I wasn't really following this story because frankly, having a Pope meet with a transgendered person doesn't bother me. I think priests who are ramming their own same-sex attractions down the throats of Christ's people have done terrible damage to the Church by pretending same-sex attracted people are not welcome.
Same sex Catholics have never been unwelcome.
What sometimes happens..let us face it, what most times happens after the welcoming: The demoralization of everyone else's children.
The family is welcomed in the pews and moral theology can no longer be taught - to anyone - because it offends them.
Any time a priest teaches or has resources and programs that teach moral theology, they raise a big stink.
Our children are shut off from Church teaching.
Which isn't a small problem.
Yes, we can catechize at home, but it gives the appearance this is our own set of values, not a teaching that the Church really wishes us all to practice because it hasn't caught up with the values of the world.
Skeptical, they go to school where the teachers there take it upon themselves to instill their values and the values of our nutty politicians into OUR children.
This is against the law but we really don't have a system anymore where laws are in effect. The country is operating in lawlessness.
We attempt to continue to be convincing, we try to find families who practice the Catholic religion, but we are not all that effective when the local Bishop in the Chancery paints the practice of our religion as outdated fringe, appoints reprobates to teach immorality and sin in his own administration and Catechesis, and his polishes his public image with Ted Kennedy, Tom Menino and Obama.
Further, when a local Bishop defends priests who teach Catholics to practice same-sex to his congregation, the reality is, we become ineffective when we teach at home.
Before Pope Francis, we had this situation localized. The leadership in the Chair of Peter taught the faithful practice of our religion.
1. Some diocese were completely gonzo - Rochester, NY, the loon in Florida who had to pay off his eyecandy - his name always escapes me! Whatever. In these diocese, the bishop proactively snuffed out orthodoxy.
2. Others had a bad bishop, but too cowardly to fight off the pockets of orthodox priests who managed to quietly teach the faith and help families foster virtues in a world gone spiritually insane.
I could an epistle about the ill effects of this to our Church, our families and the culture - but that is not what this post is about.
3. We had some diocese who had a faithful bishop whose own cowardice has effectively filled our apostolates with apostates who demoralize our children. Pockets of orthodoxy survive in this environment. Again, because the Popes walked and talked moral theology that affirm what we teach at home.
4. And finally, we have good bishops with an entire diocese of people who are catechized living every day pursuing Sacramental Grace.
In the latter two situations, we had same-sex attracted priests who have been pounding the pavement with their sob story that same-sex Catholics are not welcome in the Church.
My good friend Fr. Bill Scanlan used to refer to them and their whole shtick as 'self-loathing gay priests'. How I miss him!
Pope Francis is operating the papacy as a #1.
He is snuffing out orthodoxy. The things he is saying and doing, not saying and not doing - have eclipsed the teachings of the Church and made every family in every diocese an at-risk family.
Irrespective of how Mark Shea and Mr. Weigel want to spin it, this is the reality inside of our homes. He has become an enemy of the family.
But the part about compensating for the messages people are not welcome is absolutely true.
We have to face the reality that the messages the Church doesn't welcome homosexuals did terrible damage.
I am on board attempts to ensure our homosexuals, bisexuals, trisexuals, transexuals, premarital sexuals - whatever your sexuals - feel welcome.
So, I wasn't really bothered when I read the Pope was reaching out to a transexual.
It didn't mitigate his eclipse of Church teaching in the world and I worried the woman would walk away with the wrong message.
That worry seems to have become a reality.
God help this poor woman, and I pray she is protected from the negative feedback of attributing affirmation that her meeting with the Pope left her with the feeling he'll push for change of moral theology.
These publicity stunts have got to come to an end.
He has control over them because there is one thing I can guarantee.
When the reporters on the back of a plane ask him about his meeting with the transexual, he will not say So I said to this dame, what are you doing to yourself? You're using sex like a gerbil. You are tempting God!
It won't happen.
So this isn't a problem with a Pope who has Tourette's syndrome.
He has not uttered a single indiscreet or insensitive insult about immoral sexual practices in his off the cuff remarks.
