Same-sex marriage: Catholic bishop warns marriage equality could see children of gay couples become ‘next Stolen Generation’

By Natalie Whiting

A Catholic bishop has issued a warning about legalising same-sex marriage, saying children of gay couples will see themselves as another Stolen Generation because they have been denied a mother and a father.

South Australian Bishop of Port Pirie Greg O’Kelly is one of a number of clergy who have spoken out against same-sex marriage in response to recent moves to legalise it in Australia.

bishop Greg O'KellyBishop O’Kelly wrote to his parishioners saying that comparing same-sex and heterosexual relationships was like comparing apples and pears.

“The nature of a marriage between two same-sex people and the marriage between a man and a woman open to life … are two very different things,” he wrote.

“A pear is not an apple, no matter what you say, even if you start to redefine the term from its traditional one, it doesn’t alter the reality.”

Bishop O’Kelly’s letter said that children of homosexual couples would feel like a Stolen Generation.

“Can’t you imagine a situation that when there’s a falling-out between a child and a parent, as can happen, that’ll be one of the lines they use?” he wrote.

“You deliberately intervened so that I would not have a father present in my upbringing, or not have a mother present in my upbringing.

I don’t think that our children are in any way disadvantaged or struggling as a result of not having a father.

Amanda Pickering, homosexual parent of two

“And that was a deliberate intervention by you, it wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t illness or anything like that.”

Advocates for marriage equality like Rodney Croome from Australian Marriage Equality say the remarks are offensive.

“Many same-sex couples and their children will be deeply offended by the Catholic bishop’s drawing a link between their loving families and the Stolen Generation, such a traumatic episode in Australian history,” he said.

South Australian couple Jodie McRae and Amanda Pickering have been together for 13 years and have two children.

Ms Pickering said they would support the children if they wanted to meet their donor father in the future.

“I don’t think that our children are in any way disadvantaged or struggling as a result of not having a father,” she said.

We have to remind ourselves that the Marriage Act does not require marrying heterosexual partners to want to have children, or to be able to have children.

Rodney Croome, Australian Marriage Equality

“We have a very large extended family with grandfathers and uncles and cousins and a community at school that’s very supportive.

“I don’t think they’re missing out.”

Bishop O’Kelly told 891 ABC Adelaide procreation is a key part of marriage.

“There’s two elements to marriage: one is the love between a man and a woman, the other one is the procreative thing, the openness to birth and life,” he said.

But Mr Croome disagrees with that statement.

“We have to remind ourselves that the Marriage Act does not require marrying heterosexual partners to want to have children, or to be able to have children,” Mr Croome said.

“There is no legal link between marriage and children. But I understand that in many people’s mind there is a cultural link.

“Marriage can be good for children, because it provides them with a greater sense of security and stability in their lives.

“If that is the case, then why would we deny the children being raised by same-sex couples the opportunity to have married parents?”

Countries most similar to ours have marriage equality: Croome

Mr Croome has also spoken out against Bishop O’Kelly’s position that same-sex marriage is unique to the West and not an issue in Middle Eastern, Asian or African countries.

“The standards we need to judge ourselves by are the standards set in countries most similar to ours, and the countries in the world most similar to ours all have marriage equality,” he said.

New Zealand, Canada, the United States and Britain have all legalised same-sex marriage and Ireland was the most recent country to make the change.

“I don’t think we should be judging our human rights standards according to those set in the Middle East or parts of Asia where homosexuals not only aren’t allowed to marry, but are put to death,” Mr Croome said.

Ms McRae said she and her partner would like to get married at some point.

“I say that this is a society that’s moved far beyond the idea that the sanctity of marriage is some sort of Christian construct,” she said.

“Just as I pay taxes, I vote, I do all the things, abide by in terms of the law, I think I have the right as an individual to have that.”

The House of Representatives has voted to adjourn debate on Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s private members bill to legalise same-sex marriage.

Ireland is worse than the pagans for legalising gay marriage, says senior cardinal

File under:  It’s all about the fancy dress

By Katherine Backler, Liz Dodd

Ireland has gone further than paganism and “defied God” by legalising gay marriage, one of the Church’s most senior cardinals has said.RL Burke in cappa2

Cardinal Raymond Burke, who was recently moved from a senior role in the Vatican to be patron of the Order of Malta, told the Newman Society, Oxford University’s Catholic Society, last night that he struggled to understand “any nation redefining marriage”.

Visibly moved, he went on: “I mean, this is a defiance of God. It’s just incredible. Pagans may have tolerated homosexual behaviours, they never dared to say this was marriage.”

A total of 1.2 million people voted in favour of amending the constitution to allow same-sex couples to marry, with 734,300 against the proposal, making Ireland the first country to introduce gay marriage by popular vote.

The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, told RTE afterwards that “the Church needs a reality check right across the board [and to ask] have we drifted away completely from young people?”

