Gary Morella is a Catholic member of the research faculty of Penn State University, and a father and grandfather who is concerned whether there will be a recognizable faith left to his children and grandchildren. He is also a friend (although we have never met in person) and a bold critic of inane political correctness, especially at his own university. While as a non-Catholic I do not concur with every theological assertion herein, I have the utmost respect for Morella as one who applies faith, reason and courage in debunking the sophistries of the day. — Peter LaBarbera, AFT

By Gary Morella

Thoughts on: Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination: Guidelines for Pastoral Care

The main problem with this document is the mindset since Vatican II that no longer condemns a sin that cries out to Heaven for vengeance but rather condemns those who remind the world of that fact, the latter being called charity by those in the modern Church who are unrecognizable as Catholic. This document is written in “gayspeak” in the same manner that the horrendous Always Our Children was. The biggest concern of the USCCB is homophobia, not helping those inclined to homosexual acts to leave, as opposed to live, lifestyles that are an abomination before God, or resist temptations to same.

The comparisons between the traditional Church teaching on sins against nature vs. the post-conciliar attitude is striking when one uses Sacred Scripture and Tradition in the form of statements from the Popes, Councils, Saints, and Apologists combined with the tradition of civil legislation to show the moral chasm that has resulted when the language of “pseudo charity” replaces the language of “tough love” for salvation’s sake. The result being that the necessary feelings of revulsion toward those proudly trumpeting their sodomite tendencies are no longer there opening the door for a misplaced compassion that such individuals do not deserve. There is a huge difference between an ontological dignity to which all are entitled by virtue of being made in the image and likeness of God, and a moral dignity as a function of being endowed with an intellect and will whereby good can be accepted and evil rejected. Moral dignity does not exist for those having no problem with inclinations to homosexual acts, a distinction that the post-conciliar Church never makes using language that would have us erroneously believe that there exists something called the homosexual person, a concept which turns Christian anthropology on its head making God, Who is Perfect Good, out to be a liar in creating man with a built-in one way ticket to hell in complete ignorance of the effect of the concupiscence due to Original Sin.

Words have consequences with a litany of saints to include St. John Chrysostom telling us that “A murderer only separates the soul from the body, whereas these (sodomites) destroy the soul inside the body” vs. the post-conciliar attitude of Cardinal Basil Hume who was quoted as saying “The particular orientation or inclination of the homosexual person is not a moral failing …. Being a homosexual person is, then, neither morally good nor morally bad; it is homosexual genital acts that are morally wrong.”

By reducing moral culpability only to acts, Cardinal Hume (and the entirety of the post-conciliar Church) appeared to legitimize sinful thoughts and words. However, such concessions incur culpability with regard to the vice of homosexuality like any other vice, as Catholic doctrine has ALWAYS taught.” The rest is history as Hume opened the door for the condemnation of homosexuality in the post-conciliar Church to be needlessly qualified, if at all, something that Saints Peter, Jude, Pius V, Basil of Cesarea, Augustine, Aquinas, John Chrysostom, Gregory the Great, Peter Damian, Albert the Great, Bonaventure, Catherine of Sienna, Bernardine of Sienna, Peter Canisius, and the councils of Ancyra, Toledo, Nablus, and Third Lateran did not suffer.

Excerpted from Liberals Aim to Push Ideas Through Congress, published Nov 16, 2006, by Associated Press:

…The president of the largest national gay-rights group, Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign, said he has high hopes for two long-pending proposals that failed to get through the GOP-controlled Congress. One would outlaw employment discrimination [ENDA] against gays, lesbians and transgender people; another would include them among the groups protected in federal hate-crimes legislation.

Gay activists also would like to see Congress repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that prohibits gay members of the military from being open about their sexual orientation – but a push for this may come somewhere down the road.

“Everyone remembers the fight President Clinton had when he made this his first major political issue in 1993,” said Aaron Belkin, director of a University of California, Santa Barbara think tank that studies gays and the military.

“While opinion on letting gays serve has moved leaps and bounds since then, the new Democratic Congress is not likely to come out strongly on this one from the get-go,” Belkin said.

Solmonese indicated that leading gay-rights groups will be patient with the new Democratic leadership, not pushing to have their issues be at the very top of the 2007 agenda.

“What we’ve got is a new and respectful Congress that’s open to our community, to learning the specifics of our issues,” he said. “To stress right now – ‘This is what we want and this is when we want it’ – would be premature.”

Continue reading at MSN…

By Linda Harvey of Mission America:

These incidents–vandalism, assault, intimidation–are ALREADY crimes under existing law. Adding extra punishment for “sexual orientation” incidents only makes homosexuals receive more protection than others. Is this fair?

