Archdiocese Of Boston Open Mass To Be Held

[faithcecelia]

[quote name='Cam42' timestamp='1308607068' post='2256492']
Yes, the Church excludes persons who suffer with homosexual desires of any kind from religious life. It is the same principle as the guidelines for the priesthood. And as far as COURAGE goes, I like it. I think that it is a very balanced and very Catholic way of dealing with SSA. I don't think that it necessarily works for everyone, but if that person with SSA gives it an honest try and opens to the spirit of what the program and lifestyle is about, it does change hearts. There is real good work being done with them.

[url="http://www.couragerc.net/"]COURAGE[/url]
[/quote]

Just had a look at the COURAGE website and it certainly looks good and well structured. I have never heard of it before, is it just in the US?

[katholikkid]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1308607481' post='2256495']
Alcoholism often leads to drunkenness, though drunkenness can be present without alcoholism, and alcoholism can be present without drunkenness.
Same sex attraction often leads to homosexual acts, though homosexual acts can be present without same-sex attraction, and same-sex attraction can be present without homosexual acts.

I think they're eminently comparable.
[/quote]

Very good. And alcoholism is not a sin. The person born an alcoholic cannot know how to be not alcoholic but must contend with their situation that exists in nature for them which is the desire to drink to get drunk which is a sin. However this analogy does present the matter that non-homosexuals perform same sex acts lol. Sorry 2 years of logic have made me a scrutinizer of the first degree.

Edited June 20, 2011 by katholikkid

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='franciscanheart' timestamp='1308607553' post='2256498']

A link to the original post would be fine. I'm not sure if these were recent threads or older ones, if you remember them well enough to find them via search, etc. I was just hoping to get back to the source you were attempting to paraphrase.
[/quote]
I don't have time to dig through a mountain of keyword searches involving Apo.

[quote name='katholikkid' timestamp='1308607631' post='2256499']
It does matter if it is genetic. You must remember the idea freedom of choice when it comes to what makes up a sinful act. Same sex attraction exists thus it cannot be rejected root and branch because it is about people dealing with internal identity issues. Attractions are not extrinsic they are what make us people and individuals. Your desire for chocolate is not bad but do not "pervert" it and perform the sin of gluttony. Your desires are natural including our desire for God and wanting to obey him. But as the saints have taught us our desire to please God cannot become scrupulosity which is a sin. Desires are neutral, actions are not. If we act to reign in our bad desires then we have done good; if we act to selfishly fulfill that passion that is a wrong act. The desire is neutral. Not a great analogy but like knowledge. Knowing how to abort is not bad. Abortion is bad. Considering something is how humans exist. We think thoughts. But we must control them for the great glory of God. But to think, feel, and desire is human thus natural.
[/quote]
Same-sex attraction [i]is not[/i] natural. That's the whole point. It is objectively disordered. Understanding the language of the Church, that means it must be rejected in its entirety. It is not sinful merely to experience the attraction, but the attraction itself is disordered. A perversion.

[quote name='franciscanheart' timestamp='1308607636' post='2256500']
I'm sorry did you just imply that people who are not attracted to the same sex are participating in same-sex sexual relations?


[/quote]
Uh.... yeah, it happens. Not to get too graphic, but prison rape has been studied in some depth in more recent years. Findings indicate that those who do it are not necessarily homosexual.

[quote name='katholikkid' timestamp='1308607845' post='2256503']
Very good. And alcoholism is not a sin. The person born an alcoholic cannot know how to be not alcoholic but must contend with their situation that exists in nature for them which is the desire to drink to get drunk which is a sin.
[/quote]
As I indicate in my post, same sex attraction, while not in and of itself sinful, is objectively disordered.

[Cam42]

Katholikkid,

You're failing to make a very important distinction and part of it comes because you're not looking at the totality of Catholic teaching on the subject. Sufficive to say, you're taking CCC #2358 in the wrong light...you're not taking into account the totality of the teaching....

CCC #2357
[quote]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 [b]grave depravity[/b], tradition has always declared that [b]"homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."[/b] [b]They are contrary to the natural law.[/b] They close the sexual act to the gift of life. [b]They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity.[/b] [b]Under no circumstances can they be approved.[/b] [/quote]
[url="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a6.htm#2357"]source[/url]

The Church teaches and the influence for the above comes from:

