{"id":7484,"date":"2003-12-22T20:28:50","date_gmt":"2003-12-23T01:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/2003\/12\/22\/contrasts\/"},"modified":"2003-12-22T20:28:50","modified_gmt":"2003-12-23T01:28:50","slug":"contrasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2003\/12\/contrasts\/","title":{"rendered":"Contrasts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"post\">In Australia<\/p>\n<p class=\"articles\">A prominent Anglican clergyman known for his hardline stance on gay clergy and the ordination of women has been ordained into the Catholic priesthood. <\/p>\n<p class=\"articles\">Bill Edebohls, the former Anglican Dean of Ballarat, who is married with children, was ordained a Catholic priest in Melbourne&#8217;s St Patrick&#8217;s Cathedral last month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"articles\">The Pope allows married priests who convert to Catholicism an exemption from the vow of celibacy. <\/p>\n<p class=\"articles\">A spokesman for the St Peter&#8217;s Catholic Church in the Melbourne suburb of Keilor East today said Father Edebohls was busy preparing for a Christmas mass at the church. <\/p>\n<p class=\"articles\">Rector of the Anglican All Saints Church in Brisbane and a friend of Father Edebohls, David Chislett, told ABC Radio there were a number of &#8220;Anglo-Catholics&#8221; unhappy with the direction of the Anglican Church.<br \/> [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/articles\/2003\/12\/23\/1071941703011.html\" target=\"_blank\">Full Story<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p class=\"post\">In Chicago<\/p>\n<p class=\"articles\">Saying they can no longer remain silent, a group of Chicago area Catholic pastors denounced what they say is &#8220;vile and toxic&#8221; language from the Vatican aimed at gays and lesbians.<\/p>\n<p class=\"articles\">The group of nearly two dozen priests from parishes in Chicago and the suburbs sent a scathing &#8220;open letter&#8221; to church officials Friday. In it, the pastors blasted recent church pronouncements regarding gays as &#8220;divisive and exclusionary&#8221; and &#8220;increasingly violent and abusive.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"articles\">&#8220;As priests and pastors we are speaking out to make clear that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters are all members of God&#8217;s family, brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus and deserving of the same dignity and respect owed any human being,&#8221; the letter stated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"post\">The Cardinal Responded:<\/p>\n<p class=\"articles\">&#8220;Our language is exact, but it does not help us in welcoming men and women of homosexual orientation,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;It can seem lacking in respect. This is a pastoral problem and a source of anxiety for me as it is for you. It would be good to discuss together.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"articles\">But George went on to say that pastors must &#8220;mediate the tension between welcoming people and calling them to change.&#8221;<br \/>[<a href=\"http:\/\/www.suntimes.com\/output\/news\/cst-nws-gay21.html\" target=\"_blank\">Full Story<\/a>][Via <a href=\"http:\/\/bettnet.dyndns.org\/blog\/comments.php?id=P2357_0_1_0\" target=\"_blank\">Domenico Bettinelli<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p class=\"post\">I am certainly glad that I am not a bishop, because I would be meditating on the tension between tossing these priests out on the street and stringing them up.  I can put up with some priests questioning the discipline of celibacy, but to outright attack something that will never be open to discussion is plain disobedience.  I remember reading <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vatican.va\/roman_curia\/congregations\/cfaith\/documents\/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html\" target=\"_blank\">LETTER TO THE BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE PASTORAL CARE OF HOMOSEXUAL PERSONS<\/a> and it was in no way toxic, vile, violent, or abusive.  In fact the letter does mention violence once.<\/p>\n<p class=\"articles\">It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church&#8217;s pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.<\/p>\n<p class=\"post\">To call homosexual activity &#8220;intrinsically disordered&#8221; is only to affirm that sin is always disordered.  Will these priests also advocate for adultery and remind us that they are also part of God&#8217;s family?  The Catechism is pretty violent on adultery also.  Our stance on the indissolubility of a validly contracted marriage is also not very welcoming towards those who have divorced and remarried and it can be pretty divisive and exclusionary to those who don&#8217;t except the words of Christ through his Church..<\/p>\n<p class=\"articles\">2380 Adultery refers to marital infidelity. When two partners, of whom at least one is married to another party, have sexual relations &#8211; even transient ones &#8211; they commit adultery. Christ condemns even adultery of mere desire. The sixth commandment and the New Testament forbid adultery absolutely. The prophets denounce the gravity of adultery; they see it as an image of the sin of idolatry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"post\">Sin does not take away our dignity, but it can take us away from living with God in eternal beatitude.  To say otherwise is spiritual malpractice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Australia A prominent Anglican clergyman known for his hardline stance on gay clergy and the ordination of women has been ordained into the Catholic priesthood. Bill Edebohls, the former&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-punditry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}