Here’s more God-given morality from our friends at the Vatican. They see homosexual desires as “disordered” and homosexual acts as sinful. You could go to hell if you persist in having unconfessed sex with someone of your own gender. From the Catholic Catechism, which lays out the official policy of the Catholic Church:
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
Enough said. Can anything be more wrongheaded and destructive than these three paragraphs?
I am neither gay nor Catholic, but I can’t understand how any gay person can remain a member of a church with an official policy like this. And what is this “natural law”? It’s one of the legacies of Thomas Aquinas. The next time you hear him touted as a Great Accommodationist, a prescient and enlightened theologian who showed that science was given to us by God, remember all the harm that the old bugger inflicted on the world with his unscientific “natural law.”
Rational people now recognize that there’s nothing immoral about being in love with, and having sex with, someone of the same gender. What is immoral is the Catholic Church’s refusal to recognize that, and its continuing persecution of gay people.
Remember that the Catholic Church is the single biggest denomination in America, and is considered by accommodationists as one of the “harmless”—or even helpful—faiths. Happy Holy Week!
It will be interesting to see if the RCC ever accomodates this aspect of society…
Depends what you mean by accommodate. I met a Monsigneur in a gay sauna. He was very accommodating.
(Apparently Monsigneur is where they shunt gay priests they would otherwise make Bishops.)
Monsignor is a title above that of “priest” but below that of “bishop”. It comes from the French “mon seigneur” through Italian, and means “my lord”. The reason this designation was chosen was because of the usual reaction of colleagues of one so elevated: “My Lord! Why him?”
But as he told it, if you became a Monsigneur, that closed the door to you ever being a Bishop, so my “shunted” (as onto a siding) was accurate.
I didn’t say it wasn’t (though it’s not official church policy).
BZZZZZT! Do not pass Go. Do not collect $100.
True story: Several years ago, at the onset of the AIDs epidemic, I worked with a group that provided a lot of educational materials on HIV disease.
Several members of my staff were gay. I’m not, but these guys were committed, highly educated, and great workers. Made me look like a genius in hiring them.
In any event, we were having a bull session after work, and I complained that I “lost” just about my entire year of 8th grade math, because I had a crush on the girl who sat in front of me.
And one of my guys said, “Me too. Except I went to an all-boys school.”
And that’s when I REALLY realized that there wasn’t a choice involved in the process.
Kevin, I just want to say thank you for all the work you have done in that regard!
And it is devoid of choice as you say (though, as I think you demonstrated, even if it were a choice it would still be worth fighting for). I think that is why so many moral authoritarians try to redefine homosexuality as a sex act to make it something different than heterosexuality which they don’t consider a choice.
I like to think of all the sexual choices that people make as “choices”. I’ve never chosen to have sex with another man, and I really don’t think I would enjoy it if I did, but I certainly “could” make that choice and I see no reason to involve myself in the decision-making process of others.
$100? You must have a tough time winning at Monopoly, Aratina.
Err, I mean $200! It’s been awhile.
“Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex.”
Does this mean it’s not homosexuality if the attraction is intermittent or occasional?
I have noticed, though, that many gays look down on bisexuals as “gay but afraid to admit it” and treat them just as shabbily as homophobes treat them.
That’s two different “thems” in that last sentence.
The apparent exclusion of bisexuals there jumped out at me, too.
Time to fix the catechism!!
Yes, it immediately struck me as a cushy loophole.
I wonder what sort of knots they’d get tied up in if they considered the transgendered.
Gordian!
Its even more hilarious when you consider that there are apparently a large number of gay catholic priests out there, facilitating the very same dogma that condemns them. If they decided to stop work to protest Catholic policy, maybe something might actually change, since it seems that the RCC is running on the bare minimum of priests right now.
That is awesome! I never thought of that!
Homosexual desire itself is not the sin is it? It’s actually “doing the dirty” that gets you sent to eternal torture.
God created hundreds of billions of galaxies, with hundreds of billions of stars – all in the one universe alone that we know of. And then this god is abhorred by two animals of a single species of the same sex having a bit of same sex fun.
Riiiight.
“Homosexual desire itself is not the sin is it?”
Sure it is, in the sense that all desire–lust–is sinful.
From the handy-dandy online Catholic Encyclopedia:
…
Well, for one thing, I was never called to chastity. Certainly not.
