Thumb's Down: Mass. Church To Help Find School For Gays' Son

[Lil Red]

[quote name='Maggie' date='20 May 2010 - 03:12 PM' timestamp='1274393559' post='2114414']
How do we know that really? They could be living in a chaste relationship. Yeah, right. But the truth is we don't know for sure whether someone is sinning sexually or not unless they admit to it or we catch them in the act. The Church isn't interested in finding out if Johnny's mommy and her beau are sleeping together or not, although they have the same address, emergency contact number and they both come to all the school events.

In one of our local Catholic schools, the little girl lived with her grandparents and the grandfather was a notorious drunk, and he would even show up on school property wasted. The family was a mess. He was living in as open defiance as you can get. Should they have thrown that little girl out of the school? This was a very elitist, wealthy school so I could see it happening, and if it had I would have wanted to burn the place down.

The child isn't sinning here. There's nothing the child can do about grandpa's alcoholism or mom's sexual choices. The child's experience of the Church is going to be one of rejection. This is not "standing up for the Church's teaching," [b]this is keeping the dirty sinners away so their sin and their family's sins won't rub off on our nice pure orthodox Catholic children.[/b]
[/quote]
+JMJ+
that's c[font="Arial Narrow"]r[/font]ap and you know it. get off your sanctimonious high horse.

[Maggyie]

[quote name='Lil Red' date='20 May 2010 - 07:22 PM' timestamp='1274394120' post='2114421']
+JMJ+
that's c[font="Arial Narrow"]r[/font]ap and you know it. get off your sanctimonious high horse.
[/quote]

The fiddler is gone? I don't think it's croutons and I'm not on any high horse. The problem is that the school authorities are worried the other precious children in the school will be "scandalized" (and don't get me started that this is happening in Boston of all places). By what exactly? By encountering another child who has parents of the same sex? This is going to damage them, how? Especially if the school is doing its job and teaching them the truth about marriage? They will know that gay "marriage" besides being metaphysically impossible, is sinful and wrong. And they will know that people, even parents, even maybe THEIR parents, do wrong things.

According to the article, the Archdiocese agrees with me:

[quote]The Boston archdiocese said it learned of St. Paul's decision late Tuesday. In her statement, O'Neill said the archdiocese doesn't bar children of same-sex parents from attending Catholic schools, and that it will develop a policy in the coming weeks to make that clear. Terry Donilon, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said local pastors have autonomy to run their parishes within basic church rules, but the archdiocese can set new policy when something needs to be clarified — as in this case — and pastors are expected to follow it.

O'Neill also said the schools expect parents to understand "that the teachings of the Church are an important component of the curriculum and are part of the students' educational experience."[/quote]

to the Church in Boston.

Edited May 20, 2010 by Maggie

[rhetoricfemme]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='20 May 2010 - 05:22 PM' timestamp='1274390570' post='2114383']
Homosexuality and pedophilia are both disordered conditions that must be overcome by willed effort assisted by divine grace.
[/quote]
Yes. However, that doesn't make them the same thing.

Here's a new question. And I'm not trying to be a smart-alec or anything, this question popped into my head and I'm interested in the answers of others.

What if a child's father is a jailed pedophile, and has even admitted that if he were living in society that he wouldn't have the restraint necessary to keep children safe from him? Still, their family happens to be Catholic, and the mother wants her child in Catholic school. Is this child not allowed to enroll in Catholic school, because the father has openly admitted that he is a sexual threat to children?

I'm not looking to derail this thread, so feel free not to respond if you don't want to; it's just a question that occurred to me.

[Hassan]

[quote name='Lil Red' date='19 May 2010 - 03:55 PM' timestamp='1274298955' post='2113752']
i can't figure you out
[/quote]


I don't understand what there is to figure out.

I like most of SC's posts. He's argumentative but not a troll. As I understand the term anyway.

[Hassan]

[quote name='Maggie' date='20 May 2010 - 05:51 PM' timestamp='1274392285' post='2114406']
This is a very lousy thing to have happen. For one thing it makes it look like the Church is discriminating big time against the child. At many Catholic schools there are Catholic children whose "Catholic" parents are divorced and remarried without annulment, divorced and shacking up, married and using birth control, etc. If we are going to start policing the morality of parents (as opposed to the morality of the students which is ABSOLUTELY what we need to be doing) then all the parents have to be under the microscope, not just those who are homosexual. What needs to happen in this situation is for the school to have a strong, orthodox and compulsory theology/Christian morality program that has an emphasis on evangelization. And the homosexual parents need to be told firmly that their child is going to be charitably and fully taught what the Church teaches about sexuality and will not be allowed to be exempt. And then the school should follow through. What a great way for the kid to learn the truth about sexuality (which he is not going to get at home OR at the alternative school most likely)
[/quote]


I see this mentality in threads like the one about youth group attendance. Not Lil_Red but in some of the people who run them who were responding. Many of the people who reported having trouble keeping numbers up were the same who advocate treating a child's access to Church teachings like something to be run through a cost-benefit analysis check.

When I think of the holy people I knew in the Church, particularly the ones who were involved with the youth, they had two things in common.

