The synod, before and after

The synod on the family was closed before having been initiated. The possibility of a serious discussion with respect to homosexual people was already eliminated in the time of its preparation, when the church was not even able to scientifically verify its own false language: today it goes on – in an ideological way – speaking about “tendencies” instead of “sexual orientation” of human people. In the preparation of the synod, Church has ridiculed and eliminated the homosexual question, deceiving the expectations of humanity for a serious and respectful discussion of the experience of humanity and the scientific knowledge related to the persons belonging to non-heterosexual minorities and their family life, their life of love.

synod headsThe synod doesn’t have “laying closed hearts, which bare the closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the Church’s teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families” (Francis, Conclusion of the Synod of Bishops, 24.10.2015). On homosexual persons, on their families and children the synod has produced only a homophobic closing of the reason and the heart. The synod has been incapable of reading the reality of homosexual people and considering them in their human dignity and in their aspirations of love. Such people are only considered inside their own families, almost as they were immature people who require a special care from the other members of the family, all of that behind the dishonest and insensitive “respect”. Without any indication for the life of homosexual people, the synod has only repeated the worst of the documents of the Congregation for the doctrine of the faith: “between the homosexual unions and the God’s plan for marriage and family doesn’t exist remote analogy”. Such repetition is shameful and offensive to the reality of the homosexual and lesbian families, and to their happy children. One wonders if for living according to the wish of synod this persons should get rid of their families and children. Behind the conclusions of the synod dangerous antihuman insinuations can be glimpsed, inciting to arouse sense of guilty and inferiority, of complex and negativity between children and their homosexual fathers or their lesbian mothers. The position of the Congregation repeated by the synod is the offense to the reason, to the human reality and to the Christian sensibility taught by Jesus. It is not the humble discernment of the reality, wished by the Pope Francis. It is an ignorant abuse of the spiritual power of Church.Krzysztof_Charamsa

The lack of sensitivity of Jesus in the synod is a deplorable and particularly serious irresponsibility of Catholic Church. For years I have experimented this irrational multilevel closing of Church. I have experimented the sabotage of the pontificate and Pope Francis’ synods by the Congregation for the doctrine of the faith, where I worked. This way, at the beginning of the synod, with priestly passion, I had asked in my letter to Pope Francis to take seriously in consideration the dignity of homosexual people, of their families and their children. I considered that the Pope is the only person that can stop the absurdity of the retrograde impositions. Today I make public my letter (the next post), taking note of the insensibility and the hateful refusal of persons belonging to sexual minorities. That synod, in mouth of a Father of Synod, has only known to compare homosexual people to the Nazi and to the enemies of humanity. In civil societies such offenses should be denounced: they are defamatory and they arouse hate homophobic hate. The silence of Church on that subject is embarrassing.

Krzysztof Charamsa
Barcelona, 29/10/2015.

Complete Article HERE!

‘Let The Little Homo Sue’: City Commissioner Slams Gay High School Student Suspended Over Dance Date

UPDATE…first posted HERE and HERE!

The high school student suspended after wanting to bring a same-sex date to his high school’s dance has a new critic: an elected official.

 

WMC Action News 5 – Memphis, Tennessee
Remember Lance Sanderson, the Christian Brothers High School student who was suspended Monday after asking if he could bring a same-sex date to his school’s Homecoming dance? 

Lance didn’t do anything wrong, and after being denied his request, he didn’t even attend the dance, but administrators in his private Memphis, Tennessee school suspended him anyway.

One local elected official took to Facebook to denounce Lance, and the entire LGBT community.

Clark Plunk, the Lakeland, Tennessee Commissioner, on his Facebook page, according to WMC Action News 5, dared Lance to sue the school, calling him a “little homo,” calling all gay people “vicious spiteful people,” and saying gay people are “a threat to our values, our Christian values,” and “mean, cruel spiteful people with an axe to grind.”

Below is Plunk’s full Facebook comment, exactly as reported by Towleroad:

It’s a Christian school so i you don’t like the rules don’t go there. As usual you have one person trying to change the rules just for himself. I’m told by the alumni the gay kid is looking for publicity. I hate the term gay. It makes them sound like they are happy and ‘Gay’ And they want to call people that criticize them homophobes to make them sound mean. As a whole, gays are mean, cruel spiteful people with an axe to grind.

The kids love the school a hate their school is in the limelight over a gay kid and his gay boyfriend….This is not about a homo and his rights it’s about a school that is loved by thousands and their memories and their right to keep their history and Christian values intact.

I would say let the little homo sue all he wants. The alumni of CBHS will meet him dollar for dollar and lawyer for lawyer. This is a threat to our values, our Christian values. Everyone shudders when the homosexuals say the word sue. They are vicious spiteful people.