I used to be a Catholic. I realised I was gay relatively late in life. One of the most surprising things I discovered was that I felt absolutely no guilt about it. I think that was the day my faith finally died.
It occurs to me that a huge swath of the human species’ misery can be laid at the door of sex.
What is it in us that leads to the belief that sex is somehow unnatural, something “dirty”, something to be hidden away? And especially something that needs to be carefully regulated by the religious authorities?
I don’t get it. Is it the pleasure aspect? Asceticism is certainly part-and-parcel with most modern religions. Is it merely the claim that feeling good is somehow “bad”? Can’t be that simple … can it?
Right now, I have some bunnies that have set up residence in my back yard. They don’t see sex as unnatural. Birds chirping? They’re looking for mates. Some male dogs will hump anything that moves. Praying mantis males STILL seek out females, even though we know the likely outcome of that encounter.
It’s not just the Catholics, (although I agree — why any gay person or someone of the female persuasion would belong to such a group is beyond me). Nor is it just culture. Bushmen have highly regulated methods of mating. 17th/18th/19th century Japan had a much-more relaxed attitude toward prostitution, but the practice was still highly regulated to the point of being ritualized.
Where in our evolutionary history did we go off the rails? A long long time ago, it seems.
Seems time to get over it. Relax, protect yourself from disease and unwanted conception, and make yourself and your partner happy. How hard is that equation?
Also, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.
Well, I have to say that I am fairly fixed in my preference for females. So, while I won’t knock anyone else’s preferences, I have absolutely no desire to try anything else.
And one should not need to declare this, but I will anyway … consenting adults only, please.
I don’t want to speak for Aratina, but I think the joke there was that the people knocking sex have (in theory) not actually tried it.
Well, I giggled. Then I cried a bit.
“(in theory)”
No kidding. Talk about going against one’s own nature, as many of these priests profess to do through celibacy.
You said it better than me, really. I was thinking specifically of priests and politicians who, speaking from positions of ignorance, say how bad sex between two men or two women is when they themselves have not tried it, but it really is more useful if applied more generally to any consensual (as Kevin notes) sex act.
Few things make me more cross than pronouncements issued by people who clearly have no experience with what they’re talking about.
On the bright side, within a few decades LGBT-bigotry will be no more acceptable than racism.
I hope.
Right.
I was married to a Catholic girl — we had to go through the “training” for couples if we wanted to get married in the church (she did; I was in love).
One of the most uncomfortable evenings of my life was spent with about 50 other couples listening to a priest tell us what kind of “touching, fondling, etc” was appropriate.
Surreal.
You know what? The concept of priestly celibacy never entered my mind.
I guess that’s because the priests in the news these days are … well … not.
Sorry for the misunderstanding, Kevin. I didn’t mean you specifically, I just think it should be added to your concise list of steps for getting over our hangups about sex.
“What is it in us that leads to the belief that sex is somehow unnatural, something “dirty”, something to be hidden away?”
Is it, though, in us, or is it put there on purpose by authority figures who see their jobs as controlling children’s sexuality?
A lot of ancient cultures (I believe) used to be a lot more relaxed about sex–I guess I’m thinking of the Romans, and of course the Greeks were very tolerant, if not even encouraging, of men having sex together.
Then there is a tribe in the Amazon in which all the men and women often have sex with multiple partners–it’s expected. (Saw this on TV, forget the name of the tribe.)
So I vote for nurture over nature, that restrictions on sex arise from the need to know exactly who fathered which children, in societies where there is property to be passed on to specific offspring.
And then, severe proscriptions against men having sex together seem to arise mainly in patriarchal societies in which it is important to keep women down. (Classical Greece is a big exception to this! They kept women so far down that it really became more desirable to have sex only with other humans, i.e. men.)
There seems to be a thought in such societies that gay men are letting down the side. That they’re eroding the basis of society by seeking out and acknowledging the physical aspects of males, instead of keeping women in their proper place by making females the only physicalized,and therefore (in society’s eyes)objectified, beings.
Such societies’ laws don’t even mention the possibility of women having sex together, let alone put harsh penalties in place for it. Even in the 1930’s, England could refuse entry to suspected gay male foreigners, but no such law was in place for suspected lesbians.
One writer commented that this expressed British society’s contempt for women–women were of such little importance to running the show that whatever behavior they got up to among themselves didn’t matter a damn.
