In accusing Cardinal McElroy of heresy, Bishop Paprocki was aiming higher

— The American episcopate’s anti-Francis faction takes it to a new level.

Cardinal Robert McElroy, from left, Pope Francis and Bishop Thomas Paprocki.

On Feb. 28, the Catholic bishop of Springfield, Illinois, Thomas Paprocki, accused the newest American cardinal, San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy, of heresy.

Not that Paprocki made so bold as to call out McElroy by name. In a Feb. 28 essay, “Imagining a Heretical Cardinal,” on the website of the magazine First Things, the bishop began by quoting directly from an article McElroy had published in the Jesuit magazine America a month earlier:

Imagine if a cardinal of the Catholic Church were to publish an article in which he condemned “a theology of eucharistic coherence that multiplies barriers to the grace and gift of the eucharist” and stated that “unworthiness cannot be the prism of accompaniment for disciples of the God of grace and mercy.”

Anyone who plugged the quotes into a search engine did not have to imagine for long.

Newly created Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, bishop of San Diego, attends a reception for relatives and friends in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican on Aug. 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) — Newly created Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, bishop of San Diego, attends a reception for relatives and friends in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican on Aug. 27, 2022.

Paprocki then proceeded to a second imaginary: “Or what if a cardinal of the Catholic Church were to state publicly that homosexual acts are not sinful and same-sex unions should be blessed by the Church?”

Public statements along those lines have been made by Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, not McElroy — though a reader might think otherwise. In his America article, McElroy concerned himself with the question of whether access to the Eucharist should be permitted to the divorced and remarried and to sexually active LGBT people.

Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki in 2018. Photo courtesy of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois — Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki in 2018.

McElroy took the position that members of both groups should be so permitted for the reasons of “eucharistic conherence” that Paprocki quoted in his response. The Springfield bishop pronounced the remarks heretical and proceeded to cite canon law indicating that those holding heretical views are automatically excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

But, Paprocki continued, since a cardinal can only be removed from office by the pope, one who is automatically excommunicated (i.e., McElroy) might get to vote for the next pope. “We must pray,” Paprocki piously concluded, “that the Holy Spirit will not let this happen, and will inspire anyone who espouses heretical views to renounce them and seek reconciliation with our Lord and his Church.”

I guess Paprocki figured there’s no way the present pope would himself avert the danger by removing the heretical cardinal in question from office. And with good reason.

After all, in his 2013 apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium” (The Joy of the Gospel), Pope Francis wrote:

The Eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak. These convictions have pastoral consequences that we are called to consider with prudence and boldness. Frequently, we act as arbiters of grace rather than its facilitators. But the Church is not a tollhouse; it is the house of the Father, where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems.

In his 2016 exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” (Love’s Happiness), Francis declared that it “can no longer simply be said that all those in any ‘irregular’ situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace.” And that “science needs to be better incorporated into the Church’s praxis in certain situations which do not objectively embody our understanding of marriage.”

And: “At times we find it hard to make room for God’s unconditional love in our pastoral activity. We put so many conditions on mercy that we empty it of its concrete meaning and real significance.”

Pope Francis speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the Vatican, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023. Francis acknowledged that Catholic bishops in some parts of the world support laws that criminalize homosexuality or discriminate against the LGBTQ community, and he himself referred to homosexuality in terms of "sin." But he attributed attitudes to culture backgrounds, and said bishops in particular need to undergo a process of change to recognize the dignity of everyone. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) — Pope Francis speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the Vatican, Jan. 24, 2023.

Did I mention that, to the consternation of some conservative prelates and laity, the pope in fact did, in Chapter 8 of “Amoris Laetitia,” give bishops the power to grant divorced and remarried persons access to the Eucharist?

No one should have the slightest doubt that the McElroy remarks condemned as heresy by Paprocki convey precisely Francis’ magisterial teaching — indeed, that the pope’s injunction to “make room for God’s unconditional love in our pastoral activity” is clearly mirrored in McElroy’s advocacy of a “radical inclusion” of some people whose sexual activity outside of church-sanctioned marriage violates church doctrine.

If McElroy pushed the envelope, it was by extending the pope’s principles to sexually active LGBTQ persons. But that’s not where Paprocki brought his hammer down. He brought it down on the principles themselves — effectively applying the same automatic excommunication he assigned to McElroy to Francis himself.

It’s hard to imagine a bishop affronting any other pope in this way with impunity.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

March 9, 2023

Catholic group spent millions on app data that tracked gay priests

— A group of philanthropists poured money into a Denver nonprofit that obtained dating and hookup app data and shared it with bishops around the country, a Post investigation has found

By Michelle Boorstein and Heather Kelly

A group of conservative Colorado Catholics has spent millions of dollars to buy mobile app tracking data that identified priests who used gay dating and hookup apps and then shared it with bishops around the country.

The secretive effort was the work of a Denver nonprofit called Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal, whose trustees are philanthropists Mark Bauman, John Martin and Tim Reichert, according to public records, an audio recording of the nonprofit’s president discussing its mission and other documents. The use of data is emblematic of a new surveillance frontier in which private individuals can potentially track other Americans’ locations and activities using commercially available information. No U.S. data privacy laws prohibit the sale of this data.

