CAPABLE of judging those people!!
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 10:40 AM By Sandra
Is there a special discount rate for double occupancy in the rooms for the gay retreat? Will couples be separated, like they are for marriage encounter retreats?
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 10:43 AM By Abeca Christian
Sick very sick!
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 10:56 AM By Brad
It's amazing the lengths we humans will go to to justify our desires. Talk about gymnastics. But God sees through all of our bull-o-ney. I suspect more and more that Mary, alone, was (is) the only creature to never have played this game. But she is special, isn't she? :-)
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 12:39 PM By Canisius
If the hierarchy wont do anything then it is up to us in the laity to do something. My God if shepherds abandon the flock, its time for the laity to take extreme measures
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 1:10 PM By WOODY GUIDRY
RESUBMITTING-first comment may have failed. In toto, I accuse those whose male/female relationships have failed in chastity of being ignorant of how difficult and marvelous it is to achieve sainthood in the combined SSA/chaste relationships. If you're not chaste, you are not in a position to realistically criticize people in a doubly difficult role.
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 1:48 PM By Sawyer
The last paragraph refers to "history" showing that the Church has blessed same-sex unions. I assume Fr. S. means the work of John Boswell (e.g., "Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe"). Boswell's scholarship has been repudiated. At no time did the Church bless same-sex unions; nor will it ever.
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 3:33 PM By John Zakharia
If the priest claims to be christian then it follows he will be using the christian bible which clearly states : "For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due." (Romans 1:26-27).
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 4:06 PM By MarkF
I'm proposing an open ended question here, specifically about homosexual actions, which present such a problem for theologians and for the faithful, but also I mean it really to be an open question about all sin in general. My first premise is that all sin is the same and that homosexual actions are not a special class of sin. All sin separates us from God. My question about sin is, when are we good enough for us to be joined with God? We can't be perfect. We're never not going to sin. People struggle with all sorts of temptations and it's easy to avoid the things that we as individuals are not tempted by. When do we let ourselves off the hook and be content that God loves us? I agree with Woody's latest post of 1:10 PM today. I'd also strongly agree that the pro-homosexual philosophy is heresy pure and simple. I'd suggest that much worse than any particular homosexual action is the idea that such actions are not wrong. Yet what are we to do in a kindly pastoral way with this world as it is now? Or with our own lives? The pro-homosexual people like this Fr. Schexnayder, Fr. Farrow and Sr. Joan Chittister do more damage than good; a lot more damage. Yet do we do any good when we just scream "No!" at people? Isn't the best answer that of Jesus? "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more."
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 4:28 PM By Abeca Christian
Canisius if only the Laity would do just what you you suggested, that would be a miracle and the media would be all over it, I think that it would be a powerful witness to the world that the true faith will not longer tolerate such evils.
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 6:28 PM By JLS
MarkF, the doctrine of "all sin is the same" is not Catholic.
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 6:59 PM By John Zakharia
In response to MarkF who says "sin is sin" and "we do any good when we just scream "No!" at people?" MarkF in my opinion is supporting the deviant lifestyle. If one followed his logic we could not do anything if one kills her baby because the other day I cheated my taxes. So anyone who sins by cheating his taxes should remain silent when he sees homosexuals dying from aids and babies being killed because two wrong make a right. Crazy indeed.
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Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010 9:24 PM By JLS
Before I became Catholic, I was in a Baptist church, which was pastored by a highly educated Bible scholar. The doctrine on this topic that he preached was the "all sins are the same, because they all separate you from God". I thought about that for a while and realized that it was a faulty doctrine. Later in the Catholic Church I found confirmation of my suspicions. One of the best venues for hearing this Bible thumping false doctrine that there is no difference in the gravity of sins is the TV because it is used as a guilt motivator to generate income from the viewing audience.
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Posted Saturday, March 13, 2010 2:42 PM By Abeca Christian
Not all sin is the same because we have venial sins, that can lead to immortal sins if we don't be careful. Some sins actually send us straight to hell if we don't repent and confess them, and some just keep us longer in purgatory more so than others. Sin does separate us from God but some sins actually block us from obtaining graces more easier than others. The spiritual world is not what people make it out to be. When we are born we are born with original sin, that is why we need baptism to be cleansed but how does one explain for those unborn babies that are aborted daily, they never had a chance at baptism, you see how some things are not ever answered, the spiritual life is never fully understood, we are specks and only the good Lord knows those answers. But pity the darkness one enters when they choose abortion for their own children. Sin has a chain reaction, it affects those closest to us and others. All those little babies sucked out without the blessing to grow up and choose Christ and His salvation plan for us humans. Such darkness one enters indeed.
