Posted in category "Dissent"
“The church risks becoming a sect. Many Catholics no longer expect anything from this pope. It’s very sad,” Kung said in an interview published by the French newspaper Le Monde on February 24, 2009. 
Fr. Kung noted that one of the four traditionalist bishops whose excommunication was lifted by the pope minimized the Holocaust, igniting widespread criticism. The pope’s misjudgement on such an important issue, Kung said, reflected his own isolation.
“Benedict XVI has always lived in an ecclesial environment. He has not traveled much. He’s always remained closed in the Vatican–which is quite similar to how the Kremlin was at one time–where he is safe from criticism,” Fr. Kung said.
Kung went on to way that in his nearly four years in office the pope has shown a lack of pastoral courage and a lack of awareness of the “profound crisis” in the church. He suggested the pope could make several important gestures:
–Allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion in some circumstances.
–Take steps to “correct” the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae and allow the use of birth control in some cases.
–Abolish the rule of priestly celibacy in the Latin-rite church.
–Institute a new way of electing bishops with the involvement of local Catholics.
Fr. Kung said it would be helpful to call a third Vatican council to deal with these and other issues.
Read the Le Monde interview here.
Fr. Kung’s interview provoked some responses that were humorous…or ironic. Here are the best from the web..
Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, told Vatican Radio he was “hurt” by reading the interview, and contended that the accusations were “unproven, generic affirmations.”
Cardinal Sodano went on to say “Fraternal criticism has always been possible in the church, from the times of Sts. Peter and Paul. Bitter criticism, on the other hand, especially when it’s so broad, does not contribute to the unity of the church, for which Pope Benedict is working so hard.”
From the blog, Bilgrimage: “Benedict has the reputation for being a great intellectual; yet who more than he has shut down the intellectual life of the Catholic Church, turning it into a sect for the brain-dead.”
From the blog, Enlightened Catholicism: “I expect the blunders will continue unless he decides to launch real reform of the way the church is run. Even in the Vatican you can’t just rely on the Holy Spirit.”
My thanks to the Joseph S. O’Leary homepage, for the above quotes and this rousing call to action: “I suspect in the coming months we will see more initiatives coming from both the laity and clergy calling for real and sustainable change in how Catholicism conducts its business. It will be coming from people who also really love this Church, even the ones who have left in frustration. It’s way past time for these voices to be heard. The conservative wing of this Church has had their say for the last forty years. The results have been disastrous in the West and placing the blame for these results on those who hae left is rather self serving.” 
Fr. Peter Kennedy, 71, was removed as pastor of St. Mary’s, South Brisbane, Australia, by Archbishop John A. Bathersby earlier this week. This action was a tremendous loss not only to the parishioners of St. Mary’s, but all Catholics around the world that look for points of light–parishes, groups, schools, retreat centers, religious people, theologians, authors, bloggers–to take hope and comfort in knowing light from an open door shines for us. 
Archbishop Bathersby accused Fr. Kennedy of being “out of communion” with the church by allowing women to preach the homily, giving Communion to gay and divorced people, baptizing babies using unorthodox wording, criticizing the pope and not wearing traditional vestments.
The archbishop’s decree said Fr. Kennedy had “caused harm to ecclesiastical communion in spite of frequent requests from me to do otherwise.”
“The question for me,” said Archbishop Bathersby, “is not so much whether St. Mary’s should be closed down, but whether St. Mary’s will close itself down by practices that separate it from communion with the Roman Catholic Church.”
“In reality St. Mary’s South Brisbane has taken a Roman Catholic parish and established its own brand of religion,” he said. “Undoubtedly it does good, it promotes a strong sense of community, opens its doors to all who wish to come, but its own style of worship and sacramental practice can hardly be described as Roman Catholic.”
The conflict between Archbishop Bathersby and the parish community of St. Mary’s stretches back at least six years.
In 2004 the Archbishop demanded that Fr. Kennedy comply with Redemptionis Sacramentum, follow the liturgical norms and stop baptizing people “in the Name of the Creator and the Liberator and of the Sustainer.” Fr. Kennedy countered that they were doing this to make the sacrament “more inclusive, less patriarchal.” 
The parish previously angered conservatives in the church by welcoming gay couples and allowing the Brisbane Gay and Lesbian Choir to perform there in June 2003 as part of Brisbane Pride Festival celebrations. Archbishop Bathersby opposed the performance and said it was “inappropriate.”