Persona Humana #8
[quote][font="Times New Roman"][size="3"][left]At the present time there are those who, basing themselves on observations in the psychological order, have begun to judge indulgently, and even to excuse completely, homosexual relations between certain people. This they do in opposition to the constant teaching of the Magisterium and to the moral sense of the Christian people.[/left]
[left]A distinction is drawn, and it seems with some reason, between homosexuals whose tendency comes from a false education, from a lack of normal sexual development, from habit, from bad example, or from other similar causes, and is transitory or at least not incurable; and homosexuals who are definitively such because of some kind of innate instinct or a pathological constitution judged to be incurable.[/left]
[left]In regard to this second category of subjects, some people conclude that their tendency is so natural that it justifies in their case homosexual relations within a sincere communion of life and love analoghttp://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?app=forums&module=post&section=post&do=reply_post&f=2&t=113545ous to marriage, in so far as such homosexuals feel incapable of enduring a solitary life.[/left]
[left]In the pastoral field, these homosexuals must certainly be treated with understanding and sustained in the hope of overcoming their personal difficulties and their inability to fit into society. Their culpability will be judged with prudence. But no pastoral method can be employed which would give moral justification to these acts on the grounds that they would be consonant with the condition of such people. For according to the objective moral order, homosexual relations are acts which lack an essential and indispensable finality. In Sacred Scripture they are condemned as a serious depravity and even presented as the sad consequence of rejecting God. This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and can in no case be approved of.[/left]
[/size][/font][/quote]
[url="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19751229_persona-humana_en.html"]source[/url]

This of course has a basis in Sacred Scripture:
[quote][font="Times New Roman"][size="3"][i]Rom[/i] 1:24-27 "That is why God left them to their filthy enjoyments and the practices with which they dishonor their own bodies since they have given up Divine truth for a lie and have worshipped and served creatures instead of the Creator, Who is blessed forever. Amen! That is why God has abandoned them to degrading passions; why their women have turned from natural intercourse to unnatural practices and why their menfolk have given up natural intercourse to be consumed with passion for each other, men doing shameless things with men and getting an appropriate reward for their perversion" See also what St. Paul says of "masculorum concubitores" in I [i]Cor[/i] 6:10; I [i]Tim[/i] 1:10. [/size][/font][/quote]

[franciscanheart]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1308608070' post='2256504']
I don't have time to dig through a mountain of keyword searches involving Apo.
[/quote]
Friendly suggestion: If you're not willing to provide the source, don't mention it.

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1308608070' post='2256504']
Uh.... yeah, it happens. Not to get too graphic, but prison rape has been studied in some depth in more recent years. Findings indicate that those who do it are not necessarily homosexual.
[/quote]
Prison rape is a little different than a non-alcoholic getting drunk (purposely or not). Just sayin'.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='franciscanheart' timestamp='1308608549' post='2256510']
Friendly suggestion: If you're not willing to provide the source, don't mention it.
[/quote]
I mentioned that only because he explains it more precisely than I do. If I actually contradicted myself then I will have no problem with dropping Apo a line and getting his input, but as it is it seems unnecessary because I think I explained myself more than adequately. Maybe not quite as clearly as Apo is able, but close enough.

[quote name='franciscanheart' timestamp='1308608549' post='2256510']

Prison rape is a little different than a non-alcoholic getting drunk (purposely or not). Just sayin'.
[/quote]
Why? Different in gravity I'm sure. Drunkenness is more likely to be 'victimless' (besides the person himself). Anything else?
Similarities: both are mortally sinful. Both can come from disordered inclinations, though not exclusively so. Both sinful acts can be denied by the grace of God.

[katholikkid]

@Cam42
I totally get you bro. but the meat of the matter is the act. The act is gravely disordered. It is logically impossible for the desire to be. Desires are not decided by us. I could not decide to like liver tomorrow. I could pretend I do and eat all day but that would not change my distaste for it. A guy can not decide to all of a sudden desire some random lady otherwise unattractive to that he sees walking past him. It happens naturally. Why? We will never know. About the act though we can say it is disordered, deprived, grave etc. I totally agree but The desire for companionship and expressing through your body the longing you have another is not wrong in fact it is very God like. BUT it does not make the act right or anything. I think we need to understand that good level headed people in general are not looking for sex but for a companion and in the married life sex comes with it but unity is a HUGE factor. The fact that a girl may not be attracted to a guy is not her decision. But that does not subtract from the holy and natural desire for companionship that all humans possess. If she desires to be a faithful Catholic she must then sacrifice that desire daily to God no because of itself but because of what it would manifest in action=disorder.

Edited June 20, 2011 by katholikkid

[Papist]

[quote name='katholikkid' timestamp='1308605074' post='2256464']
Homosexuality is not a perversion of any sort. The act is. The Catechism says its origins remain unexplained though science and more recent church documents take the side of it being an intrinsic part of life. And to clarify once again I read everything [i]in media virtus est[/i]. To not know the parameters is to not know the middle, thus you are lost. Since homosexual activity is part of nature at large why are human beings exempt? Not to say that we act on animal instinct but just as a matter of identifying a possible intrinsic existence as natural.
[/quote]
Your are grossly misinformed. I highly recommend you visit http://narth.com/

[franciscanheart]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1308608718' post='2256511']
... I think I explained myself more than adequately. Maybe not quite as clearly as Apo is able, but close enough.
[/quote]
Hardly, but whatevs.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='franciscanheart' timestamp='1308609197' post='2256518']
Hardly, but whatevs.
[/quote]
I notice you continue to fail to point out specifics. If you can't do so, then all you're doing is wasting my time in replying.

