In a previous post, I noted how Mr. John Kelly, chair of St. Cecilia's "Rainbow Ministry," refuses to consider the Church's authentic teaching regarding homosexual acts and the homosexual inclination and is openly looking for a relationship with another man. One would think that for these reasons alone Cardinal Sean O'Malley would ban this dissident and homosexual activist from any Catholic ministry within the Boston Archdiocese.
But it gets worse folks. Boy does it get worse. In a Blog post entitled "Mychal Judge embraced his homosexuality as a gift of God" (Father Mychal Judge was a Franciscan priest and chaplain for the New York Fire Department who lost his life during the World Trade Center attack on 911), Mr. Kelly writes, "Some have asked, Why do we need to know that Fr. Mike was gay? First, because Mychal himself brought it up. He felt it important to share this aspect of himself, to put a human face and name upon the despised label of 'homosexual'. Recall how Christ, when asked, 'Who is my neighbor?,' tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, putting a human face on the Samaritans who were despised by the Jews. To truly understand Mychal Judge, to fully appreciate how God worked through him, we must recognize this truth about him. Mychal’s gayness was a major reason for his deep empathy with others, especially outcasts. He was holy in part because he was gay, not despite the fact.
Second, we should know that Fr. Mike was gay because Rome wants to purge many good, gifted gay seminarians. Mychal Judge and many like him would be barred from the priesthood under this regime. Christ had no problem with Mychal’s orientation, but Rome does.
Third, awareness of Fr. Mychal’s gay identity saves lives, and we are a pro-life Church. 1500 gay and lesbian teenagers commit suicide each year in the U.S., succumbing to intense rejection and internalized shame.
Mychal intervened in at least one family whose teenage son came out to his parents. That story had a happy ending, but thousands of gay kids are still rejected, abused, driven to suicide, and thrown out to the streets by their parents.
Public awareness of Mychal's gay identity continues to save lives by providing greater understanding, fulfilling Christ’s command to “go and do likewise” as the Good Samaritan.
Some have asked, Shouldn't sexual orientation be kept private?
Intimacy is a private matter. But identity and prejudice are public matters affecting the mental, social, physical, and spiritual health of millions of families and individuals.
Those who are embarrassed by this serious, mature discussion wrongly associate guilt and shame with homosexual orientation and relationships. They ought to examine where their visceral reactions really come from. They ought to question Rome’s faulty assumptions and, indeed, Rome’s own 'objective disorders' which more often resemble a severely dysfunctional family than the Body of Christ.
For centuries, Catholics were also taught to fear left-handed people as 'servants of the devil,' and the left-handed were burned at the stake along with faggots and heretics. (The word faggot, literally “burning bundle,” derives from these church burnings of gay men).
Now we know that homosexuality is no more 'disordered' or 'sinful' than left-handedness. Medical and scientific research strongly point to sexual orientation as determined at birth; that it’s nature over nurture for most people. Therefore, homosexual orientation, like left-handedness, is a Divinely created, normal variation within natural law. As such, gay people face the same moral challenges as everyone else.
The truly disordered homosexuals, psychiatrists say, are the ego-dystonic ones -- the self-loathing and dis-integrated, those who don't accept themselves. The most strident homophobes often have unresolved fears and wounds of their own which they project onto others. Christ warned of such projection: “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but not the beam in your own eye?!”
Homophobic guilt, shame, and fear are pathological reactions; they are not of Christ. Christ spreads healing, not pathology -- holiness, not neurosis. Whatever is psychologically unhealthy can never be spiritually holy. (The very words “holy” and “holiness” derive from healthy, happy, and wholeness).
Mychal Judge rejected pathological shame, and embraced his homosexuality as God's will for him.
We are born with our basic sexual orientations. Homosexuality, like left-handedness or red hair, is Divinely created. It is a normal variation in nature, occurring among humans and other species around the world.....Transcending the pathological guilt and shame inflicted upon gay people by prejudice, he [Fr. Judge] embraced his gay quality as a naturally inborn, God-given gift. This also contributed to his recovery from alcoholism. From there, he received and shared grace in extremis..." (Full post here).
The Church's teaching is clear. It represents the mind of Christ. And this teaching insists that, "..homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts 'close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved..." (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, No. 4). This same clear document, after stressing that people with a deviant homosexual inclination should be treated with respect and compassion, cites the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which teaches that such an inclination is "objectively disordered" and that homosexual practices are among the sins "gravely contrary to chastity."
Mr. Kelly not only rejects this teaching entirely, but he insists that it is the Teaching Church which has relied upon "faulty assumptions" and which suffers from "objective disorders."