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Posted Saturday, March 13, 2010 7:40 PM By CD
Sins are either venial or mortal. Venial sins do not cause the loss of sanctifying grace and can be forgiven through pious exercises of many kinds. It is mortal sin which separates the soul from God. For a sin to be mortal a person must have full knowledge, consent fully, and the subject matter must be serious
(sometimes referred to as grave, but the meaning is the same).
Catholicism has always held that unchastity is always serious matter. The general view of moral theologians is that there are degrees of difference between the possible sins of unchastity, from fornication to bestiality, with contraceptive sex and homosexual acts in the middle. But these are degrees of the same kind of sin which is lust, and it is really rather pointless for the layperson to attempt to classify them. And certainly when taking into account both knowledge and consent, it is only for the priest in confession to make a judgement about another person.
We are , however, all responsible for ourselves, and for forming our consciences in accordance with the doctrine of the Church, also keeping in mind that in the hierarchy of sins those of the spirit are even more serious than those of the flesh.
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Posted Saturday, March 13, 2010 8:34 PM By JLS
St Paul says the sin of sodom is the consequence of sin. When we read the OT, we find that the worst mortal sins were idol worship and adultry. These tended to be punished divinely on the basis of individuals, but sodomy was punished by total destruction of several cities and towns at once, not by man but by God. We find Scripture to inform us that sins can rise up more and more voluminously until God sends His wrath; thus, sin has to be looked at both individually and corporately. St Paul tells us that adultry puts a soul in touch with all the others who have committed adultry with whoever that soul did it with. One sin of adultry is not as bad as two sins ... it evidently snowballs.
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Posted Sunday, March 14, 2010 10:30 PM By Abeca Christian
JLS that's right, in the OT we see a perfect example because of Noah and the flood, people were so lustful and filled with all types of sexual sins and idol worship. You also mentioned a perfect example regarding the sin of Sodom. I wish people would see the connection of those times to today's times in regards to the homosexual agenda. They are bringing us all down with those evil lifestyles and the scandalizing of the children as well.
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Posted Monday, March 15, 2010 12:12 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
The fact is that Shexnayder has been forbidden by the Magisterium to even address sexual matters publicly. Where is the obedience on his part and on the Archdiocese?
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
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Posted Monday, March 15, 2010 4:06 PM By Mark from PA
Woody, thanks for the thoughtful comments. What you said was profound in a way.
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Posted Monday, March 15, 2010 5:04 PM By JLS
One explanation among others, Abeca, is that people often do not see the connection between our times and ancient times, is their preference for the idea of evolution, in the sense that man and civilization are developing biologically. They prefer science fiction stories to stories of reality ... because in fiction they can shuffle around their guilt and not turn from their sins which brings that guilt. They hide and deny just like Cain did. Catholicism brings awareness and development of individual personality, whereas apart from the Sacraments there is nothing but imitation. The "Imitation of Christ" by Thomas Kempis is not something that interests Hollywood, the chief fantasizer for the western world.
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Posted Thursday, March 18, 2010 6:46 PM By Marilyn Prescott
The Bible does not name certain practices as sins but the inferences are present. For example, David's daughter Tamar was raped by her half brother Amnon. The account tells of King David's fury when he learned what had happened, but does not tell us how God felt about it. We would have to allow scripture to interpret scripture. In the book of Leviticus18:9, God's law states specifically that a man was not to have sexual relations with his father's daughter. Likewise, the Genesis 19 account of Sodom and Gomorrah tells about the men pressing at Lot's door urging the two angels to come out to have sex with them. Lot tells them not to do 'this wicked thing'. Although God did not say it, his righteous man in that city did. Again in Leviticus 18:22 the law states that a man is not to lie with man as one would lie with a woman; it is detestable. We do not have to guess about the identity of sin; God gives us both identification and application. Hello to JLS and Kenneth. No new developments in my son's case. However, we are ready to file the lawsuit.