The project’s aim, according to tax records, is to “empower the church to carry out its mission” by giving bishops “evidence-based resources” with which to identify weaknesses in how they train priests.

In response to requests for comment and a detailed list of questions, a spokesperson for Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal initially said the group’s president, Jayd Henricks, would agree to an interview at a certain time, but Henricks did not call or return several messages seeking comment. After The Washington Post reached out again, Henricks on Wednesday posted a first-person piece on the site First Things, saying he was proud to be part of the group, whose purpose was “to love the Church and to help the Church to be holy, with every tool she could be given,” including data. He wrote that the group has done other research, in addition to the analysis of dating and hookup apps.

The Post interviewed two people with firsthand knowledge of the project, heard an audio recording of Henricks discussing it, and reviewed documents that were prepared for bishops as well as public records. One of the two people works for the church and spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about it. The second person is active in the church in Colorado, knows some of the project’s organizers, and spoke on the condition of anonymity because the project is not supposed to be public. Both disapprove of the project because they see it as spying and coercive in ways that are damaging to priest-bishop relations and to the reputation of the Catholic Church and thus its ability to evangelize. They also see the project as taking a simplistic approach to morality that they call un-Catholic.

Some of the men who are part of the Renewal project were also involved in the July 2021 outing of a prominent priest, Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, according to the two people with firsthand knowledge of the project and comments by the group’s president on the audio recording. Burrill, who declined to comment for this story, resigned from his post as the top administrator at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) after a Catholic news site, the Pillar, said it had mobile app data showing he was a regular on Grindr and had gone to a gay bar and a gay bathhouse and spa. The Pillar did not say where its data came from.

The anonymous tracking of a gay priest through his phone made news around the world, with critics calling it a kind of weaponized, anti-gay surveillance.

Until now, the people behind Burrill’s outing and the extent of the project were not public, nor was the fact that the effort continued — for at least another year after that incident, according to the people familiar with it and documents.

“The power of this story is that you don’t often see where these practices are linked to a specific person or group of people. Here, you can clearly see the link,” said Justin Sherman, a senior fellow at Duke University’s public policy school, who focuses on data privacy issues. The number of data privacy laws in the country, he said, “you can count them on one or two hands.”

According to two separate reports prepared for bishops and reviewed by The Post, the group says it obtained data that spans 2018 through 2021 for multiple dating and hookup apps including Grindr, Scruff, Growlr and Jack’d, all used by gay men, as well as OkCupid, a major site for people of various sexualities. But most of the data appears to be from Grindr, and those familiar with the project said the organizers’ focus was gay priests.

In the First Things piece, Henricks said: “It’s not about straight or gay priests and seminarians. It’s about behavior that harms everyone involved, at some level and in some way, and is a witness against the ministry of the Church.”

One report prepared for bishops says the group’s sources are data brokers who got the information from ad exchanges, which are sites where ads are bought and sold in real time, like a stock market. The group cross-referenced location data from the apps and other details with locations of church residences, workplaces and seminaries to find clergy who were allegedly active on the apps, according to one of the reports and also the audiotape of the group’s president.

Sherman said police departments have bought data about citizens instead of seeking a warrant, domestic abusers have accessed data about their victims, and antiabortion activists have used data to target people who visit clinics.

But Bennett Cyphers, a special adviser to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights organization, said the Burrill story was the first time he had heard of a private group buying commercial data and using it against a specific individual.

“It was the first needle-in-a-haystack case, where someone sifts through millions of locations in apps and looks for one person and then tries to use that info to impeach them,” Cyphers said. “It was a character assassination of a private citizen for some kind of political reason based on information [the citizen] didn’t know they were being tracked on.”<

Still, some have celebrated Burrill’s outing as a way to purify the church by making other clerics more fearful of breaking their promise of celibacy.

The Rev. Gerald Murray, a New York City canon lawyer who offers church commentary on the Catholic channel EWTN and Fox News, said Burrill being a priest in a prominent role makes any misbehavior “a much greater scandal” and essentially eliminates his right to privacy.

“The promise of celibacy is a public act, it’s not a private commitment. It’s of public interest when those are violated in a scandalous way,” he said.

The Renewal group has spent at least $4 million, according to the recording of Henricks, and approached more than a dozen bishops with the information. It’s not clear what impact the project is having on clergy who the data suggests have actively used a dating or hookup app on their phone. Except for Burrill, it is not known whether the data has led to the resignation or termination of any other priests or seminarians. One of the two people familiar with the project said people may be kept from promotions or wind up in early retirement but not know why.

The project’s existence reflects a newly empowered American Catholic right wing that sees enforcing its interpretation of church teaching on sexuality and gender as an existential issue for the church and that no longer trusts bishops to do so. It is a flip of traditional church power dynamics, with the Colorado laypeople in a position to pressure bishops.

At the most intimate level, it shows a new generation of surveillance technology moving into different realms, now including the religious.