“Hate crimes” have DECREASED in recent years, including those for sexual orientation…Check out the FBI’s web site on hate crimes, and read the stats for yourself.

These laws are a back door way to “bless” homosexuality, because they imply that it’s wrong to oppose the behavior.

We have had a law (since 1990) that enables law enforcement to count sexual orientation among hate crimes, but not to give extra punishment. Those extra penalties are what is currently being sought.

But just based on the 1990 federal law, some school districts started “anti-bias” lessons that included sexual orientation along with race and religion. Kids through curricula like the anti-Christian “Healing the Hate” middle school program, are indoctrinated to not only approve homosexuality, but to believe anyone who opposes it is evil and potentially violent. This classic propaganda is sure to escalate if a federal law is passed that gives offenders in incidents involving “sexual orientation” extra punishment.

The laws we have now are fine for protecting all citizens against crime. The new proposal is based on the lie that homosexuals are an unchanging minority who are “born that way,” which is not supportable by research or observed sexual practices of U.S. adults.

It also threatens the religious liberty of those who believe this is a harmful and sinful lifestyle. Hate crimes laws that include sexual orientation are being used in other countries to indict and fine Christians, even pastors, who publicly oppose homosexuality. Given the aggressiveness and ceaseless demands of “gay” activists,do we want to lose that right?

For the protection of our children against indoctrination and for the protection of our freedom to oppose homosexuality and to believe the whole Gospel, we must make Congress understand our opposition to adding “sexual orientation” to hate crimes laws.

Radical homosexual activists hate biblical marriage, because to achieve its benefits and blessings they must first conform to God’s plan for sexuality…

Excerpted from Why Homosexuals Despise Marriage, by Kevin McCullough, published Oct, 2006, by WorldNet Daily:

…With utter contempt for God and for the voters of their state, the New Jersey seven unanimously said that all who live in the confines of its borders must fundamentally agree to the moral premise that what the Bible terms perversion the voters should call healthy.

But why? What’s the real goal of the activists, the judges and the radicals who seek to subvert a moral worldview?

The answer is simple: No longer satisfied with practicing the unspeakable perverse sexual pleasures that their hearts seek in private bedrooms, they wish to be able to do so in public. They are also suffering from such immense guilt over their sexual behaviors, because they know inherently that the actions they perform are in fact unhealthy, that they will go to any means necessary to try and shut down the voices in their heads that tell them it is wrong.

They wrongfully believe that the guilty voice within them is an echo of a prudish state that seeks to limit their freedoms. They wrongfully believe that the judgment they feel is emanating from “Bible thumpers.” And what they fail to admit is that the voice that condemns them the loudest is never a human voice – but in fact the voice of their own conscience informed by the truth of the God who created them.

There are attributes of marriage that same-sex couples will never achieve.

Recall that GLSEN activist and school “social worker” Laura Perkins seized upon a “teachable moment” to enlighten third graders about gender confusion, without parental knowledge or consent…

Then have a look at her “Social Skills” recommended reading list:

laura-perkins-social-skills-book-list.htm

Oliver Button Is A Sissy
De Paola, Tomie
K-3
A boy is teased by other boys because he takes dance classes, and doesn’t participate in boyish activities. His classmates change their attitudes about him when they see what a good dancer he is. Great for discussions about gender issues, assumptions, and changing one’s feelings about someone.

Bailey the Big Bully
Boyd, Lizi
1-2
A boy stands up to a bully, and then includes the bully in games with friends, setting clear limits regarding behavior that will not be tolerated. Good for discussing ways of making friends, handling bullies, helping others change behavior, being inclusive.

Asha’s Mums
Elwin, Rosamund and Pulse, Michele
K-3
A girl with lesbian mothers is told by her teacher and a classmate that “You can’t have two mums.” Great for leading into discussion of fairness, respect, and the importance of understanding differences.

Zinnia and Dot
Ernst, Lisa Campbell
K-2
A conflict resolution story about two battling hens, who initially have a lot of trouble sharing, but end up raising a chick together. A two-mom story.

Saturday is Pattyday
Newman, Leslie
n/a
About a child adjusting to the breakup of his lesbian parents.

Zora Hurston and the Chinaberry Tree
Miller, William
2-4
A girl looses her mother but refuses to loose her dreams or to be restricted by other peoples’ expectations. Themes included are the oral tradition in African American life. A good book about gender issues as well as about coping with loss, and the importance of a mother-daughter relationship.

Daddy’s Roommate
Willhoite, Michael
K-3
Good! Fun and upbeat, a boy tells about his gay fathers‘ relationship.