He's tipping his hand. The appointment of Kasper to form policies that eclipse Church teaching on moral theology is also a tip of the hand.
I know it. You know it. The media knows it. The dissidents know it. The children know it. I think Shea and Weigel know it, frankly.
Neria recalls heated discussions with a parish priest and some others in town. Afterward, he started staying away from Mass.
Well, yes.
Don't you notice the other sexuals coming and going without getting into heated discussions about the sex?
Those are private discussion in a confessional or with your spiritual director.
You don't come to "Mass" and then make stink when you hear the teachings of the Church.
You need to examine your purpose in coming.
If you're coming for an affirmation of the sex you are having or want to have, it's an abuse of the Sacrament.
The Mass a Sacrifice. Sit in the pew and take what you need from Him. Let the priest do his job.
Otherwise, while you are welcome, what you say and do is not welcome. It will never be welcome.
The blowback from people who want their children formed in the faith is going make you feel like your ideas are not welcome. Because they are not. Keep your ideas that stray from Church teaching to yourself. Keep your struggle private. We don't indoctrinate other people into ideas that mislead them from doctrine. People are coming to the building for support in the practice of virtues against our own ideas.
This is why drunks who are not interested in pursuing sobriety avoid AA meetings. If they show up to get into heated discussions about the virtues of drinking booze, the leaders say and do things that make them feel unwelcome. They are committing their time to helping people get and stay sober.
Priests have abandoned their vocation of expelling demons to become a celebrity. The Pope is living the dream.
Catholic doctrine holds that sex change procedures do not change a person's gender in the eyes of the church.
"But if this Pope has a long life, which all of his followers hope," Neria says, "I think things will change."
I think his plans have hit a little snag.
He's run full-throttle into the hand that rocks the cradle. I wish him a lot of luck.
I think they are back to the drawing board.
They didn't anticipate the push back. They never do.
An excellent post here with several links I would encourage you to follow and read.
Faithful Catholics are not going along for the ride. He has a problem on his hands. I think he'll need a few more kicks where the sun don't shine. There are a lot of feet in Christendom lifted into position.
About a year or so ago, practicing Catholics created quite ruckus about something Cardinal O'Malley said or did. I don't even remember the controversy. But per usual, they were caught off guard by the wagons surrounding their initiative. There were several rounds of heated private exchanges wherein they expressed their frustration that we were scorching the earth.
"You better believe it but don't blame us. That is your own fault." I said. "We tried twenty years of rational phone calls and letters asking for intervention. I've got a cellar full of dishonest and patronizing letters and newspapers filled with insults and slander. I hope my children and grandchildren will someday treasure them but we are not wasting any more of our time. Scorching the earth is the only thing that works."
I never thought I'd be scorching St. Peter's Square, but so be it. Worthy is the Lamb.
4 comments:
Some media reports of the meeting mention a Sister Monica, "a nun who ministers to transgender people, goes by a pseudonym in her public communications for fear of reprisal by Catholic authorities, and said,'[T]here is no public, official position of the Catholic Church regarding people who are transgender.'"
The Pontifical Council for Culture released a document in advance of its February conference on Women's Cultures: Equality and Difference. Among many things of which it makes criticisms (some of which are questionable) are plastic surgery as something that can "amputate the expressive possibilities of the human face, which are so connected to empathic abilities" and "be aggressive toward the feminine identity, showing a refusal of the body" (with which the media had a field day) as well as genital mutilation (a.k.a. female circumcision) but did not mention transgendering (especially as a form of mutilation under the guide of surgery).
Such statements or lack of them give rise to false hopes that the teaching may change.
The "loon in Florida who paid off his eye candy" is Robert Lynch. He's the same one who, over 10 years ago, gave aid and comfort to Michael Schiavo as the latter had his disabled wife, Terri, starved and dehydrated to death.
That's the one!
"Pope Francis is operating the papacy as a #1."
I agree with your opinion. Can not help but think about a line from the
Polish Solidarity movement"
"The more the Deputy Prime Minister protests his sincerity, the more sincere becomes our laughter"
Sadly, our salvation is not funny.
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