Tony Robertson, who belongs to St. Mary’s, said parishioners were rallying to save their parish. Robertson blogs on Out and About with Tony – A Queer Perspective on Life as a Gay Catholic.
“St. Mary’s is a church which takes seriously its identity as a Catholic community and practices the teachings of the Catholic Church which calls for homosexual persons be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity,” Robertson said.
“Such acceptance calls for practical action which welcomes gay and lesbian people to the life and worship of the community.”
Robertson noted that other Catholic churches also welcome sexual minorities, including one church that flies the rainbow flag among its public decorations.
“Those who have concerns about our support for sexual minorities need to remember that the Catholic Church also teaches that every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. In this spirit the Church has opened its doors to the Brisbane Lesbian and Gay Pride Choir who use the Church for weekly rehersals as well as supporting the musical and religious culture of St. Mary’s,” he said.
“Gay and lesbian Catholics who prefer a more traditional worship have always been a presence at the Cathedral of St. Stephen where one of the beautiful stained glass windows is dedicated to a gay member of the famous Mayne Family of Brisbane,” he added.
“Jesus Wept” at the loss of a relationship, not the interpretation of a rule.
Follow the St. Mary’s situation on St. Mary’s Discussion Forum.
Show your support for St. Mary’s on their MySpace page.
Interesting notes on gay history in the Mayne family can be found on page 229 in Colonialism and Homosexuality by Robert Aldrich.
This week, Pope Benedict XVI received the U.S. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, her husband and members of her entourage at the close of his regular Wednesday General Audience in Rome.
Pelosi, a self-proclaimed “ardent Catholic,” has sparked criticism from some conservative U.S. Catholic bishops for her pro-choice views. She arrived in Italy on Sunday for an eight-day official visit.
As Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi is second in the line of succession to the U.S. presidency, behind only Vice President Joseph Biden, another Catholic who also disagrees with Church teaching on abortion and birth control.
Benedict’s willingness to meet Pelosi gave some pro-life Catholics agita.
By meeting Pelosi, Benedict signaled he wants lines of communication to remain open with the new American leadership, even though there is no meeting of minds over the issue of abortion.
Benedict and Pelosi each issued a statement following the meeting.
“His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death,” the Vatican statement read, “which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life in all stages of development.”
In a statement issued by her office Wednesday, Pelosi said it was “with great joy” that she and her husband, Paul, met Benedict. She said she had praised “the church’s leadership in fighting poverty, hunger, and global warming, as well as the Holy Father’s dedication to religious freedom and his upcoming trip and message to Israel.”
“I was proud to show His Holiness a photography of my family’s papal visit in the 1950s, as well as a recent picture of our children and grandchildren,” said the California congresswoman.
Pelosi’s statement did not mention the pope’s comments on abortion.
The pope’s statement can certainly be read as a rejection of Pelosi’s statements of last summer, when she suggested that the church’s position on abortion had been fluid and ill-defined; and that it’s acceptable for Catholics in public life to take a pro-choice position.
What was said–or unsaid–in that small room in the Vatican that fact remains each of these two Catholic leaders profess to care deeply about the welfare of children–those born as well as the unborn.
The pope cannot be a single issue Catholic–the way some U.S. bishops and pro-life Catholics are–if he is to attend to the Gospel’s work of justice for all, especially people in need.
Before she went to the Capitol to be sworn in as the first woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi attended Mass at her (and my) alma mater, Trinity College in Washington, DC. The late Fr. Robert Drinan was the celebrant, and he offered the Mass in honor of the children of Darfur and Katrina, praying there that “the needs of every child are the needs of Jesus Christ himself.”
“He challenged us,” said Pelosi of the homily, “by saying ‘Imagine what the world would think of the United States if the health and welfare of children everywhere became the top objective of America’s foreign policy! It could happen–and it could happen soon–if enough people cared.’”
“He continued,’Let us reexamine our convictions, our commitments, and our courage. Our convictions and our commitments are clear and certain to us. But do we have the courage to carry them out? God has great hopes for what this nation will do in the near future. We are here to ask for the courage to carry out God’s hopes and aspirations.”
“As he led us in prayer that day, Father Drinan said, ‘We learn things in prayer that we otherwise would never know.’”
The parishioners are not letting their church get taken from them and sold.
St. Frances Cabrini was among dozens of churches that the Archdiocese of Boston decided to close and sell in 2004, partially to help pay the costs associated with the priestly sex abuse scandal. While most churches closed without a fight, parishioners at St. Frances rebelled.