“Revealing information that harms a person’s reputation without an objectively valid reason — even if it’s true — is considered a sin,” said a member of the USCCB who knows Burrill and watched the monsignor experience “intense emotional distress” when his orientation and use of Grindr were made public in 2021. This person spoke on the condition of anonymity because of their working relationship with bishops. This person had heard about the data project before the Burrill news from another person who was approached by the nonprofit who told the USCCB member the effort was mainly focused on exposing gay priests.

A data project

In 2018, a man “concerned with reforming the Catholic clergy” approached a few Catholic organizations, including the Catholic News Agency, according to a cryptic article CNA published the day before the Burrill story broke.

That 2018 pitch, CNA reported, “was to provide this information privately to Church officials in the hopes that they would discipline or remove those found to be using these technologies to violate their clerical vows and possibly bring scandal to the Church.” CNA had declined the man’s offer, the story said, “but there are reports this week that information targeting allegedly active homosexual priests may become public.”

Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal opened for business in June 2019, incorporation records show. The nonprofit was created to “support the commitment of Roman Catholic clergy to living the teachings of the church,” its 2019 tax filing states. Its purpose is “to work systematically with bishops, priests, religious and seminarians to … provide evidence-based resources to bishops that enable them to effectively judge and support quality formation practices, and [to] identify weaknesses in current formation practices and priestly life.”

It’s not clear if or how the Renewal group is connected to the man who approached CNA.

Bauman, Martin and Reichert are listed as trustees on the nonprofit’s tax filings for the two years they are publicly available.

Martin is a co-founder of one of the largest natural gas producers in the western United States, McMurry Oil Co. He supports many charitable efforts through his and his wife’s Martin Family Foundation. Those include his co-founding of the Amazing Parish, a national consulting firm to help improve parishes, and major donations to the causes of campus evangelization, antiabortion, anti-poverty and religious education. He contributed $555,000 to Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal over two years, tax records show.

Bauman is a former entertainment company executive who is now president of the board of Christ in the City, a nonprofit organization that trains missionaries and serves the homeless. He is a benefactor of some of the same Denver-area groups as Martin and Reichert, including Catholic Charities and Focus campus ministry. He did not donate money to the Renewal group in 2019 or 2020, according to tax documents.

Reichert is the founder of Economics Partners, a consulting firm that employs dozens of economists. He ran unsuccessfully for Congress last year in the central 7th District as a Republican. With his wife, he gives major gifts to Catholic Charities, Mother Teresa’s order Missionaries of Charity and college evangelization. The couple also gave $600,000 to Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal over two years, according to the group’s tax returns.

In a speech last year given to a Catholic Charities men’s breakfast, Reichert said Christians need to oppose false ideas like “post-Christianity” or “pluralism,” which he calls a “fool’s errand.” Instead, he said, they need to boldly proselytize and not worry about being unpopular or canceled. “To be free, one has to be willing to lose one’s reputation. That’s the way they’ve set up the game.”

According to two people with knowledge of the project, the philanthropists hired Henricks, the former head of government relations for the USCCB, the organized body of Catholic leaders in the United States. Henricks by then had moved from D.C. to Denver to work for the Augustine Institute, a Catholic graduate school. Martin and Bauman have donated to the school. Reichert’s wife, Martha, is listed as a staff member there.

Tax documents for Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal show revenue of $1.5 million in 2019 and $1.8 million in 2020, the most recent year information is public. Most of the money each year was spent on “data and computing,” staff salaries and attorneys’ fees.

The law firm representing the group is D.C.-based Schaerr-Jaffe, founded by Gene Schaerr, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who has called fighting same-sex marriage “a religious duty.” Schaerr advises evangelical colleges on how to protect their government funding while upholding practices such as barring LGBTQ student clubs.

In an email to The Post, Schaerr confirmed the group is a client. “My charge was and is to help them ensure that their efforts — which are focused on empowering Catholic bishops to more effectively oversee and mentor their priests and seminarians — comply with all relevant privacy and other laws.”

He deferred other questions to the group.

Other donors to the nonprofit include the Catholic Foundation of Northern Colorado, which works in tandem with the Archdiocese of Denver to support its ministries and parishes. The foundation gave the Renewal group $400,000 in the two years for which tax forms are available.

The Catholic Foundation of Northern Colorado did not return messages seeking comment.

Henricks knows many bishops from his previous job with the bishops’ conference. According to the person who works for the church and to the audio recording, Henricks’s role has been to take the data sets to various bishops and use their knowledge of priests’ and seminarians’ locations to match the known device locations with actual people.

Henricks wrote in First Things that he shared this information with “a handful of rectors and bishops” and did not make the information available for public use, so as to be able to “have honest and frank conversations with Church leaders, and protect the privacy of those affected.”

However, one of the people with knowledge of the project said some bishops felt pressure from the group to take action.

The Post has seen copies of two different reports presented to bishops. One is from the Renewal group to a diocese and the other is the one that the Pillar presented to the USCCB about Burrill. The information in both is mostly about Grindr, although the reports also say they have used data from other gay dating apps Growlr, Scruff and Jack’d, as well as OkCupid.