Women were not in a position to refuse to marry, so it didn’t matter what their preferences were; they would do their duty and have children regardless.
We are the only great ape that:
1. Has concealed ovulation
2. Seeks privacy for sex
Our closest relatives are on opposite poles from us in these regards. This leads me to believe that concealment and sex go together waaaaay back in human evolution. They seem to be pretty hard-wired.
Not that we can’t think our way out of it. Maybe.
“What is it in us that leads to the belief that sex is somehow unnatural, something “dirty”, something to be hidden away? And especially something that needs to be carefully regulated by the religious authorities?”
I imagine in small tribes in times of high infant mortality there could be good reasons to have strong social taboos about who people can and can’t pair up with. If someone has sex with the ‘wrong’ person this could threaten the tribe, just think of the social repurcussions of someone cheating on their spouse.
I remember reading an anthropological article about a tribe of Australian Aborigines and the complex rules that defined who each member could have sex with. The rules avoided people pairing up with someone too closely related to them and homosexuality wasn’t an option.
Of course once we no longer live in small, isolated tribes, the bases for such social taboos might no longer be so reasonable. But if they have been enforced by reference to an all-powerful god they might be hard to shake.
Sex is one of the most powerful drives in life. It’s no wonder that manipulative people try to control it — and by it, control people.
One of the issues that soured me on religion is its inability to deal with sexuality with any wisdom, compassion or even common sense.
to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
I’ll take nobody knows what the heck that means for a hundred Alex. Don’t they ever speak plainly in cuckoo-ville? *cuckoo!*
I think this is saying something to the effect that God makes gay people, tells them they have to be celibate, and that they must endure that suffering so that they can better appreciate the suffering of Jesus. Or keeping Jesus’ brutal execution in mind will make it easier not to have sex with people of your same gender. Something like that.
(12 years of Catholic school, ugh.)
Ah okay. So I guess it’s something like, “Hey beeches, Jesus freakin suffered hard. So STFU, beyotches.”
This sentence is referring back to the words “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” This is speaking of the experience we have when we deny our corrupted lusts and corrupted affections in pursuit of God. It doesn’t feel very good, but it’s a natural act that the believer does to have better fellowship with God. It also brings us into greater happiness, and not the fake happiness that following corruption brings. We all have a “condition”. It’s the condition of corruption. But, we seek to correct it, not to accept it and applaud it.
Not in the mood for it today, Daniel.
Perhaps you could take your “corrupted lusts and affections” (and I’m sure you’re referring to teh gay), find an exit, and use it?
I can see how a lust for power can lead to corruption, but sexual desire is as corrupting as being hungry.
Or is that also not allowed?
Lust and its consummation is great, not corrupt. The idea that there’s something wrong with it is what is corrupt. It’s sick, in fact.
Can I give you my phone number? 🙂
Jerry replied to meeeeeeeee!!!!
Yes, exactly. It’s one of the things I find most repulsive about this religion — the demonisation of perfectly ordinary human desires. Lust is really no different to hunger, thirst, yawning, or stretching.
Hunger is good. Corrupted hunger leads to obesity, food addiction, and other things. Same goes for sexual desire. I think you would agree that lusting after 2 year olds is sexual corruption.
It always comes back to paedophilia with you people, doesn’t it?
I think most of us agree that what is corrupt is Dan’s mind. He hear homosexuality and the first thing he thinks is pedophilia.
Hitchens is right: religion poisons everything.
That is vile, Daniel. And worse, since you’ve made these arguments before, you’re tiresome.
“Corrupted hunger leads to obesity, food addiction, and other things”
Two things:
1)No it doesn’t.
2)Your face.
Not the first time you’ve said something along these lines on this site. You seem dreadfully concerned that other people might be having too much sexual pleasure. Why is this, do you think?
Could you please explain why only homosexuality is a “corrupt lust,” but heterosexuality is a perfectly normal, even encouraged, desire?
The usual (lame) assumption is that sex is for procreation, and any sex not for procreation is somehow bad.
Since most sex is not directly for procreation (and never has been for humans), the assumption is wrongheaded.
“It’s the condition of corruption. But, we seek to correct it, not to accept it and applaud it.”
No, you seek to define it. For everyone.
And hunger, like sexual desire, happens for a reason. They are both powerful, fundamental driving forces behind much human behavior.