Kim Brown, 36, said she had become convinced that St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was a victim of its real estate.
Built when this South Shore community was considered the Irish Riviera, the church towers over a wide clearing on the side of a wooded road; ocean views beckon just over the treetops. ”The biggest problem is we have 30 acres of buildable land,” said Marsha Devir, 50.
Brown said church leaders never understood the commitment parishioners had put into the parish and the vigil. ”They’re not seeing the whole picture,” she said. ”They’re just seeing dollar signs. You know what? Sell some of your Vatican jewels. We need this church as a town and as a community.”
For over 1,560 days, the group at St. Frances has taken turns guarding the building around the clock so that the archdiocese cannot lock them out and put it up for sale. They call it a vigil, but for many it has become part of the way of living their faith.
“It’s much more of a living 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week faith,” said Margy O’Brien, 78, a parishioner since St. Frances opened in 1960. “My generation of Catholics have paid, prayed and obeyed, but you get to a point where you’ve had it.”
Many of the people involved in the vigil describe being transformed from passive Catholics to passionate, deeply involved members of a spiritual community that they say could be a model for the future of the church. 
“You would think because there are fewer and fewer priests that the various archdioceses would welcome a new configuration,” Mrs. O’Brien said. “Let the lay people do everything but the sacramental.”
Since St. Frances has no priest, parishioners lead services that include everything but the consecration of the host. On the Sunday before Christmas, about 50 parishioners attended a service conducted entirely by women, including the distribution of Communion. The hosts had been consecrated elsewhere by a priest described by Mrs. MaryEllen Rogers as “sympathetic.”
Parishioners hold suppers in the vestibule and meet Tuesdays to say the rosary. They raise money as a nonprofit group, donate to charities, and open the church to outsiders seeking comfort or repose.
“Lots of troubled people have come through and all they need, really simply, is someone to connect to,” said Karen Virginia Shockley, 43, who participates in the vigil with her two teenage sons. “Usually there’s an older person here who will sit down and just listen to you.”
Some parishioners have grown so disenchanted with the church hierarchy and so fond of the vigil routine that they cannot imagine returning to the old way.
“I cannot go back to the priest and the vestments and all that, I always felt, prince-of-the-church approach,” said Mary Dean, 61, who keeps vigil at St. Frances at least four hours a week. “I’ll always be a Catholic, but I may not be able to worship in the mainstream Catholic Church.”
”A very good thing has happened in this vigil,” Margy O’Brien added. ”A strong faith community has formed. There have been many little miracles happening. People’s lives have been touched, some improved. And I think this group of vigilers will be a strong community forever. I don’t regret doing this at all. Not one moment.”
Fr. Roy Bourgeois, 69, a Maryknoll priest and nationally known peace activist, has been excommunicated for his participation at an ordination rite for women. 
Bourgeois ran afoul of Vatican doctrine by participating in the August 9, 2008 ceremony in Lexington, Kentucky, to ordain Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a member of Roman Catholic Womenpriests. Sevre-Duszynska is the 35th woman to be ordained.
Vatican spokesman Fr. Frederico Lombardi said Bourgeois’ excommunication would be automatic, in other words, a latae sententiae excommunication, effective when the offense is committed. In other words, the person excommunicates himself or herself.
Excommunication is the most severe penalty under church law, cutting off a Catholic from receiving or administering the sacraments.
Fr. Bourgeois said he was following his conscience in his participation at the ordination rite, though it was clearly against the church’s teaching on women’s ordination.
“Conscience is very sacred,” Bourgeois said in his November 7, 2008 letter to Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. “Conscience gives us a sense of right and wrong and urges us to do the right thing…Conscience is what compels women in our Church to say they cannot be silent and deny their call from God to the priesthood..And after much prayer, reflection and discernment, it is my conscience that compels me to do the right thing. I cannot recant my belief and public statements that support the ordination of women in our Church.”
James Martin, SJ, a writer and associate editor of America Magazine, noted in its document Dignitatis Humane, the Second Vatican Council wrote: “On his part, man perceives and acknowledges the imperatives of the divine law through the mediation of conscience. In all his activity man is bound to follow his conscience in order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of life. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience. Nor, on the other hand, is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with this conscience, especially in matters religious.”
Martin added that the Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting from Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes notes, “Conscience is man’s most secret core, and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.”