These dating and hookup apps let people create profiles, search for other users and send private messages back and forth. The apps can use a person’s exact location to show them potential matches nearby, in real time, for in-person meetups.

The data covers periods from 2018 to 2021 and the reports include images of certain addresses with location pings marked on top, such as parishes, rectories and seminaries.

The documents The Post reviewed do not name the ad brokers and exchanges where they say the data came from. It isn’t clear whether the Renewal donors purchased data directly from brokers, or from someone else who had, or a combination of the two.

According to one of the people familiar with the project and the audio tape, the philanthropists, Henricks and church officials have varying views about how best to use the data.

Some wanted to out the men, like Burrill, believed to have the apps on their phones, the person said.

Others want to use data to work behind the scenes, to monitor the men, perhaps confronting them without saying how their app use was known, or maybe keeping such men from rising in their careers, the person said.

Vulnerable tech

The digital advertising industry has compiled and sold such detailed data for years, claiming that stripping away information like names made it anonymous. Researchers have long shown, however, that it is possible to take a large amount of data for a specific location and re-identify people using additional information such as known addresses, and the outing of Burrill showed the practice in action. This buying and selling of data — from demographics and political beliefs to health information — is a multibillion-dollar, almost unregulated industry, said Sherman of Duke University.

Although no names were in the original data from brokers, it included enough identifying details and location pings that the group was able to analyze it for specific locations and narrow down likely people using the apps. The information the group told bishops they had included: the type of device, the location, the device ID and the internet service provider being used, among other characteristics, according to the reports.

The group also focused on devices that spent multiple nights at a rectory, for example, or if a hookup app was used for a certain number of days in a row in some other church building, such as a seminary or an administrative building. They then tracked other places those devices went according to location information and cross-referenced addresses with public information.

Henricks said in his First Things piece that they were “meticulous” about complying with all applicable laws, including data and privacy ones.

The app companies say they have changed what information they share.

Grindr spokesman Patrick Lenihan told The Post that the company stopped sharing location information in early 2020. The company says it only shares limited information with ad partners now. Grindr has said it asked the Pillar several times to see the data to verify it came from the app but no data was provided.

Growlr said it previously shared location data with advertisers but stopped in May 2022, “in light of potential vulnerabilities that could lead to unintended misuse,” said a spokesperson for its owner, the Meet Group.

“Location data, while the user was using the app, was made available to advertisers in real time for the purposes of advertising. Growlr no longer shares GPS location data.”

>Match Group, which owns OkCupid, says the app did not share that kind of location data during that time and does not currently. “Location data is obfuscated within a kilometer for safety reasons,” said Match Group spokeswoman Justine Sacco.

Perry Street Software, which owns Jack’d and Scruff, did not reply to requests for comment.

Buying and selling precise location data is still common in the digital ad industry, despite a few bigger apps changing their own policies, said Matt Voda, chief executive of marketing analytics company OptiMine.

Regardless, the data used by the Denver group shows only when and where dating apps have been activated on a phone; they don’t prove conversations or in-person meetings took place. That lack of information was cited by critics of the Pillar’s 2021 reporting, which said Burrill was guilty of “serial sexual misconduct.” The Pillar also described Grindr, which is used by 11 million people around the world each month, as a tool of child predators. The site did note that there was no suggestion or evidence Burrill was in communication with minors.

In 2021, Pillar editor JD Flynn defended their reporting, saying a priest shouldn’t be on Grindr for the same reason a priest shouldn’t ride alone in a car with a child.

“It seems totally reasonable to say the Church must ask: ‘Is there a similar technological analog where no cleric would use such an app because of the way in which an infinitesimally small number of clerics have already been demonstrated to use the app inappropriately.

Grindr said the connections are harmful.

“We are infuriated by the actions of these anti-LGBTQ vigilantes. Grindr has and will continue to push the industry to keep bad actors out of the ad tech ecosystem, particularly on behalf of the LGBTQ community,” Lenihan said. “All this group is doing is hurting people.”

After the Pillar’s reporting in 2021 on Burrill, it initially seemed as though the then-anonymous project was about to explode in public across the country

Three days after the Pillar wrote about Burrill, it published a story saying its analysis of signal data within the Archdiocese of Newark showed “patterns of location-based hookup app use” at various church residences. It said it did not de-anonymize the Newark data.

A few days later, the Pillar reported that its data analysis showed that 32 devices in the Vatican complex put off signals in 2018 from hookup apps.

A Newark spokesperson told The Post that the Pillar provided no actual data or evidence of misconduct and that the matter was being reviewed. The Vatican complex in Rome declined to comment to the Pillar.

After that, the stories stopped.

A Catholic debate

The topic of clergy sexuality has vexed the U.S. Catholic Church for decades. Several prominent experts on clergy sexuality estimate a third of U.S. priests are gay men, who serve a church that teaches being gay is “disordered,” in opposition to God’s plan. Social conservatives have noted that abuse victims of Catholic clergy in recent decades were mostly male and have tried to paint gay priests as the problem. But professional advocates for abuse survivors say the problem isn’t gay priests, but instead a silence and simplification around the topics of celibacy and clergy sexuality that in a minority of cases allows secrets to fester.