Raymond Cardinal Leo Burke visits the Oratory of Ss. Gregory and Augustine to celebrate Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament followed by a Reception. As Archbishop of St Louis, Cardinal Burke canonically established the Oratory on the first Sunday of AdveCardinal Burke, who speaking on the intellectual heritage of Pope Benedict XVI, went on to say “liturgical abuses” had taken place after the Second Vatican Council, after which he said there had been “a radical, even violent approach to liturgical reform”. Quoting Pope Benedict, he said that the desire among some of the faithful for the old form of the liturgy arose because the new missal was “actually understood as authorising, or even requiring, creativity, which frequently led to deformations of the liturgy which were hard to bear.”

On Tuesday Cardinal Burke presided over Mass at the Oxford Oratory, and on Wednesday he led Vespers and Benediction for the intentions of the Order of Malta.

Speaking at the lecture afterwards Cardinal Burke stressed the continuity between liturgical forms before and after the council. “The life of the Church is organic; it is a living tradition handed down in an unbroken line from the apostles,” he said. “It does not admit of discontinuity, of revolutions.”

Paraphrasing Pope Benedict, Cardinal Burke said that after the council, there had been a battle between a hermeneutic of Burke+Mass+9discontinuity and rupture, and the hermeneutic of reform. This was because the nature and authority of the council had been “basically misunderstood.” Apparently departing from his script, the Cardinal voiced his own concern about similar misunderstandings around the upcoming Synod. “There seems to be a certain element who think that the Synod has the capacity to create some totally new teaching in the Church, which is simply false.” He went on to speak of the damage caused by “an antinomianism which is inherent in the hermeneutic of discontinuity.”

Though the talk consisted primarily in an overview of Pope Benedict XVI’s chiefest intellectual contributions, Cardinal Burke adopted a more personal note in his answers to questions at the end. Responding to a question about the marginalisation of faith in the public sphere, he stressed the primary importance of fortifying the family in its understanding of how faith “illumines daily living”. ‘The culture is thoroughly corrupted, if I may say so, and the children are being exposed to this, especially through the internet.’

He told the audience that he was “constantly” telling his nieces and nephews to keep their family computers in public areas of the house so that their children would not “imbibe this poison that’s out there.”
Complete Article HERE!

Priest removed from Seton Hall breaks his silence, comes out publicly as gay

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Warren Hall was recently removed from Seton Hall for the perception that he was supporting same-sex marriage.

Warren Hall was removed from his post at Seton Hall after he posted a Facebook message supporting the anti-bullying message of the NOH8 campaign. Now he opens up for the first time since his removal, coming out publicly as gay.

Just before graduation last year, campus priest Warren Hall was walking across Seton Hall’s grounds sipping some coffee when a student ran up to him. The student thanked Hall for his tutelage and posed a question he hadn’t heard before.

“Are you gay?”

Hall nearly dropped his coffee cup. She reminded him that he had always taught his students to be honest with themselves and others about who they are. But he had never been asked about his sexual orientation by anyone at Seton Hall. He couldn’t let slip away the opportunity to walk his talk. He nodded his head.

“That student was right,” Hall said. “I have to be myself. I can’t worry what other people think.”

It wasn’t because of his sexual orientation that Hall posted a Facebook message supporting the pro-LGBT NOH8 Campaign last autumn. It was in the middle of a growingly intense national conversation about race that he posted the message, focusing mostly on the idea of opposing race-based hate. A month later his boss asked for a meeting. In the meeting he was ordered to explain the Facebook post.

“Warren, we can’t have this.”

The church was against same-sex marriage, his superior explained, and they couldn’t have priests supporting an organization that was designed to promote marriage equality (the NOH8 campaign rose from the 2008 California vote ending same-sex marriage). Hall provided the context – that he posted it as a commentary on bullying and hate focusing on race and other demographics; Support for same-sex marriage wasn’t intended as part of his message. The next day the vicar general asked to meet with Hall, and again he explained the photo. That seemed to quell the furor.

It wasn’t until five months later – last Monday as he was administering an exam to his sports and spirituality class – that he received a note to call the Archbishop.

“None of us want bullying,” the Archbishop told him, “but you have a further agenda here, and I can’t have you at Seton Hall because of that.”

He was devastated. His position at Seton Hall had lifted him out of a bad situation when he was the president of a private high school years earlier. He had been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, and the local media and others in the community pushed him out of the job. The church had refused to abandon him despite his dangerous transgression. The Archbishop gave him a second chance at Seton Hall.

Yet the same Archdiocese that had stood by him after his DUI felt the possibility of simply being perceived as supporting same-sex marriage went too far.

This wasn’t the tradition of Christian universities he knew. For Hall, Catholic schools had for centuries signified a willingness to learn, places to exchange ideas and enhance intellect. Shutting down conversation because the Pope or Archbishop didn’t like the direction of the conversation? That is not Hall’s understanding of a Catholic university.

“Let’s discuss gay marriage as an anthropological and sociological issue. What’s wrong with that? Why can’t we talk about that? We’re a better place when we have people who have studied these issues. The idea that ‘we can’t talk about that’ makes no sense. If the students want to talk about that, let’s talk about it with them. When we say we can’t talk about something, that goes against he very nature of what a Catholic university is. That conversation should happen here with the students and the faculty, not firing somebody because of their view on an issue.”