Fr. Bourgeois was impelled to follow his conscience. He must have known by participating in the ceremony–particularly in the laying on of hands, one of the main symbols of ordination in the Catholic church–his actions would have some serious consequences.
But why did the Vatican feel compelled to enforce canon law and excommunicate him within three months of the event?
In comparison, I do not know of s single instance where a Catholic priest, bishop or other religious has been publicly excommunicated for the sexual abuse or rape of a minor.
Does that mean it’s more of a scandal for a man in good conscience to participate in the laying on of hands in a women’s ordination ceremony; than a man to lay hands on a child for his sexual gratification?
Is something off here?
..says Italian Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini. The cardinal stated 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae (”Of Human Life”) has cut off the church from many of the people who most need its advice about human sexuality. It may be time, he said, for a “new vision” for sexuality and birth control. 
The encyclical, which teaches that condoms, birth control pills, IUDs and other “artificial” birth control methods are morally wrong, caused a large number of people to stop taking the church’s views seriously, Martini said. “Serious damage was done.”
Martini, an 81-year-old Jesuit and former archbishop of Milan, made the comments in a book-length interview, Nighttime Conversations in Jerusalem: On the Risk of Faith (Conversazioni notturne a Gerusalemme. Sul rischio della fede was published by Mondadori, Milano, 2008)
He did not address specifically the morality of contraception but suggested that the question might be better approached from a more pastoral perspective.
Today, he said, the church might be able to adopt “a new vision” and indicate “a better way” than it did in Humanae Vitae. “The church would regain credibility and competence,” he said.
“Knowing how to admit one’s errors and the limitations of one’s previous viewpoints is a sign of the greatness of soul and confidence,” he said.
Cardinal Martini said the church should take a positive approach to human sexuality, with less emphasis on prohibitions. “Whatever the church affirms, it should be supported by many people, by conscientious in love,” he said.
On a personal note, I was a teenager in the years following Vatican II, and can still feel the reverberations of that era. The cardinal is right when he states the church lost a lot of its credibility after Humane Vitae. More, I think, then even the global priest-child sex abuse crisis of the 1990s.
It is my belief the church lost its footing in the 1960s with its rigidity over birth control and also its dismissal of the Latin Mass.
It has yet to regain it, primarily because of the attitude of the Vatican towards sex and sexuality and their hostility to other voices who question their reasoning. Celibate clerics continue to run the discussion to the exclusion of everyone else. Why are they surprised when no one pays attention?
I believe it was a mistake to toss the Latin Mass out the door so fast. It’s abrupt departure shook a foundation of Catholic identity. The church could have eased the transition by making the Latin Mass more accessible and participatory, and made some accommodation for national, ethic and local customs and observances.
But, that kind of leadership requires flexiblity, listening skills and a willingness to include the laity in decision-making; qualities never much in evidence in the institutional church in that or any other period.
On the subject of birth control, both teenagers AND their parents–even those stoutly against premarital sex (like my parents!)–thought the church’s stance stupid and delusional.
Cardinal Martini is right–the church lost the respect of a generation of Catholics and the strict adherence of the rest. People continued to identify as Catholic, but stopped paying attention to rules, regulations and sins they didn’t agree with. They stopped because they didn’t have any basis in real life, and they weren’t based on common sense.
On the issue of birth control, no family was going to wind up with 8 or 9 children, out of 14 or 15 pregnancies, just because some pampered, out-of-touch celibate decreed it was God’s way.
By the decade of the ’60s, many Catholic men who served in WWII and Korea had gone to college on the GI bill and wanted their children to have a college education. Parents wanted the “better things” in life for their families. This meant having smaller families.
Parents, adults, also had more time and opportunity for sex, and wanted that sex to be a good lusty romp, not a mystical union.
The availability of birth control was the biggest boost to a good sex life. Couples could have sex a lot more, whenever they wanted. Birth control allowed couples to have sex without worrying about unplanned pregancies. This was especially important to women, who always had the fear of pregancy to contend with every time she had intercourse. Not having to worry about getting pregnant was a major boost to a woman’s enjoyment of sex.
The pope should be made aware good sex and lots of it makes for happy Catholics. Not the opposite.
Yes, a “new vision” is needed for the church on sex and sexuality. After 40 years, it’s time to admit Humanae Vitae was a mistake, and move forward to a Catholic view sexuality that is reality-based and natural; not artificial in its prohibitions and fears.