I suspect it’s no accident that religions so often load their subjects down with strict rules and taboos regarding both.
I’m showing you a very simple principle. There is a good way to do things, and there is a bad way of doing things. I understand that every one of you feel that homosexuality is one of the good ways. OK. Let’s say it is. Do we draw the line there? Does the present society have it right? Opinions will be challenged in the future. We will eventually be challenged by the polygamists, pedophiles, and those who enjoy zoophilia and necrophilia. Can we honestly lock in the present morality to apply for all time? Either we must say that every society gets to choose what’s right and admit that we may be wrong for drawing the line here, or we say that we are correct and face the criticisms of those who love to base their morality on the shifting sands of modern thinking.
Don’t you think your mistake might be your desire to draw random lines?
If there are no lines, then there is no sense in telling anyone else what they “ought” to do. There is no morality, just the delusion of that sense of moral behavior. And if subjective moral systems meet, they should only be in respect for one another and never tell each other what they “ought” to do. After all, humanity’s actions are a product of cause and effect and mechanisms in nature. We should only observe each others behavior and reject the delusional feeling that they “ought” to do anything.
I’m not entirely sure fromwhat you wrote, but it seems to me you’ve constructed a false dichotomy. We aren’t claiming that it’s homosexuality that’s good and hetero that’s bad. They’re both fine.
@Daniel:
Well that’s rather the point, isn’t it? We don’t usually need lines to tell us what is good and bad behaviour because morality is fairly consistent regardless of religion or other cultural influences.
People like you decide that you don’t like some aspect of what people actualy, in practice, do so you imagine lines and wedges and the thin ends thereof and you try to scare the rest of us with your fairy tales.
Accepting homosexuality – love and sexual pleasure between consenting adults – does not in any way predispose societies to also accept child rape. Thin end of the wedge arguments should be applied carefully if at all.
“food addiction”? Do you mean that religious people fast in order to kick the habit of eating?
Not sure I wish to be cured.
OMG, surely not OTHER THINGS????!!???
Thank goodness the LORD is here to protect us from all the Other Things.
> Hunger is good.
Mo…I’m going to go right ahead and say that hunger is bad. Nobody wants to be hungry and lots of people are anyway. I’m no philosopher, but that seems kind of bad.
I’m trying to follow your analogy though though. Is this what you’re saying?
1. Too much food makes you fat
Therefore:
94. Too much fucking makes you rape children
Have I missed any nuance in your argument? Because I don’t think I have.
Well, you can say that hunger is good in the same way that pain is good – it is a sign that we’re running into something that endangers continuing to live. Chronic hunger is bad. Chronic pain is bad, but pain does tell us that we need to stop doing whatever causes it, and hunger tells us that we need to eat.
hunger tells us that we need to eat.
and lust tells us we need to fuck.
yup, all good, evolved, feedback mechanisms.
strange how the religious arbitrarily decided that one of them was “bad”.
huh.
No, pain would also be bad if there were no need for pain, just like hunger would be bad if there were no need for hunger. It isn’t my imagination that’s failing, I really do understand your obvious points.
My (also obvious) point was that weak analogies aren’t very expressive.
None of us would be here without lust, and lots of it. Lust should be praised, not shamed.
here here!
Nonsense, lust is only valid within strictly defined boundaries. For example, in grim sex between man and wife. Allowing your genitals to become engorged with blood at any other times, albeit a purely physical response to sensual stimuli is obviously an abomination. I’m sorry that you can’t understand that.
Short version Dan: the creator of the universe demands masochism.
Catholics in particular make a virtue of suffering. THere was one nun teaching in my elementary school who told us, with relish, how children used to faint because they had to fast longer before receiving communion and how she, as a child, had to do penances by praying while kneeling on dried peas.
CoE schools in 70s UK were not shy of administering corporal punishment. I still have scars from being caned – hit with a bendy, whip-like stick – on my hands and legs.
Well, I deserved it. I talked during the prayers we were forced to pretend to care about. I sung blasphemous words to hymns. Damn right that I should be stripped naked and hit with a stick.
You poor brainwashed sod…you think that lust is “corrupt”?
You think that the statement you quoted was about sex?
I truly feel sorry for you. What a joyless, guilt-ridden existence you must have.
I’m ANGRY at the people who made you this way.