The Catholic Church teaches that priests make promises of “celibacy,” which falls under the Sixth Commandment (in Catholicism the Sixth Commandment calls for permanent fidelity to your spouse) and literally means they will not marry. Celibacy, Catholicism teaches, is also considered a spiritual discipline created for the good of the church. Church law requires priests not to have sex, but church leaders have long disagreed about what that literally means, long before the complex digital era. Experts disagree whether actions such as having a hookup app on your phone, engaging in sexual talk on an app or watching people have sex at a bathhouse qualify under church law as sex.

“These aren’t new issues; the internet is just a new tool. There is a tension between these policies about sins involving the Sixth Commandment, and the fact that [the Church] has never defined that in law. It always shifts and is up to the opinions of moral theologians,” said Jennifer Haselberger, a canon lawyer in private practice who worked for several dioceses, including Minneapolis-St. Paul, where she was head of the canonical department.

Simply having Grindr on a phone, as a priest, is not against the Sixth Commandment, she said. Church law “isn’t there at all.”

Monsignor Fred Easton, a canon lawyer who was top judge for the tribunal of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, said there is no automatic penalty under the code of canon law against a priest for having a dating app on his phone, but bishops have discretion.

In Burrill’s case, after an extended leave, his bishop, William Callahan of La Crosse, Wis., in June appointed Burrill to serve as the parochial administrator of a parish there.

Murray, the New York City priest, noted that church law calls for clerics to “behave with due prudence toward persons whose company can endanger their obligation to observe continence or give rise to scandal among the faithful.”

The tracking and outing of Burrill was “a very good thing,” he said

Murray, like many Catholic conservatives, is concerned about increased acceptance of LGBTQ relationships in the church. That said, it’s “gaslighting” to call stories focused on Grindr anti-gay, he said. “The issue is unchastity and the scandal given to the people in the pews.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

March 2, 2023March 1, 2023

LGBT+ History Month

— Navigating faith as a gay man

Numair Masud found it “impossible” to express his sexuality growing up in Pakistan

By Liz Clements

“I spent a great deal of my time in the shadows, hiding. That is not a happy existence for anyone.”

Dr Numair Masud from Cardiff used to practise Islam but left his faith as he felt he could not express his sexuality but instead had to hide it.

But for David Williamson and Matthew Dicken, from Cwmbran their experience couldn’t be more different – they are looking forward to receiving a church blessing when they get married in May.

“Being same sex attracted and being a Christian are not mutually exclusive. They can co-exist,” according to David.

During LGBT+ History Month three gay men share their views on their respective faiths – a relationship that is historically complicated with views varying from person to person in diverse religions across the world.

‘You can be persecuted by law’

Raised in a Muslim family in Pakistan, Dr Masud found it “impossible” to express his sexuality there.

“It was an upbringing of repression and oppression,” said the 32-year-old.

“By virtue of being in love with the same sex, you can be persecuted by law. There was fear because you don’t want the truth to come out because it can harm you.”

Mosque in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan — In Pakistan, where Dr Masud was born, homosexuality is illegal

In Pakistan homosexuality is illegal and punishable by possible life imprisonment.

Numair moved to the UK to start a degree in zoology in Bristol and then moved to Cardiff to study for his PhD.

Navigating his identity as a gay man he became critical of his relationship with Islam and decided to leave the faith.

When he fell in love with another man, Numair realised he could not and would not return to Pakistan.

In 2017 he claimed and was granted asylum in the UK and now lives in Cardiff working as a research scientist at Cardiff University.

“Perhaps the most important freedom of all that I discovered, was the freedom to be able to help others through learning from my own trials and tribulations, to be able to help others discover their own voice”, he said.

Numair is now an LGBTQ+ activist, helping others who struggle to reconcile their sexuality and religion.

Dr Numair Masud — Dr Masud is a research scientist in Cardiff

He worries that there is a danger when faith informs potentially harmful views.

“You have a right to believe in what you want, but the moment your belief when acted upon harms me or anyone else or any other community, that is unacceptable”, he said.

He acknowledges his experiences are personal and there are LGBTQ+ Muslims who are able to continue practising their faith.

While some attitudes are changing towards LGBTQ+ people in Muslim communities he personally was unable to do this.

“It feels bittersweet, because I’ve had to give up a lot in my life to be where I am today. Saying goodbye to the people you love is not easy,” he reflects.

“The sweet element, the sense of joy comes from realising that I have the freedom to be myself and find love, to love and be loved without too much judgement here in Wales… I’m so thankful and grateful for that.”

While Numair struggled, for David and Matthew, their religion is at the heart of their relationship.

‘Celebrate our love’

In just under three months, Matthew, 34 and David, 46 will tie the knot in Cardiff’s City Hall.

But what the couple, who are members of the Church in Wales, are most excited for is a blessing at Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff.

It will be the first blessing of its kind at the 12th Century cathedral.

“People have worshipped on this site for over 1,000 years, so there’s something special about that and to be able to celebrate our love there,” headteacher Matthew said.

The couple who live in Cwmbran have been together for two years but met years earlier.