[katholikkid]

[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1308609046' post='2256517']
Your are grossly misinformed. I highly recommend you visit [url="http://narth.com/"]http://narth.com/[/url]


[/quote]

[font="Verdana"]NARTH is unaccredited. APA rejects them and they are not peer reviewed. Evangelical protestant groups fund it and here is a brief list of official psycho-analytical organizations that do not approve of NARTH's methods: [size="2"]American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, American Counseling Association, National Association of Social Workers in the USA, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and the Australian Psychological Society.[/size][/font]

Edited June 20, 2011 by katholikkid

[franciscanheart]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1308608718' post='2256511']
Why? Different in gravity I'm sure. Drunkenness is more likely to be 'victimless' (besides the person himself). Anything else?
Similarities: both are mortally sinful. Both can come from disordered inclinations, though not exclusively so. Both sinful acts can be denied by the grace of God.
[/quote]
I think you can find a better example and I would encourage you to do so! For a guy that talks about drinking whiskey all the time, you'd think you'd find something less ridiculous to compare than drunkenness and prison rape.

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1308609365' post='2256519']
I notice you continue to fail to point out specifics. If you can't do so, then all you're doing is wasting my time in replying.
[/quote]
I don't want to argue with you about who is wasting whose time. To the point of specifics: it now appears you're just trying to engage in a debate. This isn't a debate nor do I wish it to be; I've asked you to supply a source. You have refused to do so (claiming to be too busy to find sources (but apparently not busy enough to let me know I'm wasting your time)) and I have accepted your unwillingness. No big deal. Have a nice day!

[cmaD2006]

[quote name='Noel's angel' timestamp='1308602940' post='2256439']
The line for communion would be really short?
[/quote]


and that would be fine ... I have been to Masses in the spanish community, where this occurs. Why? Well one thing that I found out is that if a person cannot get a marriage license, you can't get married in the Church. So -- if you're in this country illegally, you can't get married.

(I was told by someone that there is a way around this but have been told otherwise by the priests of my diocese).

So ... in the Masses I attend we have a large number of parishioners who do not get up for communion.

Finally I read the original statement by the Archdiocese. I see nothing wrong with what was said.

I was in another country and was at a parish where people of all walks of life were welcomed. Prostitutes, men in drag, the destitute and homeless, the mentally ill, etc. You know what would happen? They'd start having a conversion of heart, and change. That is the goal really -- conversion. Mind you, I don't say "change the rules" -- God knows that the truth was preached at that parish. But ostracizing because of someone's sin is like hating the sinner and the sin at once. We should hate the sin, and preach the truth. But not hate the sinner.

I commend the parish for trying to do something to let those with SSA know that regardless of their struggles they are welcomed. That is Christ like -- if you look at Christ's attitude towards sinners it was one who didn't ostracize. Who was He most critical of? The pharisees. It was His warning not to become like them.

[katholikkid]

[quote name='cmariadiaz' timestamp='1308609822' post='2256525']
and that would be fine ... I have been to Masses in the spanish community, where this occurs. Why? Well one thing that I found out is that if a person cannot get a marriage license, you can't get married in the Church. So -- if you're in this country illegally, you can't get married.

(I was told by someone that there is a way around this but have been told otherwise by the priests of my diocese).

So ... in the Masses I attend we have a large number of parishioners who do not get up for communion.

Finally I read the original statement by the Archdiocese. I see nothing wrong with what was said.

I was in another country and was at a parish where people of all walks of life were welcomed. Prostitutes, men in drag, the destitute and homeless, the mentally ill, etc. You know what would happen? They'd start having a conversion of heart, and change. That is the goal really -- conversion. Mind you, I don't say "change the rules" -- God knows that the truth was preached at that parish. But ostracizing because of someone's sin is like hating the sinner and the sin at once. We should hate the sin, and preach the truth. But not hate the sinner.

I commend the parish for trying to do something to let those with SSA know that regardless of their struggles they are welcomed. That is Christ like -- if you look at Christ's attitude towards sinners it was one who didn't ostracize. Who was He most critical of? The pharisees. It was His warning not to become like them.
[/quote]

Amen. Best homily I've heard in years!

[TeresaBenedicta]

Same sex attraction is inherently disordered- but not sinful. Same sex acts are both inherently disordered AND sinful.

SSA is disordered in the same way that any other genetic defect is a disorder. It is a physical manifestation of original sin.