Catholicism is just a giant snuff porn production, obsessed with torture. The more psychological pain you are in, the better.
I, too, am neither gay nor Catholic. And it’s unfathomable to me how anybody of any sexual orientation could in good conscience remain a member of any organization which officially spews such bigoted nonsense.
Let’s even grant the Church that this is what Jesus wants. It fits perfectly with the rest of the character’s persona, so it’s hardly a stretch.
All that does is further confirm that Jesus is an evil sonofabitch and a mortal enemy of humanity. If Catholics really believe this blather, they have a moral obligation to fight and conquer Jesus or die trying.
Cheers,
b&
A closely related issue is how any woman, or any man who cares about women, can be part of a religion that mistreats women.
And yet women are the backbone of most churches — not its official leaders usually, just the ones doing the bulk of the work and providing most of the money.
> And yet women are the backbone
> of most churches
Churches always have a niche for women, no matter how badly they treat them. In fact, especially BECAUSE they treat them so badly. Their role is usually to tell children how shit life will be unless you’re a) good, as defined by whatever church and b) male
I feel a sense of horror as I read through the Catechism. What a wretched, poisonous theology. Blech.
“objectively disordered.”
Nice.
I heard that phrase so many times in my Catholic high school whenever homosexuality came up that I’m sort of numb to it now, but yeah, it’s pretty rich.
So much of the RCC’s sexual teaching revolves around the idea that humans are fundamentally nothing more than breeding stock. Its views on homosexuality, contraception, sex outside of marriage, etc. — all are intimately tied (not in the fun way) with this idea that procreation is the only function of sex. You would think that God’s special pets, the pinnacle of all creation, the only creature blessed with sentience (all according to them, of course), could have a boink just for fun once in a while.
Admitting that joy and pleasure are perfectly decent motives that ought not in themselves be bad would put every religion with an ascetic strain out of business overnight.
Yes I noticed this puritannical streak when I flirted with Indian spirituality in the 1980s. In some ways it was even nastier than the RC variety. At least the RCs are soft on booze.
“Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained.”
Nice pre-supposition here, especially in light of the research suggesting physiological (prenatal hormone) causes. Oh, wait — reasearch is an “other way of knowing” that must be wrong, if you’ve already made up your mind arbitrarily (aka, by “divine revelation”). Ugh!
I would continue grinding my teeth in frustration, but the stubs are already ground down to the gums.
Making shit up is a great “way of knowing”. Just lie to yourself about it and you’ll never be wrong.
I have several friends who are both openly gay, and devout Catholics. I mean devout. I don’t understand it.
And I’m so glad the RCC advises against signs of unjust discrimination. As long as you keep it more or less to yourself, and you have a good reason for it (hint: there are none), then discrimination is hunkeydorey.
Me too, and I don’t understand it at all either …
Probably the same reason they vote GOP …
My hairdresser is a wonderful, very skilled homosexual catholic from Syria. And he is a very devout catholic too. I have once asked him about his church’s view on homosexuals like himself, and he said something light and funny and hoped – no knew! – that they’d change their minds about that at some stage. I had to reply something along the lines of ‘don’t get your hopes up’. I really think the RCC will go down as a religion, before they change their stance on homosexuality.
one comma more would kind of change my description of him, wouldn’t it?
… wonderful, very skilled, homosexual…
Punctuation is important. When you omit a space in a famous phrase, it becomes “The penis mightie than the sword.” Evocative, no?
*barely suppressing rage*
I had a rather liberal Catholic priest as my religious instruction teacher in secondary school in Ireland in the early eighties. He was very non Ratzinger-like in most of his teaching but the one issue that sticks in my mind was connected to homosexuality.
He brought up the subject in class one day and said all the usual lines about the official catholic teaching is that simply being homosexual is not a sin but carrying out homosexual acts IS a sin.
Unfortunately for Father Stapleton he wasn’t dealing with a class of non questioning idiots and one of my classmates asked the obvious question – namely if the church advocates celibacy for gay people then wouldn’t the best policy be to recruit them for the clergy which is also an obligatory celibate vocation.
The result of simply posing this question (which the rest of the class agreed was a rather logical point) was the rapid transformation of a rather liberal hippy type of individal into a Bill Donohue clone, all within the space of about ten seconds.
