Excerpted from Anti-Gay Christians ‘Out of Touch’, by Marc Shoffman, published Nov 26, 2006, by the pro-homosexuality Pink News:

[After various actions opposing homosexuality by the Catholic church, the North Carolina Baptist State Convention, and the US Presbyterian Church…]

Mr Solmonese (pictured right) described these leaders as “out of touch.“

He said: “It’s a sad commentary that these religious leaders are out of step with most Americans of faith in terms of equality and fairness for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people of faith.

“The real story is that more Americans of faith understand that God’s love is expansive, not exclusionary. In fact, church programmes welcoming GLBT people are on the rise and have in the last year experienced a growth of between 10 and 20 percent. ”

Continue reading at Pink News…

Excerpted from Ex Gay Rent Boy Elected to Canadian Parliament, published Nov 28, 2006, by the pro-homosexual news source Pink News:

A male prostitute turned gay priest has entered the Canadian Parliament after a shock by-election victory.

Raymond Gravel (pictured right)…beat Conservative candidate Stephane Bourgon, in what will be seen as a blow to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government.

Mr Gravel has been criticised by the Pope before over his support of gay priests, same sex marriage and abortion.

He became a priest after being beaten up as a rent boy.

Earlier this year, Mr Gravel joined a group of Canadian priests in a public criticism of the Vatican’s ban on gay clergy.

Continue reading at Pink News…

Excerpted from Archbishop Warns of Gay Rights Backlash, by Jonathan Petre, published Nov 29, 2006, by Telegraph:

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, has warned the Government of a serious backlash if it attempts to force through a raft of new homosexual rights laws.

Archbishop Nichols said that the proposed regulations, designed to ensure equal treatment for gays, could mean the end of the Church’s co-operation with the Government in providing a range of welfare services.

Church officials also believe that the its seven adoption agencies could be closed if they were required to place children with gay couples in defiance of Vatican guidelines.

Speaking in St Chad’s cathedral in Birmingham, the Archbishop that the Government “must realise is that it is not possible to seek cooperation with us while at the same time trying to impose upon us conditions which contradict our moral values.”

…The Archbishop, who forced the Government into a humiliating climbdown over faith schools early this month, said the process of secular democracy in Britain was not morally neutral but was “engaged in an intense and at times aggressive reshaping of our moral framework”.

…The proposed regulations could also force Christian marriage preparation and guidance agencies to cater for same sex couples and would not allow parishes, retreat houses, conference centres and hostels to refuse bookings from gay and lesbians.Faith schools could be compelled to teach that homosexuality was the moral equivalent of heterosexual marriage.

…Ann Widdecombe, the former Conservative minister, said that the proposals spelled the “end of freedom of conscience in our country”.

“They create a hierarchy of rights and whenever a homosexual right comes up against any other right the homosexual right prevails,” she said, adding that the Government “seems to have no clue that practising a religion means more than going to church”.

Continue reading in Telegraph…

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.

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…

A press release from TFP Student Action (the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property), published Nov 16, 2006:

Hollywood movie Brokeback Mountain is scheduled to stage at Seton Hall University, a Catholic institution founded in 1865. The film is currently listed on the university’s web site under “Multicultural Program Film & Lecture Series.”¹ TFP Student Action is calling for a peaceful protest because the film:

• Approves same-sex relations, adultery, nudity, profanity and drug use. It is a blow to Catholic education, America’s Christian roots, the institution of the family and very foundations of morality and society.
• Brokeback Mountain is the antithesis of authentic Catholic education. It scrambles human emotions and encourages students to tolerate sin. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops classified this pro-homosexual film as “morally offensive” – the lowest possible rating.

Click here to protest now. Your signature will make an impact.

Excerpted from 3 Christian Groups Move To Condemn Gay Sex, by Alan Cooperman and Peter Whoriskey, published Nov 15, 2006, by Washington Post:

Faced with rising public acceptance of same-sex relationships, three U.S. Christian denominations are taking strong measures this week to condemn homosexual acts as sinful.

The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops, meeting in Baltimore, declared Tuesday that Catholics who minister to gays must firmly adhere to the church’s teaching that same-sex attractions are “disordered.” Catholics with “a homosexual inclination” should be encouraged to live in chastity and discouraged from making “general public announcements” about their sexual orientation, the bishops said.

The largest Baptist group in North Carolina, meanwhile, moved to expel any congregation that condones homosexuality, adopting a policy that allows the Baptist State Convention to investigate complaints that member churches are too “gay-friendly.”

And on Wednesday in Pittsburgh, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a mainline Protestant denomination with about 3 million members, will put a minister on trial for conducting a marriage ceremony for two women.

The decisions are part of a mounting backlash in many U.S. denominations against church groups whose stated goal is not only to welcome but also to “affirm” gay congregants.

Continue reading on Washington Post…

Note the reaction in bold below of veteran Detroit homosexual activist Jeffrey Montgomery to the news that a CATHOLIC high school had fired a lesbian school guard after the woman revealed her homosexuality. Montgomery implies that if Michigan had a statewide “sexual orientation” law, such an action would have been illegal. So much for the school’s freedom of religion.

Charlene Genther as an open lesbian has no more of a right to work at a Catholic high school after publicly snubbing Catholic moral teachings than I have a right to work for Montgomery’s radical homosexual outfit, the Triangle Foundation.

Lesson here: don’t believe it when “gay” activists say that their agenda does not threaten your religious freedom or, ultimately, your church.—Peter LaBarbera

Excerpted from Catholic School Fires Gay Guard, published Oct 19, 2006, by Detroit Free Press:

A gay-rights advocacy organization is denouncing the firing of a campus safety officer at Marian High School, saying she was dismissed because she publicized that she’s a lesbian.

“It’s a horrible lesson to the young women at that school,” said Jeffrey Montgomery, executive director of the Triangle Foundation in Detroit.

The officer, Charlene Genther, 55, was in her sixth year at the Catholic, college-preparatory school for girls. A former Detroit police officer, she has a daughter who graduated from the Bloomfield Township school in 2001.

Her firing has prompted Marian alumnae to action. A petition at www.petitionspot.com/petitions/genther that seeks an apology for Genther and the gay and lesbian community had gathered 136 signatures by Wednesday.

Genther said Wednesday that she has been in a committed relationship for 28 years and that it was no surprise to anyone at the school that she is a lesbian. She and her partner often attended school events, chaperoned dances and went to parent-teacher conferences.

But last week, when she began publicizing her autobiography, “Badge 3483: A True Story,” which addresses the relationship, she was fired.

Genther said Sister Lenore Pochelski, the school’s president, gave her the news Friday, two hours after a local newspaper reporter interviewed her about the book. She said Pochelski said she wouldn’t have gotten fired if she hadn’t gone public with the book.

“She was very clear,” Genther said. “She said it was because my lifestyle does not coincide with the teachings of the Catholic Church. I personally felt she was having a hard time firing me. …

…Montgomery said Genther’s firing illustrates the lack of protections against discrimination that gays have in Michigan. “In Michigan it is not against the law to discriminate against gay people. You can be fired if you’re gay. You can be refused public accommodations. There is no protection against discrimination.”

Continue reading at Detroit Free Press…