My Two Uncles
Vigna, Judith
3-4
A girl tells about her gay uncle and his partner. The story includes family tensions because the grandparents have a hard time accepting the relationship but at the end of the story are closer to accepting it than they were in the beginning.

Who’s in a Family?
Skutch, Robert
K-1
About different kinds of families, and it does include gay families.

In the words of Michael Medved, is it completely unthinkable that we not encumber our children with these topics?

Excerpted from Parents Miffed At Book With Gay Penguins, published Nov 16, 2006, in the pro-homosexuality 365 Gay:

A popular children’s book [And Tango Makes Three] about two male penguins who raise a baby penguin has has raised the ire of parents in this community about 20 miles east of St Louis with demands that it be removed from the bookshelves of a local school.

…Shiloh Elementary School say the book deals with homosexuality and that, they say, is a topic for parents not schools.

The school board is resisting calls for the book’s removal but parents say they will continue fighting.

Continue reading at 365 Gay…

TAKE ACTION

Excerpted from Scandalous San Francisco ‘Gay Pride’ Pastor and Chancellor Back in Saddle after “Leave”, by Hilary White, published Nov 17, 2006, by LifeSiteNews:

The pastor of Most Holy Redeemer Catholic parish in the heart of San Francisco’s heavily homosexual Castro neighbourhood, is back in his position after spending some time “on leave from his duties,” following a scandal involving a homosexual activist group.

Father Stephen Meriwether, who also serves as Chancellor of the San Francisco Archdiocese, was placed “on leave” after his permission to allow a virulently anti-Catholic homosexual activist group to hold “revival bingo” games was revealed by faithful Catholic bloggers.

…The “Sisters,” whose motto is “go and sin some more” and describes itself as a “leading-edge order of queer nuns,” planned to hold regular bingo games including one that featured, as master of ceremonies, “Peaches Christ” (pictured left) on the Feast of All Souls, the day on which Catholics traditionally pray for their dead. The money raised by the games was to go to a number of AIDS and homosexual organizations including the parish’s own AIDS outreach group.

After a local Catholic posted information about the event to the popular ‘blog of Catholic apologist and writer, Mark Shea, the Archdiocese issued a statement on Oct. 30 saying that permission should not have been given and the group’s activities at the parish were to cease “immediately.”

Archdiocesan spokesman Maurice Healy said, “For years the group has directed contempt and ridicule at Catholic faith and practices… Fr. Meriwether is on leave from his duties.”

Another Catholic blogger and former editor of the magazine Catholic World Report, was sceptical of the veracity of the Archdiocese’ action.

“This is public relations damage control,” Domenico Bettinelli wrote. “A true attempt to stop the scandal to the faithful and assert Church teaching would take stronger and more public steps. This sounds like they’re doing just enough to take the heat off without having to do anything substantive that would annoy certain people.”

…Bettinelli’s scepticism seems to have been justified. Most Holy Redeemer parish website now carries a notice for a celebratory pancake breakfast, set for November 19, in honour of Fr. Meriwether’s return from “leave.”

The parish website carries a message from Fr. Meriwether saying,

“You will find the good people of our parish old, young, married, gay, lesbian, transgender, affluent, homeless, blue-collar, converts, cradle Catholics, radical, traditional, questioning, fervent.”

The website also includes links to various homosexual activist groups including Dignity San Francisco, the Gay Catholic Forum, the Conference of Catholic Lesbians, and the dissident anti-Catholic organization, Voice of the Faithful.

Father Meriwether was appointed to his post as archdiocesan chancellor by the former archbishop of San Francisco, William Levada. Levada is now a cardinal and serves in Rome as the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. As such, he is considered the second most powerful man in the Catholic Church.

…The website of the parish features photos of Fr. Meriwether blessing the regular parish contingent of marchers preparing to participate in the San Francisco “Gay Pride” parade. Included is a shot of Fr. Meriwether sprinkling the marchers with holy water while wearing full Mass vestments. Marchers from Most Holy Redeemer carried a banner sign and marched in the parade as a group. The photos show participants carrying the homosexual emblem of the rainbow flag and wearing t-shirts with the slogan, “Most Holy Redeemer, Pride 2006”.

Continue reading at LifeSite News…

(For the background on this update, click HERE.)

Excerpted from Wal-Mart Drops Gay Sex How-To Manual for Teens after LifeSiteNews.com Expose, by John-Henry Westen, published Nov 15, 2006 by LifeSiteNews:

…A Wal-Mart advertisement for the book was listed on the Wal-Mart website, but the web page which listed the information now says: “Product Not Found!”

LifeSiteNews.com contacted Wal-Mart spokesman Kory Lundberg for comment on the book’s removal, but no comment has yet been received.

Continue reading at LifeSite News…