Fr. Michael McGivney, the founder of the Knights of Columbus, must be spinning around in his grave! His Knights have gotten into politics, publicly fighting one another over supporting a party whose discrimination and distain for Irish and Italian immigrants caused the Knights to come into being 120 years ago. 
In the late 1800s, discrimination against American Catholics was widespread. Many Catholics struggled to find work and ended up in inferno-like mills. An injury or the death of the wage earner would leave a family penniless. The grim threat of chronic homelessness and even starvation could fast become realities. Called to action in 1882 by his sympathy for these suffering people, Father McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus, an organization that has helped to save countless families from the indignity of destitution.
The current Supreme Knight in the KofC is Carl Anderson. He is also the author of A Civilization of Love. 
Carl Anderson’s partisan remarks about Catholic vice presidential candidate Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Delware) ignited a revolt inside the Knights, and lead to the creation of Knights for Obama. Knights for Obama objected to Anderson’s attempt to deliver the Knights and their families en masse into the Republican camp. They are also speaking out forcefully for the Knights to address all the issues under Catholic social teaching – not just cherry-picked to align with the Republican party.
Up until this election, I always had a rather benign but fond view of “the Knights”– a fraternal association of Catholic men who did a number of things together from their storefront meeting places: raise money for mentally and physically challenged children through solicitation at stoplights; sponsor spaghetti dinners and breakfasts for charity, and provide an escort to the bishop in some very fancy costumes. In short, men getting together to drink and play cards, and also protect and provide for the most defenseless among us: children.
I visited the Knights of Columbus website. The only initiatives they mention on their home page have to do with abortion and same-sex marriage. They also prominently market their insurance policies, and Carl Anderson photo-ops with bishops and the Pope.
What is not on the Knights’ home page are charitable giving options for children.
There is no mention of the millions of children without health care. The children that are hungry. The children that are homeless. Or in foster care. Or neglected. Or have drug problems. Or coping alone with stress in the home. Or boys and girls on their own, and making a livelihood via prostitition.
Why is that? Where is the voice and the clout of the national organization for these children?
The Knights can and should speak out against abortion. But the Knights are a Catholic organization, not a marketing auxilliary of the Republican party or just those social concerns that don’t cost money.
The Knights need to have the guts and fortitude to challenge all politicians and parties on behalf of all children – born as well as unborn. Children that are here…not just egg and embryo.
For example, a year ago, President Bush vetoed at $35 billion expansion of the current State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
Under the vetoed plan, government-sponsored health coverage would have been expanded from 6.6 million people, mostly children, to include an additional 4 million kids and 700,000 adults. Currently, 9 percent, or 6 million, of the 43 million uninsured Americans are children under 18. SCHIP is available to people who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but are not able to afford private insurance.
Contrast that funding against the $150 billion annually for the Iraqi war. And the billions more in energy company profits the government doesn’t even make a feeble attempt to tax.
The Knights don’t mention human costs of the Iraqi war, and all the children it has helped to turn into refugees–in particular, Christian Iraqis. They don’t rise to defend the Iraqi children that have been killed, wounded, and maimed in this military venture; the casualties to pregnant women somehow weren’t noted in the Defense of Life materials and ads.
There is also no mention of the 18, 19, 20 year old conscripts from America, mostly poor or working class, that have died in Iraqi or been wounded in this conflict. A lot of them enlisted to get money for college or training for a better life.
Many of these young men and women are immigrants, just like the people who inspired Father McGivney a long time ago.
Defying a federal ban on clergy endorsing political candidates from the pulpit, an evangelical Christian minister told his congregation last Sunday that voting for Barack Obama would be evidence of “severe moral schizophrenia.”
The Rev. Ron Johnson told worshippers in Crown Point, Indiana that the Democratic candidate’s position on abortion and gay partnerships are in “direct opposition to God’s truth as He has revealed it in the scriptures.” 
Another protester, the Rev. Fran Pultro, also shrugged off federal laws restricting his role in partisan politics by telling 45 people at the Calvary Chapel in Philadelphia that John McCain “is the only candidate I believe a Christian can vote for.”
“Pulpit Freedom Sunday,” was a day of protest organized by the Alliance Defense Fund, a consortium of Christian lawyers that fight for ultra conservative religious and social causes.
The ADF is hoping a crackdown by the IRS on participating preachers will spark a court fight over the tax law prohibiting political endorsements from the pulpit. They are pushing to “restore” pastors’ rights “to speak Biblical truth from the pulpit.”