Matthew and David’s individual journeys with sexuality have been different and complicated at times.

“Growing up, I always knew I was same-sex attracted but that was something to keep hidden or not talk about,” said David, who now works as executive assistant to the Bishop of Llandaff.

“It took me until my 30s to accept that for myself, and then a journey to actually see I’m still a person of faith, and my relationship with God is fundamentally intrinsic to who I am,” he added.

“I’d love to be able to say that everyone’s accepting but that’s not my full experience,” said Matt.

‘Difficult conversations’

“People have quoted little bits of scripture from out of context and that has happened to us.

“We’re not going to pretend it’s easy, but our understanding is based on the fundamental thing of love,” he said.

“Being same sex attracted and being a Christian are not mutually exclusive. They can co-exist,” David added.

The couple said there are “ways to conduct debate carefully”, and despite difficult conversations or upsetting remarks, they believe things are progressing.

“I think the Church in Wales are really trying to be inclusive, and that’s so important. Communities of faith are on their own journey as well,” Matt said.

“It’s difficult to try and forge a way forward and accepting and blessing something that’s different from what has been, for however many centuries.”

‘Celebrate love in all its variety’

In September 2021, the Church in Wales’ governing body voted in favour of offering blessings to gay marriages or civil partnerships. In theological terms, a blessing is God’s approval.

The first same-sex blessing was in November that year.

The blessing is currently being used experimentally for five years, but individual clergy can decide whether to bless partnerships.

Earlier this month, the Church of England backed proposals to allow same-sex blessings there, as is already granted in Wales, but the topic proved divisive.

An amendment to force a vote on changing the Church’s teaching and allowing gay couples to marry in Church was rejected during the eight-hour debate in the Church of England’s national assembly.

In Wales the law prohibits same-sex marriages by the Church in Wales.

Andy John, Archbishop of Wales — In 2021, the Archbishop of Wales, The Most Rev Andrew John said same-sex weddings could be held in churches in Wales in five years

In 2021, the Archbishop of Wales, The Most Rev Andrew John said same-sex weddings could be held in churches in Wales in five years and should “welcome people, where they are, who they are”.

Matthew agrees changing the rules on same-sex marriage in churches in Wales could mean inclusion for more people.

“It needs to move forward I believe to be more accepting and to celebrate love in all its variety. I think there is a sense of urgency, because you lose people, not only to a church building or congregation, you lose people to faith,” he said.

For now though, both Matthew and David cannot wait for their special day.

“To celebrate our love for each other and our love for God and wanting to seek God’s blessing on our relationship and to be able to do that publicly in a place of worship is just more than we ever thought would be possible.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

February 20, 2023February 20, 2023

Archdiocese of Denver Clarifies Stance on Refusing Four Women Wearing Rainbow Masks

— The Archdiocese of Denver allegedly refused the four women wearing rainbow masks during Communion at All Souls Catholic Church. Recently, they clarified the issue through their spokesperson, Kelly Clark.

By Bernadette Salapare

Kelly Clark, a spokesman for the Denver Archdiocese, told The Denver Post that nobody from All Souls was available to discuss the subject. She also stated that the Archdiocese will not give a statement in response to the claim, yet, she did mention in an email that “the most sacred thing we do as Catholics is celebrated Mass.”

According to Clark, the Mass is a time to worship God and not a time to seemingly make a statement or enter Mass to generate a response. It is appropriate for a priest to give a blessing instead of Communion if it appears that the person isn’t ready to receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ. If people believe that they were denied Communion in error, they strongly recommend they discuss the matter with the pastor of their parish, she added.

Story of the Four Women During Communion in Archdiocese of Denver

A report from Into stated that on Saturday, Feb. 11, the four close friends Sally Odenheimer, 71, Susan Doty, 81, Jill Moore, 64, and Cindy Grubenhoff, 48, went to the Mass held at All Souls Catholic Parish in Englewood. The priest gave a puzzled expression after taking one glimpse at the congregation’s rainbow face masks while they were lining up to take the Eucharist.

As mentioned, the four close friends wanted to show their support for local teacher Maggie Barton, who had been dismissed due to her sexual orientation, by wearing face masks. Barton was employed at All Souls Catholic School as a technology teacher until the Archdiocese of Denver got a photo of her kissing her partner. On Jan. 26, a day after Pope Francis condemned punitive actions for homosexuality, she was terminated from her position.

According to Advocate, even though none of them often goes to All Souls, Sally Odenheimer saw an opportunity to show her support for the educator. She organized a group of her friends to wear LGBTQ-affirming clothing and attend Mass at the church, where Barton was dismissed from her position. The women were taken aback when the priest refused to give them Communion. However, they did not make a fuss about it and simply continued with the Mass.

>As per Christianity Daily, the Archdiocese of Denver has a different stance on the issue. They claim that Barton’s dismissal resulted from her failure to abide by the commitments outlined in her contract with the school. The contract says that all Catholic school teachers are expected to live a Catholic lifestyle and refrain from engaging in behavior opposite to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Barton did not adhere to the commitments outlined in her contract with the school. Despite the provided explanation by the church, Barton continues to be firm in her opinion that she was fired due to discrimination in the LGBT community.

