According to the Washinton Blade (the paper which caters to gays in DC), it seems that there will be "respectful but forceful" protests against the Pope. For more, you can read it here.
I did find an interesting fact that Heather Mizeur, the openly gay member of the Maryland House of Delegates, is a "practicing Catholic." But she cannot be because she is in a lesbian relationship. This is not a relationship that the Church condones.
According to her election website, she is a member of St. Aloysius Church, (19 Eye Street,N.W.Washington, D.C.).
I wonder if she is taking part in the sacraments and if the pastor and parish staff look the other way. I also wonder if they support that particular lifestyle. My gut feeling is that they are.
1 comment:
Not a practicing Catholic because she is in a lesbian relationship?
There is only one biblical reference that is ever used against lesbians, and that is Romans 1. To do so takes the passage out of context, as St. Paul is showing that some of the religious competition in Ancient Rome caused people to act against their natures sexually in the bacchanalic orgies that were their worship services. (To these pagans, "sex" was a sacrament.)
The issue is acting against the individual's nature.
If the individual is lesbian, she was born that way. Unlike some of the fundamentalist protestant sects, the Church teaches that "deep-seated" homosexuality is a part of the individual's nature - even though the Church also teaches that it is "disordered."
Lesbians, even if they are living together, can be practicing Catholics and even receive the sacraments.
Where the Church might part company with her, would be if she went to Canada or Massachusetts and got married.
The Church would treat that much in the way it treats Catholics who divorce and remarry without a Church annulment - deny them the sacraments at *that* point.
I went to a church music convention in Washington DC in the late 1990's, and the keynote speaker was supposed to have been one of the former St. Louis Jesuits. He had, however, not only been married and divorced, but was openly living with a woman. He was not disinvited until he married her without benefit of the annulment. That was "scandal in the Church" territory - and the *condonation* that the Church would avoid being seen as having in these cases is of the marriage that is not approved by the Church.
Until that particular line is crossed, it comes under the catechism directive for "respect and tolerance."
As to the planned protests against Pope Benedict during his visit, I would hope that the protestors remain peaceful.
It takes the Church an awful long time to admit when doctrine is wrong, or has been wrongly interpreted. During the Jubilee year, Pope John Paul II made apologies to Jews and Muslims for persecutions and the Crusades, and even apologized for the treatment of Galileo.
Of course, in his next breath, he did manage to condemn the gays and lesbians who were having "World Pride Day" in Rome that year.
Perhaps the apologies will come in four hundred years or so . . .
Joann
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