I’ve learned later that there is some sort of rule that precludes homosexuals from joining the priesthood (the reasons for this are not clear – presumably God told the Pope or something).
“I’ve learned later that there is some sort of rule that precludes homosexuals from joining the priesthood”
HAH! ‘Tisn’t working.
Actually, the pope recently made some lameass pronouncement about gays being unsuitable for the priesthood.
http://www.tldm.org/news8/homosexualityPriesthood3.htm
I see that site has managed to get a quote straight from the top!
“”I will not stand for My priests who condone homosexuality and allow it in My priesthood!” – Jesus, June 18, 1982″
You can’t argue with that, can you?
And this from a bunch of virgins(?) who wear dresses.
Do you think, perhaps as a young man ever had a nocturnal emission? Wonder what he was dreaming at the time . . .
oops . meant to reference the POPE
I will have sex with anyone i want, and i wont let the belief in an invisible disembodied mind with magic powers delusionally obstruct me. What a malfunction to believe in that way out made up crap.
… presumably only consenting adult ones …
Half of Catholic inanity makes sense if you just assume that God is a farmer that eats prayers and can’t make them himself. He bred human beings to pray to him, and to make sure they made more prayer plants and more total prayers down the line, he gives out orgasms, but that’s a lot of accounting to ensure a one-to-one trade, so it mostly runs on the honor system. God periodically functionally castrates some folk by turning them into priests in exchange for more prayers now and fewer prayer plants down the line, just like a steer. All the Catholic kerfuffle over masturbation, birth control, abortion, and gays is really just people feeling that people are taking too many orgasms out of the office bagel box and not leaving enough Hail Marys, present and future.
Or so it seems to me.
Isn’t there some kind of Darwininan balance here, that the church with the celibate clergy does everything possible to ensure that the non-clergy maximise their birth-rate?
This,
is really rich when seen side by side with,
Feeling like you have to make the first statement, and the way the statement is worded, is a dead give away that you are bent on dishing out some “unjustness” on some one.
Everyday I find it harder and harder to prevent myself from ridiculing anyone who exhibits the slightest degree of piousness or faith.
Internal consistency is not a theological strength.
No fertilization, no children. No children, no next generation to fill the collection box. Bad for business.
As an ex-Catholic friend used to put it, “Think of it as a business, and it all makes sense.”
“… remember all the harm that the old bugger inflicted on the world with his unscientific “natural law.”
Um – *slightly* unfortunate turn of phrase!
I am neither gay nor Catholic, but I can’t understand how any gay person can remain a member of a church with an official policy like this.
Paging Andrew Sullivan.
It is clear that the RC church not only will not, but cannot, change its views on homosexuality, however ridiculous and evil they are, and however much those views are shown, rationally and scientifically, to be wrong, because these views are a strong strand in the whole sickening nexus of its teachings about sex. Remove one strand, and the rest unravels.
“the Catholic Church is considered by accommodationists as one of the “harmless”—or even helpful—faiths.”
Here is an example of The Catholic Church being “helpful”:
http://www.couragerc.net/index.html
Yes. This is why this series by Jerry is so important – it shows that “mild” Christianity can be a very nasty business.
My parents epitomise the even-milder variety of Christianity espoused by the Church of England. They nevertheless brought me up to believe that I was going to spend eternity in hell, pretty much regardless of how I actually behaved. I think they rather enjoyed their tales of how I’d suffer, complete – confusingly – with actual demonstrations of gnashing teeth.
It didn’t take with me and I consider myself relatively – although probably not entirely – unharmed. But it took with my sister, who has devoted her life to zealotry and telling me off. Really: she’s been known to lie in wait outside my house to accost me and my friends, literally bashing a bible. It strikes me as a life largely wasted and rather a poor way to live. Presumably my parents are perfectly satisfied at how she turned out. I’m all too aware that it could have been me.
My father can’t really understand the concept of homosexuality, but he’s against it on general principles anyway. In fact, he’s against sexuality of all kinds despite having four children. For some reason, he’s especially angry that the mentally handicapped adults my mother spent much of her life working with had sexual desires and that some of them were gay. I imagine he thinks homosexuality is a choice and by implication the WRONG choice. And that people with mental handicaps aren’t equipped to either make such a choice or even to have a sexuality. He fervently hopes they aren’t fucking each other, despite evidence to the contrary and especially despite the fact that they’re consenting adults enjoying healthy sexual relationships. But he doesn’t like the ick so the bible automatically says it shouldn’t be done. The verse is right there, honest. He’ll get around to looking it up one day.