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Posted Thursday, March 18, 2010 7:57 PM By JLS
May God's blessings be with you, Marilyn and your family. What happened with King David's children was a punishment for David's sin of adultry with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, which was told David by the prophet Samuel, as I recall. Sin has its consequences. Play with fire, get burned. Since God would not order people such as Amnon raping Tamar, then one can see that God was telling David that his sin would wreak havoc down the line. In another OT passage God informs us that the sin of the father will reach down ten generations, and in another the consequences reach a hundred generations. Whether there is direct God ordered individual case punishment for sin is a question that might not be resolvable in individual cases, as it rains on both sinner and saint alike. We cannot determine for sure most of the time if a bad deal is the direct result of a sin. In the case of heavy corruption, it is up to people who can see it to expose it and bring it to an end. Jesus tells us that if our neighbor's ox is stuck in a pit, that we must help rescue that ox. We are not here to stand by and pray only: St Benedict's Ora et Labora, "Pray as if it all depends on God and work as if it all depends on you".
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Posted Friday, March 19, 2010 7:43 AM By Marilyn Prescott
Thanks for the input JLS. Here in Modesto we have heavy corruption among politicians who are blatant and overt. Judge Whiteside ruled in a case that was not tried before a jury in 2008. The defendant, Alfred "Chip" Husky, was an ex deputy and a good ole boy. Husky was convicted of raping his fifteen year old stepdaughter from the time she was three years old. His admission to the rape, using and giving her illegal drugs, and his attempted suicide was taped by two detectives as he spoke to the victim on the phone. Whiteside determined that since Husky had been a model deputy, sentenced him to one year in the county jail. He served eight months. Husky was in the cell next to my son. Husky complained that my son was making too much noise and requested that Craig be moved to another floor. The sergeant accommodated this child molester and that is what started the entire incident. Here is what is shocking; Husky was the DA's witness X and does not have to register as a sex offender. If you go to the Sacramento Bee and type in his name, the entire story can be read. How is that injustice for you? My son was there for violating a restraining order and was killed. Husky cannot be found to give a deposition. I am praying for God's justice, not man's.
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Posted Friday, March 19, 2010 3:28 PM By Marilyn Prescott
JLS, Here is the information in the Alfred Husky case. Sacramento Bee web site; Plea Bargain in Sex Case Raises Questions.
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Posted Friday, March 19, 2010 4:00 PM By JLS
Marilyn, maybe Husky ordered the hit; however, I cannot fathom that any of his colleagues would have continued any friendship with him. It would be odd that he was not shunned severely. It is also bizarre that his victim did not pursue it ... there is always the upgrade to a federal crime of violating one's civil rights. Not likely a federal court would let him off with less than 40 years. But why is not the FBI already digging into this situation? There must be someone who has notified them? What about the prosecutor of Husky? Was he paid off also? Other than that TV special that aired ten or fifteen years ago about the Canadian pedophile operation centered on a Christian Brothers orphanage, I have never heard of such corruption as you have brought up ... well, except perhaps in parts of the "South" where such stuff might well have been the norm instead of the exception. I cannot imagine that professors and grad students of history and such areas would not be leaping into this one. Where is Hollywood when you need them ... probably asleep at the last party.
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Posted Friday, March 19, 2010 5:18 PM By JLS
Marilyn, do you recall where the previous thread on CCD is located?
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Posted Friday, March 19, 2010 7:06 PM By Marilyn Prescott
Yes, February 15 ; Justice, Charity and Truth.
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Posted Sunday, March 21, 2010 7:54 AM By Marilyn Prescott
JLS, my last response was not accepted. I did quote our sheriff referring to an African American female police officer as a word used for a female dog. Our county has regressed. During the eighties and nineties, we had racial diversity in leadership and government. This community has much nepotism. Judges are married to attorneys who are married to congressmen who are married to policemen. They attend the same churches and social functions. They are all Republicans who believe strongly in exclusion. The sheriff came here in the nineties from Montana. He became sheriff in 2006 because the former sheriff and other politicians supported him. I recently learned that he was fired from the Modesto Police Department for what he called the female officer; he was fired from another city in the county,Ceres, for stating another racial slur. He received bundle checks as campaign contributions from companies in other states who were awarded contracts with this county. By the way, the Modesto Bee newspaper's editor and the sheriff are friends, so seldom does anything negative get printed about him. That is why I appreciate expressing myself to someone outside of the area who will listen. We do have an ex mayor Carmen Sabatino, who has a talk show on Blog Talk Radio, Morning Mayor. He discusses issues that are controversial. I have often been a quest on his show. Thank you for writing back.
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Posted Tuesday, March 23, 2010 9:01 AM By Canisius
Woody, the difference between me and the sodomites is that I don't pretend my sins are gift from God. much like the sodomites are known to say.
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