About two months ago I started working for the Cardinal Newman Society, the great organization committed to promoting Catholic identity at Catholic colleges. I’ve done some work for their blog “Campus Notes” but this report, if I say so myself, is a pretty big deal. I worked very closely with Patrick Reilly, President of CNS, who made it a hundred times better than it originally was.
The results are shocking and disturbing.
Please check it out.
In a special investigative report released today, The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) provides evidence of “a well-orchestrated attempt to undermine the Church’s doctrine and its stand against homosexual ‘marriage’” at a series of conferences co-sponsored by two Jesuit universities and funded by a radical foundation.
The presidents of Fordham and Fairfield Universities had promised New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and Bridgeport Bishop William Lori that the “More Than a Monologue” conference series would “not be a vehicle for dissent,” according to the New York Archdiocese. However, Newman Society reporters found evidence of dissent, sacrilege and opposition to the bishops’ efforts to protect marriage.
December 5, 2011 at 7:47 pm
Is this really shocking? Our Diocese of Rochester, NY presided over by Bishop Matthew Clark couldn't possibly be more of a proponent of the homosexual agenda. Sadly, no one seems to care. Archbishop Dolan as the metropolitan doesn't seem to care, the papal nuncio didn't seem to care (God rest his soul), and sadly even Rome doesn't seem to care. The US Catholic Church is disgustingly hypocritical. It seems all the new-found "orthodoxy" in the hierarchy only means talking a big game and not doing much at all.
December 5, 2011 at 8:04 pm
How sad! They are so far out in left field that they're out of the park. Literally, they are not in the Church anymore. May God have mercy on them.
AuntieD
December 5, 2011 at 8:05 pm
The spread of gay marriage by "catholic" universities mirrors the spread of gay clergy by "catholic" seminaries. You reap what you sow. Any bishop, such as Dolan, is either a sodomite or tolerant of sodomites. It is at the highest echelons and it has infected the blogs also (just trace who is reporting this story positively).
http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=871
December 5, 2011 at 8:28 pm
It's not even slightly surprising to this Trad-leaning gay man. The wider church makes zero detectable effort to live up to the CCC's call for respect, compassion, and sensitivity. If they did, they'd entirely pull the rug out from underneath these dissenters. As it is, for we LGB people meekly in the Church, the commentary we suffer from of our fellow parishioners makes life in the Church a foretaste of Purgatory, not of Heaven. 🙁
December 5, 2011 at 9:02 pm
As a parent of a heterosexual child living in sin with a partner, I can only say that child knows of my disapproval of this relationship. But I also welcome the child in my home and do not bring the subject up every time we meet. I pray daily that the Lord will bring the child and partner back to Him in the Church, even if this means that one or both will be hurt with a break-up. Actually, I would be most surprised if there eventually were a marriage, and even then my prayer for them would not change. Knowing that how they have a lack of belief, if they were to marry it would not be in the Church, and I would have to do some serious praying about attending that wedding or not. I think if the child were attracted and living in a same-sex relationship my actions would be the same.
December 6, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Anonymous 3:28 – good comment on the whole, but I would be interested in follow up as abstract ideas are sometimes difficult for me to envision. What would it look like, specifically, for the "wider church" to live up to the call for "respect, compassion, and sensitivity"? Specifically, as an action. What are we, the wider church (i think as a lay person I'm included in that descriptor), doing now, specifically, that does not offer respect, compassion or sensitivity?
I really would like to know because all I've have never witnessed the wider church (or even the narrow church) doing overtly disrespectful, or unkind things to gay men and women.
December 6, 2011 at 7:20 pm
As an alumnus of Fordham College (FCO '79) (one damn, two damn, three damn, Fordham…to resurrect an old cheer), this means that my yearly $1. donation to their alumni fund gets reduced to $0.00. Universitas Fordhamensis lost the right to call itself Catholic a long time ago, when it became a 'private, non-sectarian university in the Jesuit tradition'. +Dolan needs to strip it of any vestiges of Catholicism, remove the indult for Mass to be celebrated in the University Church by the assembled hordes of heretics oops Jesuits, and cut off any $$$, if any, flowing to it from the Archdiocese, as well as forbid it to even mention the term "Catholic". They should be sued for false advertising.
Of course, I'm sure there will be 'dialogue and pastoral counseling' to put a touchy-feelie spin on it. No surprise that the Society is involved, and that hellhole in the Bronx is at the center.
December 6, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Hi blindasabat,
By "wider church" I simply meant the preponderance of clergy and lay faithful who aren't involved in the sorts of hijinks in the OP's linked article. It's not a theological term. 🙂
I started typing up a list of the usual problems, but it painted much too negative a picture, which was not my intent. So I'm going to leave you with just generic guidelines after all, and if you wish to try you can readily imagine what inspired these guidelines.
* There are probably dozens of things more interesting and more important about a person than him or her being LGB. Don't stereotype people as being just one their aspects.
* Encourage LGB people in the faith and the practice of the sacraments, but don't intrusively ask them questions about matters that are between them, their confessor, and God.
* Don't "out" anyone.
* Do tell your child if you think he or she is LGB, rather than waiting for them to tell you.
* If you must speak of LGB people in general, be mindful of the Fruits of the Spirit. Studiously avoid falling into the "They're awful (Oh, but you're an exception!)" trap. Speaking the truth in love sometimes means saying nothing at all rather than tactless facts.
* God draws us all toward Himself, but he grants miraculously sudden conversions to few. Do not by word or deed push those of weak faith further from the Church. Where else have sinners to go?
* Don't forget that loving the sinner and hating the sin is easy to say and very hard to do. It requires maturity, grace, and deliberate practice. Often a useful place to start is to genuinely, personally like the sinner. Cultivate friendships.
* Don't repeat pseudoscientific gossip; rather, quickly and gently correct those who spread it.
* Make no excuses for those who commit violence against LGB people.
* Most LGB people are indistinguishable from straight people, but some have very pronounced characteristics of the opposite gender. They are frequent objects of ridicule and abuse in the secular world; make sure the Church is as a mother protecting her little ones.
December 7, 2011 at 2:13 am
Jesus said to His Father: "I have all those you have given me."