Plunk told WREG, “I stand by what I said, maybe I didn’t say it the right way.”

On his own Facebook page, Lance took the high road.

I have been shown a few intolerant comments that were made against myself and other LGBT people,” the teen writes. “I have nothing but forgiveness for the people who wrote or agree with these comments.”

“I recognize that we all have different beliefs and were taught from varying viewpoints. I hope that individuals and the community as a whole will use this as an opportunity to learn about other people’s beliefs. I know that through education and acceptance, we will move forward as a stronger community,” Lance added.

The Executive Director of the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center spoke out against Commissioner Plunk’s attack.

So it’s one thing to attack an 18-year-old high school student, Will Batts told WMC News. “That’s a problem in and of itself. But the comments themselves are talking about all of us. All of us in the LGBT community.”

Batts reminds the Commissioner that he “has people in his community that are LGBT. People that he serves, pay his salary, and he’s making these hurtful, just dangerous comments.”

He adds, “we know there are plenty of studies that show that this type of speech is what causes harm to young people.”

Plunk’s Facebook page contains this quote: “Be kind to each person you meet because each person is carrying their own special burden.”

HERE

Pope Francis’s meeting with Kim Davis should come as no surprise

By 

The pope’s enormous influence has undermined LGBT people all over the world, as evidenced by his thinly veiled anti-equality statements in the US

Francis in DC

 

Pope Francis’s no-longer-secret meeting in Washington DC with anti-gay activist Kim Davis, the controversial Kentucky county clerk who was briefly jailed over her refusal to issue same-sex marriage licenses in compliance with state law, leaves LGBT people with no illusions about the Pope’s stance on equal rights for us, despite his call for inclusiveness. It should now be clear to all that he and the Catholic Church remain steadfastly on the wrong side of history, mired in a discriminatory past.

While in the US, Pope Francis spoke about treating others as we would like to be treated. Yet his enormous power and influence have undermined LGBT people all over the world, as evidenced by his thinly-veiled anti-equality statements both in Congress and during his post-visit press conference – all broadcast before a global audience.

He even repeated the tired old nonsense that we are a threat. In his speech to Congress, he lamented that “fundamental” family relationships were threatened by modern alternatives and, in a press conference conducted in-flight en route to Rome at the end of his visit to the United States, he stated that it is a human right to refuse same-sex marriage licenses and referred to it as conscientious objection.

Yet, Davis, with whom he met and apparently offered moral support to, was quite free to conscientiously object to same-sex marriage. She even had the opportunity to resign or allow her deputies to issue the licenses without her, but she refused to do either – and went so far as to reportedly altering the license forms in a manner that may invalidate people’s marriages. She apparently thought she could “conscientiously object” and keep the perks of the job she conscientiously objects to performing at the same time.

The pope’s support of Davis and others objecting to same-sex marriage and actively trying to keep people from marrying will result in more bigotry and discrimination against us, and is at variance with his overall message of inclusiveness.

Francis is championing “fundamental” family relationships at the expense of hard-won rights by gays and their families – and already many are using the pope’s comments to further their anti-equality agenda, including Davis and her lawyers with the anti-equality Liberty Counsel. But none of this should have
come as a surprise.

Statements made by Pope Francis just a few months ago in the Philippines underscore his opposition to marriage equality. “The family is threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life”, Francis said at a Mass in Manila. “These realities are increasingly under attack from powerful forces, which threaten to disfigure God’s plan for creation”.

These views were even more obvious and succinct than the thinly-veiled swipes against marriage equality that he made in America last week. His anti-marriage equality stance stands in stark contrast to some of his other statements. For instance, Pope Francis rightly lectured Congress and the world about the refugee crisis and quoted the bible’s message “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” – but to ‘do unto others’ means affording equal rights to all, not select groups. Affording unrestricted access to marriage rights strengthens the institution of marriage in a democracy and it is very troubling for the pope to suggest that same-sex marriages threaten traditional marriage.

That oft-demolished illogical and unreasonable argument is ludicrous and the US supreme court ruled accordingly – as did the citizens of Ireland (a predominantly Catholic country) and in other countries where gay marriage has been legalized. The pope may not have given much emphasis to his bigotry or prejudice when he was in the United States, but it was there all along – if we paid attention attention. His meeting with Kim Davis in Washington DC is more definitive proof of which side he is on when it comes to human rights for LGBT people.

Next time, perhaps we’ll be less surprised when he shows his true colors.

Complete Article HERE!

Pope Francis’s meeting with Kim Davis disappointed the liberals he courted

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For a man who has made it a point to be humble in his faith and to take politicians in the United States to task, meeting Davis was a profound error

Francis:Kim

 

Pope Francis will never be pro-choice. He will never preside over the ordination of women nor perform a same-sex wedding. He is a Catholic, after all.