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February 9, 2023February 9, 2023

Rigidity and Tolerance within the Vatican

ope Francis with a child on his shoulders – graffiti in Rome

By Jan Lundius

“The Roman curia suffers from spiritual Alzheimer [and] existential schizophrenia; this is the disease of those who live a double life, the fruit of that hypocrisy typical of the mediocre and of a progressive spiritual emptiness which no doctorates or academic titles can fill. […] When appearances, the colour of our clothes and our titles of honour become the primary object in life, [it] leads us to be men and woman of deceit. […] Be careful around those who are rigid. Be careful around Christians – be they laity, priests, bishops – who present themselves as so ‘perfect’. Be careful. There’s no Spirit of God there. They lack the spirit of liberty [..] We are all sinners. But may the Lord not let us be hypocrites. Hypocrites don’t know the meaning of forgiveness, joy and the love of God.”
Pope Francis I

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Feb 8 2023 (IPS) – When the Pope Emeritus Benedict XIV/Ratzinger died on the last day of 2022 it did not cause much of a stir in the global newsfeed. Maybe a sign that religion has ceased to play a decisive role in modern society Nevertheless, religious hierarchies are still highly influential, not least for the world’s 1, 4 billion baptized Catholics, and a pope’s policies have a bearing not only on morals, but also on political and economic issues. By contrast, there are more Muslims in the world, 1.9 billion, though adherents are not so centrally controlled and supervised as Catholics and hierarchies do not have a comparable influence on global affairs.

When Benedict abdicated in 2013 he retained his papal name, continued to wear the white, papal cassock, adopted the title Pope Emeritus and moved into a monastery in the Vatican Gardens. It must have been a somewhat cumbersome presence for a new, more radical pope, particularly since Benedict became a symbol of traditional values and served as an inspiration for critics of the current papacy.

By the end of his reign, John Paul II was suffering from Parkinson’s disease and Cardinal Ratzinger was in effect running the Vatican and when he was elected Pope in 2005, his closest runner-up was Cardinal Bergoglio from Buenos Aires. What would have happened if Borgoglio, who eventually became Francis I, had been elected? Would he have been able to more effectively deal with clerical sexual abuse and Vatican corruption?

When Joseph Ratzinger became pope, he had for 27 years served John Paul II by heading the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), investigating and condemning birth control, acceptance of homosexuals, “gender theory” and Liberation Theology, a theological approach with a specific concern for the poor and political liberation for oppressed people.

Under Cardinal Ratzinger the CDF generally overlooked an often shady economic cooperation financing Pope John Paul II’s successful battle against Communism, while covering up clerical sexual abuse and marginalizing “progressive” priests. Several Latin American liberation theologians agreed that John Paul II in several ways was an asset to the Church, though he mistreated clerics who actually believed in Jesus’s declaration that he was chosen to “bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” John Paul II and his “watchdog” Joseph Ratzinger were considered to have “armoured fists hidden in silk gloves.”

Ratzinger censured and silenced a number of leading “liberal” priests, like the Latin American Liberation theologian Leonardo Boff and the American Charles Curran, who supported same sex marriages. Both were defrocked. Under Ratzinger’s CDF rule, several clerics were excommunicated for allowing abortions, like the American nun Margaret McBride, and the ordination of women priests, among them the Argentinian priest Rómulo Braschi and the French priest Roy Bourgeois.

Ratzinger/Benedict wrote 66 books, in which a common theme was Truth, which according to him was “self-sacrificing love”, guided by principles promulgated by the Pope and implemented by the Curia, the administrative body of the Vatican:

“Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labelled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting one be tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine, seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.”

A strict adherence to Catholic Doctrine meant bringing the Church back to what Benedict XVI considered as its proper roots. If this alienated some believers, so be it. Numerous times he stated that the Church might well be healthier if it was smaller. A point of view opposed to the one expressed by Francis I:

“Changes need to be made […] Law cannot be kept in a refrigerator. Law accompanies life, and life goes on. Like morals, it is being perfected. Both the Church and society have made important changes over time on issues as slavery and the possession of atomic weapons, moral life is also progressing along the same line. Human thought and development grows and consolidates with the passage of time. Human understanding changes over time, and human consciousness deepens.”

Benedict XVI allowed the issue of human sexuality to overshadow support to environmentalism and human rights. He wanted to “purify the Church” in accordance with rules laid down in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, published in 1992 and written under direction of the then Cardinal Ratzinger. The Catechism might be considered as a counterweight to “relativistic theories seeking to justify religious pluralism, while supporting decline in general moral standards.”

Pope Benedict endeavoured to reintegrate hard-core traditionalists back into the fold, maintaining and strengthening traditional qualms related to sexual conduct and abortion. He declared that modern society had diminished “the morality of sexual love to a matter of personal sentiments, feelings, [and] customs. […], isolating it from its procreative purposes.” Accordingly, “homosexual acts” were in the Catechism described as “violating natural law” and could “under no circumstances be approved.”

