tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11575448.post113371601953695388..comments2022-03-27T07:33:10.961-05:00Comments on A Rainbow Flag In Narnia: My last words on the topic...Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13286849248756070621noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11575448.post-1134418566472203452005-12-12T14:16:00.000-06:002005-12-12T14:16:00.000-06:00Hello:Just a small comment: you say,To me, the Chu...Hello:<BR/><BR/>Just a small comment: you say,<BR/><BR/>To me, the Church has said that people with a given ontology - my ontology, my essential being and orientation - are to be excluded from ministry.<BR/><BR/>I'd like to clarify that ministry and priesthood are not the same. Priesthood is a subset of ministry. There is nothing in the documents that say that gay people are to be excluded from all fornms of ministry.<BR/><BR/>Furthermore, there is worth in each member of the Body of Christ, and what each member has to teach us about God cannot be easily learned from the other members of The Body of Christ. To abandon the church because one cannot be a priest would leave The Church full of priests and noone else.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the space to post.A Catholic Manhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07506155412961831123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11575448.post-1133803782195007172005-12-05T11:29:00.000-06:002005-12-05T11:29:00.000-06:00Steve, thanks for your post. It is all so very sa...Steve, thanks for your post. It is all so very sad and stupid. The Church hierarchy is essentially saying we have a "disease." <BR/><BR/>It's like trying to differentiate between having a cold and having asthma.<BR/><BR/>If a man just has a "cold" and gets over it, he can be a priest. But if he has "asthma," well, too bad.<BR/><BR/>As an Episcopalian, I know gays are welcome in many parishes, but we are having our own struggles, too. Hey, I'd be honored to go to church with all of you!<BR/><BR/>Peace, JoeVic Mansfieldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06194671996997775313noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11575448.post-1133762309400762082005-12-04T23:58:00.000-06:002005-12-04T23:58:00.000-06:00I suspect that a lot of gay and lesbian Catholics ...I suspect that a lot of gay and lesbian Catholics will stop practicing. Some will fill the ranks of Dignity. Others will move to other ecclesial communities, such as the Episcopals. <BR/><BR/>But it is not in the nature of Catholics to splinter off and start counter-churches. <BR/><BR/>The historic Reformation was inspired as much by the rise of national identity as it was by religious concerns, and was a singular event, I suspect, tied to a time and place in Catholic history. <BR/><BR/>And that is, I think, a good thing. The Reformation did not, on balance, achieve its aims of reformation. It did, however, start a splintering of Western Christendom that spawned, over the years, thousands of Protestant ecclesial communities, more typically fighting among themselves than seeking unity. I think most Christians recognize how destructive the process has been over the centuries. I hope that it is not repeated by gays and lesbians.<BR/><BR/>Steve, I empathize with your anger, and many of us who are Catholic share it, but I don't think that the events of recent weeks will cause an earthquake. <BR/><BR/>The events of recent weeks are the latest stages of the work and influence Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, over the last twenty years.<BR/><BR/>In the pre-Ratzinger era, the Catholic Church was moving to accept modern psychology as the basis for a theology of homosexuality -- read the 1975 CDF "Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics", for example -- well ahead of almost all Christians. The Church was groping along in that direction until the mid-1980's when Cardinal Ratzinger issued a "clarification", the "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons", which laid the structural groundwork for the change in course we've seen since then.<BR/><BR/>Ratzinger has undone that trajectory, but Ratzinger is transitory. The "reformation" will come from within, in a decade or two, after he is gone<BR/><BR/>The Catholic Church is going to go through wrenching times on this issue. It is not only the clergy who are affected by the recent spate of instructions, explanations and guidelines, but the gay and lesbian laity and families of gays and lesbians -- all are directly affected.<BR/><BR/>The tide will turn. Whether it will turn in my lifetime is an open question. But it will turn.<BR/><BR/>As you know, I know the history of Catholic teaching and action with respect to Jews and Judaism better than most. <BR/><BR/>The Church, on that issue, wandered around between two poles of Christian thought, often acting with great force and with great injustice to repress Jews and Judaism, and at other times acting rationally. In the end, the Church found its way to a resolution, and we can expect to see the Church re-Judaize itself over the next century or so, if the trajectory holds.<BR/><BR/>The Church is, I think, bouncing back and forth on the issue of homosexuality, in a somewhat similar way. We are in a time when the dark forces of repression reign in the Catholic Church, as in our country and in many Protestant denominations. I can't speak for or about Protestants, but I am confident that our country and the Catholic Church will eventually right itself.Tom Scharbachhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15397752812367691354noreply@blogger.com