I’m telling this story because my parents are the epitome of weak-tea, church-fete-attending, harvest-festival-loving, more-tea-vicar quintessential country English Christians. The mildest of the mild when it comes to religion.
And they are nevertheless HORRORS when it comes to anything they don’t approve of.
Their religion is their excuse to carry on their own little vendetta against whoever they decide they don’t like.
But they are genuinely nice people. Generous to a fault, genuinely charitable, they always think of others before themselves. Their religion probably helps steer them in that direction, but it also helps them justify quietly but persistently monstrous behaviour.
If the religion of your parents was “mild”, then the word mild has no meaning whatsoever.
I suppose the RCC gets this “mild” reputation by supporting an education system that is, in many respects, excellent and by largely supporting science, as long as they can insert miracles as they deem necessary.
With their crap and dangerous views on sexuality, reproduction and human nature in general, I don’t see how they merit being considered liberal, mild, progressive or anything positive.
I hope that you are all aware of, and can avoid, The Homosexual Menace.
Official Church teaching is sick, but what also bothers me a lot is all the Catholics who say “well WE don’t believe that,” and go on with their lives.
Doesn’t it bother you to be PART of an institution that teaches that?? Doesn’t it bother you that that’s what you’re SUPPOSED to believe?
Ugh.
And doesn’t it bother you that kids who think you believe that are killing themselves?
Doesn’t it bother you that that’s what you’re SUPPOSED to believe?
Why is that important? Isn’t it good that a doesn’t believe everything he is “supposed to”?
Why is the issue whether he belongs to the catholic church or not so important? Especially if he admits that he doesn’t, while the official position does – it is a question of mild hypocrisy, not more.
First two lines were supposed to be a quote.
So many religious institutions aren’t even honest about what they believe about homosexuality. They all have an underlying belied just like the RCC- they just won’t put it into writing. But every young person knows that if they come out, there will be hell to pay. literally.
I like to think this is less true of my employer – a university – are universities shit about this?
In our sophisticated society, we should be educated enough to not suppress homosexuality. As a good friend of lots of homosexuals, I know that they cause no harm to anyone. As their friend, I understand that their attraction to the same sex does not harm them,me, or anyone else, and that they are entitled to like whomever they choose. If a homosexual were to marry another homosexual this very moment, it would do no harm to you. This “homosexuality is a sin” concept has allowed narrow-minded idiots to demean homosexuals, as a way of creating some sexuality hierarchy. All of the gay people I know are sweet, kindhearted, and their intentions aren’t to hurt anyone. Stop being so narrow-minded and accept homosexuality, because it’s not going away – whether your outlandish religion appreciates it or not. Besides, my homosexual friends and myself don’t need Catholicism anyway – why believe in a judgmental god that suppresses anything he suspects is unusual? Because we don’t believe in hell, we won’t burn. Grow up.
If the Church is right, whether or not you believe in the existence of hell will have no impact on whether or not you burn. There’s no reason to think they are right, but still.
Also, even though many of the heterosexuals I know are anything but “sweet and kindhearted”, I don’t think that any kind of sex between consenting adults should be considered “sinful”.
I also am neither gay nor Catholic.
It is curious to me how the christians rely so much on non New Testament interpretations & diktats of theologians rather than their supposed god Jesus.
God invented sex so we could please him by having nothing to do with it.
(I suppose that means children must be the punishment for indulging in sex, but that leaves the problem of keeping religion alive because god also invented death, I presume)
I can also confirm that I am neither gay nor Catholic. At least I don’t think I’m gay, but if I were I don’t think I’d be Catholic because that would make life too difficult. I’m sure Polly-O would agree.
Homosexuality is normal, even animals, insects, moluscs et al practice it. Every time I get on this subject I am reminded that King James who oversaw the translation of the Holy Bible was homosexual but at the same time fathered 8 children just to obey the order to increase and multiply. He also followed the New Testament concerning the diciple tha Jesus loved, John, but James had John instead!
> I am neither gay nor Catholic but…
Sorry Jerry, but I think you’ve unwittingly started a meme. I certainly intend to begin any future talks I do that way, despite it being at best 3/4 true.