But hey, not to worry folks. After all, Mr. Kelly works for Father John Unni. And Fr. Unni has the "full confidence and support" of the Cardinal and the Boston Archdiocese.
Sleep well.
But it gets worse folks. Boy does it get worse. In a Blog post entitled "Mychal Judge embraced his homosexuality as a gift of God" (Father Mychal Judge was a Franciscan priest and chaplain for the New York Fire Department who lost his life during the World Trade Center attack on 911), Mr. Kelly writes, "Some have asked, Why do we need to know that Fr. Mike was gay? First, because Mychal himself brought it up. He felt it important to share this aspect of himself, to put a human face and name upon the despised label of 'homosexual'. Recall how Christ, when asked, 'Who is my neighbor?,' tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, putting a human face on the Samaritans who were despised by the Jews. To truly understand Mychal Judge, to fully appreciate how God worked through him, we must recognize this truth about him. Mychal’s gayness was a major reason for his deep empathy with others, especially outcasts. He was holy in part because he was gay, not despite the fact.
Second, we should know that Fr. Mike was gay because Rome wants to purge many good, gifted gay seminarians. Mychal Judge and many like him would be barred from the priesthood under this regime. Christ had no problem with Mychal’s orientation, but Rome does.
Third, awareness of Fr. Mychal’s gay identity saves lives, and we are a pro-life Church. 1500 gay and lesbian teenagers commit suicide each year in the U.S., succumbing to intense rejection and internalized shame.
Mychal intervened in at least one family whose teenage son came out to his parents. That story had a happy ending, but thousands of gay kids are still rejected, abused, driven to suicide, and thrown out to the streets by their parents.
Public awareness of Mychal's gay identity continues to save lives by providing greater understanding, fulfilling Christ’s command to “go and do likewise” as the Good Samaritan.
Some have asked, Shouldn't sexual orientation be kept private?
Intimacy is a private matter. But identity and prejudice are public matters affecting the mental, social, physical, and spiritual health of millions of families and individuals.
Those who are embarrassed by this serious, mature discussion wrongly associate guilt and shame with homosexual orientation and relationships. They ought to examine where their visceral reactions really come from. They ought to question Rome’s faulty assumptions and, indeed, Rome’s own 'objective disorders' which more often resemble a severely dysfunctional family than the Body of Christ.
For centuries, Catholics were also taught to fear left-handed people as 'servants of the devil,' and the left-handed were burned at the stake along with faggots and heretics. (The word faggot, literally “burning bundle,” derives from these church burnings of gay men).
Now we know that homosexuality is no more 'disordered' or 'sinful' than left-handedness. Medical and scientific research strongly point to sexual orientation as determined at birth; that it’s nature over nurture for most people. Therefore, homosexual orientation, like left-handedness, is a Divinely created, normal variation within natural law. As such, gay people face the same moral challenges as everyone else.
The truly disordered homosexuals, psychiatrists say, are the ego-dystonic ones -- the self-loathing and dis-integrated, those who don't accept themselves. The most strident homophobes often have unresolved fears and wounds of their own which they project onto others. Christ warned of such projection: “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but not the beam in your own eye?!”
Homophobic guilt, shame, and fear are pathological reactions; they are not of Christ. Christ spreads healing, not pathology -- holiness, not neurosis. Whatever is psychologically unhealthy can never be spiritually holy. (The very words “holy” and “holiness” derive from healthy, happy, and wholeness).
Mychal Judge rejected pathological shame, and embraced his homosexuality as God's will for him.
We are born with our basic sexual orientations. Homosexuality, like left-handedness or red hair, is Divinely created. It is a normal variation in nature, occurring among humans and other species around the world.....Transcending the pathological guilt and shame inflicted upon gay people by prejudice, he [Fr. Judge] embraced his gay quality as a naturally inborn, God-given gift. This also contributed to his recovery from alcoholism. From there, he received and shared grace in extremis..." (Full post here).
The Church's teaching is clear. It represents the mind of Christ. And this teaching insists that, "..homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts 'close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved..." (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, No. 4). This same clear document, after stressing that people with a deviant homosexual inclination should be treated with respect and compassion, cites the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which teaches that such an inclination is "objectively disordered" and that homosexual practices are among the sins "gravely contrary to chastity."
Mr. Kelly not only rejects this teaching entirely, but he insists that it is the Teaching Church which has relied upon "faulty assumptions" and which suffers from "objective disorders."
But hey, not to worry folks. After all, Mr. Kelly works for Father John Unni. And Fr. Unni has the "full confidence and support" of the Cardinal and the Boston Archdiocese.
Sleep well.