But from the moment he alighted in DC to wheels up from Philadelphia for his first US visit, the pope’s statements sent shockwaves through both the Catholic communion and the US political community. While speaking to Congress, he demanded attention to climate change. He chastised a war-happy nation against selling arms for “blood money” and never once did he use the word “abortion” in a public forum. For the Roman Catholic Church, which evolves at a glacial pace, each of these small utterances or omissions were nothing short of miraculous.

Then came word that the pontiff met with Kim Davis.

He met with many people during his visit: the Little Sisters of The Poor, the order of nuns embroiled in a legal battle over the contraception provision of Obamacare; the conservative leader of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, who promptly announced his retirement the next day; Mark Wahlberg – arguably a questionable move – and got the official blessing of Her Majesty, Madonna.

But Kim Davis?

Davis is the Rowan County Clerk who famously emerged from her Kentucky jail cell to Eye of the Tiger and into the embrace of Mike Huckabee for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same sex-couples. Most recently, Davis announced that she was leaving the liberal Democratic Party to join the more accommodating confines of the right-wing Republican one.

The meeting can be heckled by observers for many reasons, including that she’s a member of a church that generally believes Catholics to be heretical idolaters and her belief that loving gay couples shouldn’t get married. But her meeting with the pope casts no reflection on her. We saw what she stood for weeks ago.

Instead the meeting casts a long and confusing shadow over the pope, the first pontiff from the Global South, who was supposed to be a man of the people. The stories of his humility have rapt lapsed and so-called “cafeteria” Catholics around the world. Raised Roman Catholic but not a follower in adulthood, I too was taken by this pope. Riding the bus in Argentina. Considering himself a sinner. His off-the-cuff remark – who am I to judge? – when asked about LGBT people by a reporter. This pope, it seemed, was different.

For a man who has made it a point to be humble in his faith and to take politicians in the United States to task, meeting Davis was a profound error.

Davis is a politically charged figure. Had she not been elevated to near sainthood by Mike Huckabee and others, perhaps she would have faded into the ether. For better or worse, Davis is now a symbol of right-wing Christian morality and so-called traditional and wholesome family values. Her notoriety epitomizes what non-inclusivity looks like. What are we to think about the humble, who-am-I-to-judge pope stamping with approval the values of Kim Davis?

Maybe one of his many handlers didn’t do a simple Google search on exactly how divisive a figure Davis has become? It doesn’t matter how the meeting happened – it happened. To a pope who seeks to broaden the appeal of Catholicism in the US – where the church is flagging in funding, mired in horrific sexual abuse scandals and facing a falling membership – he has done himself no favors by holding a private meeting with Davis and her husband.

Pope Francis’s actions in this case speak much, much louder than his many seemingly good words.

Complete Article HERE!

Christian Brothers High School denies homecoming date for gay student

Lance Sanderson
Lance Sanderson

MEMPHIS, TN – A student at Christian Brothers High School said the school will not let him bring his date to the school’s homecoming dance.

Lance Sanderson is a senior at CBHS, and he wants to bring a male date to homecoming.

He believes administrators at the private all-boys Catholic school are discriminating against him with a policy laid out in a September 24 news bulletin on the school’s website.

“CBHS students may attend the dance by themselves, with other CBHS students, or with a girl from another school. For logistical reasons, boys from other schools may not attend.”

School administrators have not commented publicly on this policy or Sanderson’s specific complaint. However, a letter was issued to the CBHS community explaining the development of a more pro-active outreach.

According to the policy, Sanderson would be allowed to bring a male date from CBHS but not from another school.

“I can bring like, a friend from CBHS or like, a girl friend from another school but I can’t bring like a boyfriend from another school or a date from another school,” Sanderson explained. “The other students have that option.  They use it.”

Sanderson said he has been out as homosexual since his freshman year. He said the previous school administration agreed to let him bring his date to homecoming, but now the school has changed its tune.

“I feel like they’re discriminating against me because I want to bring a guy and they don’t support that right now,” said Sanderson.

He said he’s asking to be treated like all of the other students at his high school.

Sanderson created a Change.org petition with the hopes of getting the school to change its mind before homecoming. He’s gained more than 6,000 supporters.

However, experts at Gold Law Firm said there does not appear to be any discrimination in the CBHS policy, because it’s been the school’s policy not to allow men from other schools at their dances.

Additionally, the administrator who gave verbal permission to Sanderson last year didn’t legally have the authority to do that.

Sanderson said he’s now pushing for more progressive policies.

“I’d like the policy to change,” he said. “If not now, maybe sometime before prom.”

CBHS’s homecoming is scheduled for Saturday, September 26.

Complete Article HERE!