His image of Seton Hall shattered, he took to social media. He had thought about staying quiet, sweeping under the vestments the real reason for his departure from the campus he had grown to appreciate and the students he had grown to love.

“I was going to to say I chose to leave, or that my time here was finished,” Hall said. “But that wasn’t true. It wasn’t. I’ve never lied to a student about anything. I couldn’t lie about this.”

It wasn’t 48 hours before Hall got wind of another move made by Seton Hall – the signing of openly gay shooting guard Derrick Gordon to the men’s basketball team. In his role as director of the campus ministry, Hall has ministered to various Pirates sports teams. He didn’t just sit on the bench during games or offer a pre-game prayer, he worked with the athletes creating retreats for them where he could engage them on a deeper spiritual level. He explored the ties between faith and athleticism, teaching classes on sports and Christianity like the one he was instructing when he got that fateful note two weeks ago.

Being removed from this role on campus has brought a sense of irony for Hall.

“I’ve been accused of being against he Catholic mission, and here I thought I was supporting it.”

Hall said he has spoken to many LGBT students at Seton Hall, and not one of them reports being mistreated by any of the students or faculty. He thinks Gordon will experience the same treatment from most of the campus.

“With Derrick Gordon going to Seton Hall as an openly gay athlete, I don’t think he’ll have trouble here with the student body or with the faculty,” Hall said. “How the administration handles that, I do not know. When he’s walking across campus holding hands with his boyfriend, what is the administration going to think of that? But the student body here is very open and welcoming.”

Hall isn’t sure what’s next for him. He has written to the Archbishop asking for a six-month sabbatical. He had no prior indication that a big change might be coming his way, so he would like some time to think about his next big move within the church before being reassigned. Whether he gets that time before another official assignment is entirely up to the Archbishop.

I ended my phone interview with Hall by circling back to his story about the student who asked him if he was gay. While he had professed and reiterated his commitments to the church (priests, after all, make a commitment to celibacy), He wasn’t “out” in a public sense. A select few knew, but telling me was very different from telling a student shortly before she embarked on her life’s journey.

“The best way to live is to live honestly. Honesty with oneself is the most important thing, but you have to be honest with other people.

“I’m not afraid of those questions anymore.”

Complete Article HERE!

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin: ‘I encourage everyone to vote and to reflect carefully’

 ‘My position is that of Pope Francis, who . . . made it very clear that he was against legalising same-sex marriage, yet he was consistent in telling people not to make judgments on any individual’

Diarmuid Martin

Catholic priest says he was fired from New Jersey college’s ministry over support of pro-gay marriage No H8 Campaign

BY

he former director of New Jersey school Seton Hall University’s campus ministry lost his job because he agreed on social media with a gay marriage equality group, Rev. Warren Hall said Friday on Twitter.

The tweet, which has been taken down, said he got canned for using his Facebook page to back California-based NoH8 Campaign, which began in 2008 in response to the state’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage.

“I’ve been fired from SHU for posting a pic on FB supporting LGBT ‘No H8’.” Hall previously wrote, according to NJ Advance Media. “I’m sorry it was met with this response. I’ll miss my work here.”

Representatives for the South Orange-based Roman Catholic university told the publication that the priest was appointed by the Archbishop of Newark and “serves at his discretion.”

A screenshot shows the tweet in which Hall announced he was fired Friday.

A spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, Jim Goodness, declined to disclose the reasons for Hall’s dismissal in an interview with NJ Advance Media. He said Hall was being reassigned within the archdiocese, which covers Bergen, Union, Hudson and Essex counties.

Goodness didn’t immediately return a request for comment early Sunday morning.

The move immediately provoked alumni and students, who started a Change.org petition demanding his reinstatement.

A file photo shows an entrance to Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J., where controversy has erupted over the firing of the Catholic university’s campus ministry director.

“The Archdiocese of Newark’s decision to fire Father Warren Hall from Seton Hall University is in line with neither the teachings of Jesus Christ nor the words of Pope Francis,” the group’s letter to the archdiocese said.

The petition, which had garnered 1,225 signers by early Sunday morning, said Hall “contributed greatly to the academic and spiritual lives of the students.”

Efforts to contact Hall on Sunday morning were unsuccessful. He thanked his supporters in a Tweet he posted later Friday.

warren hallThe controversy over a mainstay who provided spiritual guidance to the school’s sports teams erupted as the Pirates men’s basketball team attempted to recruit potential University of Massachusetts transfer Derrick Gordon, the first ever openly gay Division I player, the Asbury Park Press reported.

In 2010, the school began offering a course on the politics of gay marriage over the objections of Newark Archbishop John J. Myers, who heads both the Board of Regents and the Board of Trustees, the Newark Star-Ledger reported at the time. The school went ahead with the undergraduate seminar despite Myers’ objection that the class legitimized a point of view “running contrary to what the church teaches,” according to the publication.
Complete Article HERE!