1-The ONLY attendance problem we EVER had while running the groups was overpopulation. Too many teens were trying to come. I remember my youth minister mentioned to me that a protestant youth group recommended targeting the popular kids in school so other kids would follow them to Church to be cool. We agreed that was a bad idea. Christ didn't turn anyone away who was interested in hearing his message, who the hell would we be to do so?

2-The leadership told attending teens that things they liked were sins. Our youth minister was crazy, but like St. Francis was crazy. He was one of the most Christ centered people I had ever met. He had no political agenda. He prayed outside of abortion clinics. He responded to news that our state had reached its 1,000 criminals executed in its history mark by just stating sarcastically, "well weren't we tough". He didn't have political opinions. He didn't try to play word games to make a liberal or conservative outlook fit in a Cristian prism. His worldview was the Church and nothing else. His radical ways challenged us teens.

I'd your Bible says it all. You will know them by their fruits. Let some look at children like a commodity. Let them also enjoy their spiritually crippled youth groups and schools consisting of all two kids who come from sufficiently righteous families that they merit being included. These sorts of programs are self selecting. The bad programs and schools will die out and the goods ones will continue to struggle to find enough vans to carry all the teens who want to go spend a week of hard labor and intense spiritual exercise in a monastery in Pittsburgh. Last year I was there the problem was that they had said that there would be a strict limit of 150 teens (from one Parish mind you) who would be allowed to come. But he couldn't bear to leave all the surplus teens who wanted to attend here if they wanted to be renewed through Christ.

Many of those teens, aside from attending mass twice a day plus adoration, also wanted to get up extra early to pray the rosary in the monastery gardens. The funny thing was that I know for a fact that several of the teens who attended had parents who were living in sin.

Somehow, through supernatural grace I suppose, everyone managed to get past their taintedness and scandal long enough to pray the rosary and meditate on the mysteries before attending morning Mass.

[CatherineM]

I don't see the issue when a parent is in jail. Again, one of the best things we can teach kids is consequences to their actions. Watching my parents not be able to receive communion made me never want to out of communion with the church.

[add]

[quote name='Lil Red' date='20 May 2010 - 07:22 PM' timestamp='1274394120' post='2114421']
+JMJ+
that's c[font="Arial Narrow"]r[/font]ap and you know it. get off your sanctimonious high horse.
[/quote]

there is nothing sanctimonious about Maggie's comments. an innocent child is an innocent child with a mind of his or her own. This seed (child) needs good nourishment, and it doesn't sound like he or she will get it at home.
is it not a child of God?

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='rhetoricfemme' date='20 May 2010 - 04:41 PM' timestamp='1274395267' post='2114433']
Yes. However, that doesn't make them the same thing.[/quote]
I did use the word "both" in connection with them.

[quote name='rhetoricfemme' date='20 May 2010 - 04:41 PM' timestamp='1274395267' post='2114433']Here's a new question. And I'm not trying to be a smart-alec or anything, this question popped into my head and I'm interested in the answers of others.

What if a child's father is a jailed pedophile, and has even admitted that if he were living in society that he wouldn't have the restraint necessary to keep children safe from him?[/quote]
As long as the father is in jail being punished for his crime I see no reason why the child cannot be allowed to attend a Catholic school, but if the father is not in jail and he publicly advocates pedophilia as a normal form of sexual activity, which he also openly practices, it follows that that family should not be allowed to become affiliated with the school.

Now - as I said earlier - I see no reason why the child in the case under review cannot be admitted to a Catholic school if the "gay couple" agrees to separate from each other and desist from the improper living situation that they have exposed this poor child to and which could give scandal to the Catholic community that sponsors the school in question.

Edited May 21, 2010 by Apotheoun

[Maggyie]

Interesting semi- on topic hijack:

To continue the theme of super-hygienic, heresy free Catholic schools, would it be kosher for a private Catholic COLLEGE to do this as well?

Would it be all right for Georgetown or Steubenville or Notre Dame or CUA to expel a student who came out to his classmates or even began dating one of them? Who engaged in hook-ups? Should one have to sign a morality oath to attend?

To transfer this to the parents - What if it was the child of say Nancy Pelosi or others of her ilk. Should the kid be admitted to go to Franciscan? After all it is a private school.

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='Maggie' date='20 May 2010 - 08:48 PM' timestamp='1274402918' post='2114477']
would it be kosher for a private Catholic COLLEGE to do this as well?[/quote]


Yes

[quote name='Maggie' date='20 May 2010 - 08:48 PM' timestamp='1274402918' post='2114477']Would it be all right for Georgetown or Steubenville or Notre Dame or CUA to expel a student who came out to his classmates or even began dating one of them? Who engaged in hook-ups? Should one have to sign a morality oath to attend?[/quote]


Yes

[quote name='Maggie' date='20 May 2010 - 08:48 PM' timestamp='1274402918' post='2114477']To transfer this to the parents - What if it was the child of say Nancy Pelosi or others of her ilk. Should the kid be admitted to go to Franciscan? After all it is a private school.
[/quote]

If the kid is still a dependent on the parent, nope.