Papal condemnation of homosexuality may seem somewhat strange considering that it is generally estimated that the percentage of gay Catholic priests might be 30 – 60, suggesting more homosexual men (active and non-active) within the Catholic priesthood than within society at large.

In 2019, Frédéric Martel’s In the Closet of the Vatican sent shock waves through the Catholic world. Based on years of interviews and collaboration with a vast array of researchers, priests and prostitutes, Martel described the double life of priests and the hypocrisy of homophobic cardinals and bishops living with their young “assistants”. He pinpointed members of the Catholic hierarchy as “closet gays”, revealed how “de-anonymised” data from homosexual dating apps (like Grindl) listed clergy users, described exclusive homosexual coteries within the Vatican, networks of prostitutes serving priests, as well as the anguish of homosexual priests trying to come to terms with their homosexual inclinations.

According to Martel, celibacy is a main reason for homosexuality among Catholic priesthood. For a homosexual youngster a respected male community might serve as a safe haven within a homophobic society.

By burdening homosexuality with guilt, covering up sexual abuse and opaque finances the Vatican has not supported what Benedict proclaimed, namely protect and preach the Truth. Behind the majority of cases of sexual abuse there are priests and bishops who protected aggressors because of their own homosexuality and out of fear that it might be revealed in the event of a scandal. The culture of secrecy needed to maintain silence about the prevalence of homosexuality in the Church, which allowed sexual abuse to be hidden and predators to act without punishment.

Cardinal Robert Sarah stated that “Western homosexual and abortion ideologies” are of “demonic origin” and compared them to “Nazism and Islamic terrorism.” Such opinions did in 2020 not hinder Pope Emeritus Benedict from writing a book together with Sarah – From the Depths of Our Hearts: Priesthood, Celibacy and the Crisis of the Catholic Church. Among injunctions against abortion, safe sex, and women clergy, celibacy was fervently defended as not only “a mere precept of ecclesiastical law, but as a sharing in Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross and his identity as Bridegroom of the Church.” This in contrast to Francis I, who declared:

“It is time that the Church moves away from questions that divide believers and concentrate on the real issues: the poor, migrants, poverty. We can’t only insist on questions bound up with abortion, homosexual marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. It is not possible … It isn’t necessary to go on talking about it all the time.”

The current pope is not condoning abortion, though does not elevate it above the fight against poverty, climate change and the rights of migrants, which he proclaims to be “pro-life” issues in their own right. In 2021, Francis I stated that “same-sex civil unions are good and helpful to many.” He is of the opinion that Catholic priests ought to be celibate, but adds that this rule is not an unchangeable dogma and “the door is always open” to change. Francis propagates that women ought to be ordained as deacons; allowed to do priestly tasks, except giving absolution, anointing the sick, and celebrate mass and he has recruited women to several crucial administrative positions within the Vatican. Furthermore, he ordered all dioceses to report sexual abuse of minors to the Vatican, while notifying governmental law enforcement to allow for comprehensive investigations and perpetrators being judged by common – and not by canon law.

Just hours after Benedict’s funeral on 5 January Georg Gänswein’s memoir Nothing but the Truth — My Life Beside Benedict XVI, was distributed to the press. Gänswein, who was Benedict’s faithful companion and personal secretary, writes that for the Pope Emeritus the Doctrine of the Faith was the fundament of the Church, while Francis is more inclined to highlight “pastoral care”, i.e. guidance and support focusing on a person’s welfare, social and emotional needs, rather than purely educational ones.

In 2013, Gänswein entered in the service of Benedict XIV. He was professor in Canon Law, fluent in four languages, an able tennis player, excellent downhill skier and had a pilot’s licence. He was also an outspoken conservative and often critical of Francis I.

Shortly before his abdication, Benedict XVI appointed Cardinal Gänswein archbishop and made him Prefect of the Papal Household, deciding who could have an audience with Pope Francis I, while he at the same time was responsible for Benedict’s daily schedule, communications, and private and personal audiences. The Italian edition of the magazine Vanity Fair presented Gänswein on its cover, declaring “being handsome is not a sin” and calling him “the Georg Clooney of the Vatican”. Six years before Donatella Versace used Gänswein as inspiration for her fashion show Priest Chic.

There was an air of vanity and conservatism surrounding the acolytes of Benedict. Gänswein writes that working with both popes, the active one and the ”Emeritus” was a great challenge, not only in terms of work but in terms of style. Benedict XIV was a pope of aesthetics recognising that in a debased world there remain things of beauty, embodied in a Mozart sonata, a Latin mass, an altarpiece, an embroidered cape, or the cut of a cassock. The male-oriented lifestyle magazine Esquire included Pope Benedict in a “best-dressed men list”. Gänswein states that when Pope Francis in 2022 restricted the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass “I believe it broke Pope Benedict’s heart”.

Pope Francis is now 86, not much time remains for him as sovereign of the Catholic Church. Hopefully he will be able to change the Curia by staffing it with people who share his ambition to reform the Church by navigating away from doctrinal rigidity, vanity and seclusion towards inclusion, tolerance, human rights, poverty eradication and environmentalism.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!