The protest drew a paltry amount of even rabid social conservatives–only 33 Protestant ministers nationwide participated, and most of those from small or tiny evangelical congregations.
The ADF is known for publishing tracts like The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today.
Mr. Pultro and the other ministers focused on the candidates’ positions on gay marriage and abortion, although the candidates and much of the nation and focused on the financial crisis and economic worries.
The Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United said the of the Sunday protest: “They act like this is a massive act of civil disobedience, but this is not like sitting at a lunch counter. This is trying to change the law to give certain conservative churches even more political clout.”
On July 27, 2008, a man walked into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville and opened fire with a 12-gauge shotgun. He killed two people and seriously wounded seven others. Around 200 people were packed in the church for a children’s rehearsal of “Annie.”
The man, David Jim Adkisson, 58, was motivated by a hatred of “the liberal movement,” and he planned to shoot until police shot him, said Knoxville Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV. 
The police found a four-page letter Adkisson wrote, in which he stated his hatred of “liberals in general, as well as gays.” He targeted the church “because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country’s hands in the war on terror and they have ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets.”
Adkisson said that “he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement” so he would “target those that had voted them into office.” Police Chief Owen said Adkisson specifically targeted the church for its beliefs and its political advocacy, including gay rights.
Inside his house, officers found Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder by radio talk show host Michael Savage; Let Freedom Ring by political pundit Sean Hannity; and The O’Reilly Factor by television talk show host Bill O’Reilly.
All three of these books didn’t prompt a madman to kill people. But in all three of them a madman who hates liberals and gays found words that resonated, sentiments to take comfort in, and nothing to make him think twice before going out to engage in domestic terrorism – violence and murder against fellow Americans holding different political beliefs. The same kind of behavior these three men condemn when perpetrated by Islamic terrorist groups.
I went to see if Bill O’Reilly (Roman Catholic) or Sean Hannity (Roman Catholic) said anything about the incident, had any expression of compassion or grief for the Knoxville victims and their families, or any condemnation of the shootings at all. No quotes turned up on Google or on their websites.
Michael Savage has no search function on his site and no mention of the story either. But his site did feature a link to a Daily Mail story about how an “Islamic ban on ’suggestive’ cucumbers’ cost al-Qaida public support in Iraq.” 
Huh? Well, I guess he has his priorities.
I was disappointed in all three of these entertainers/commentators that they couldn’t spare one word for the dead in Knoxville and the assault on freedom in Tennessee. One man in particular, an usher, shielded others with his body and took the brunt of the first shotgun blast. This is ususally the type of person these talk show hosts love to laud – an American who died for others.
I hope O’Reilly and Hannity have enough left from a Catholic upbringing to be a little shaken up that this nut looked to them for inspiration. They should continue to disagree furiously and passionately with liberals and others they feel are mucking up America, but they need to stop de-humanizing people they don’t like or disagree with. That gives murderers a license to kill.
“Homosexuality is a disordered behavior.”
Walter Cardinal Kasper made the remark during a July 31, 2008 address at the Lambeth conference, the once-a-decade gathering of the world’s Anglican bishops in Canterbury, England. Cardinal Kasper stressed to the bishops that the dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church had been seriously compromised over the issues of women’s ordination and homosexuality. 
Kasper, who is president of the pontifical council for promoting christian unity, reminded the delegates of the catechism of the Roman Catholic Church on homosexuality: “This teaching is founded in the Old and New Testament and the fidelity to scripture and to Apostolic tradition is absolute.”
Maintaining a common approach on homosexuality is not the main Vatican concern with an Anglican split. It is the issue of married priests; and with it, the ordination of women priests and bishops.
As more married Episcopalian priests flood into the Catholic church, Catholic parishioners and priests will become more and more restive about the issues of married clergy and women priests.
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, countered Cardinal Kasper’s remarks by pointing out the Vatican’s view would uphold only “a particular interpretation of those texts which supports Catholic teaching. Many scripture scholars, Catholic and Protestant, find that those texts do not refer to our contemporary understanding of homosexuality or to the concept of a loving committed relationship. The texts only refer to abusive sexual activity.”
As for the claim of apostolic tradition, DeBernardo said that tradition “has been evolving constantly over the centuries, even in regard to homosexuality. ” In an earlier era, he said, the church did not claim, as it now does, that homosexuals “had to be respected because of their instrinsic human dignity. That was an evolution in the tradition.” If that sort of evolution can occur, he asks, “why can’t it also change in the area of sexual activity in the context of a committed relationship?”
