Mychal Judge

[little2add]

Mychal Fallon Judge, O.F.M. (born Robert Emmett Judge; May 11, 1933 – September 11, 2001), was a Franciscan friar and  Catholic priest who served as a chaplain to the New York City Fire Department. It was while serving in that capacity that he was killed, becoming the first certified fatality of the September 11, 2001 attacks.[

  Judge was also well known in the city for ministering to the homeless, the hungry, recovering alcoholics, people with AIDS, the sick, injured, and grieving, immigrants, gaysand lesbians, and those alienated by the Church and society.[15] Judge once gave the winter coat off his back to a homeless woman in the street, later saying, "She needed it more than me." When he anointed a man who was dying of AIDS, the man asked him, "Do you think God hates me?" Judge picked him up, kissed him, and silently rocked him in his arms.[16] Judge worked with St. Clare's hospital, which opened the city's first AIDS ward, in order to start an active AIDS ministry. He visited hospitals and AIDS patients and their families, presided over many funerals, and counseled other prominent gay Catholics like Brendan Fay and Fr. John McNeill. Judge continued to be an advocate for gay rights throughout the rest of his life, marching in pride parades and attending other gay events.[17]

 

Following his death, a few of Judge's friends and associates revealed that Judge was gay[49]. According to Fire Department Commissioner Thomas Von Essen: "I actually knew about his homosexuality when I was in the Uniformed Firefighters Association. I kept the secret, but then he told me when I became commissioner five years ago. He and I often laughed about it, because we knew how difficult it would have been for the other firemen to accept it as easily as I had. I just thought he was a phenomenal, warm, sincere man, and the fact that he was gay just had nothing to do with anything."[50]

 

Edited September 12, 2019 by little2add

[Guest]

Thank you, Lord, for the gift of the life of Mychal Fallon Judge OFM.  May his soul, with all souls through the Mercy of God, ever rest in Peace.  Amen.

[cappie]

[Lilllabettt]

11 hours ago, cappie said:

There is a movement to canonize Fr. Judge. Some people have likened this picture to the Pieta. From what is publicly known about him, I would say it's necessary to pray for his soul. It's regrettable because there is a need for gay saints. May God raise them up. But for real, I am glad I'm not a priest. These days it may be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a clergyman to go to heaven. With God all things are possible though. 

[Norseman82]

On ‎9‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 8:01 PM, little2add said:

Judge continued to be an advocate for gay rights throughout the rest of his life, marching in pride parades and attending other gay events.[17]

Is it appropriate for Catholic clergy to be marching in pride parades?

[chrysostom]

Regardless of what he did before, good or bad, he gave his life in the line of duty - in his priestly line of duty, no less - and we can ask no more of any man. I pray to God that he rests in peace and I am thankful beyond words for his sacrifice. Giving last rites among falling tons of rubble - would that I could live as he died!

[Guest]

"No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends"

"Much is forgiven her (or him), because she (or he) has loved much"

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"

[little2add]

2 hours ago, Norseman82 said:

Is it appropriate for Catholic clergy to be marching in pride parades?

Just like Jesus advocated 

IE: But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ Then Jesus told them this parable: ‘Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?’” (Luke 15:1–4).

[Lilllabettt]

1 hour ago, little2add said:

Just like Jesus advocated 

IE: But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ Then Jesus told them this parable: ‘Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?’” (Luke 15:1–4).

Have you ever been to a gay pride parade? Although more recently they have been corporatized and disney-fied, they are traditionally, very sexually explicit. (Don't google.) But anyway ... I have a somewhat liberal attitude towards contemporary pride celebrations.  Gay sex and hatred of gays are both mortal sins, and the world has changed acceptance of the one for the other. It's a wash, in some ways. Tbh, the world was never going to do "love the sinner hate the sin" - not even Christians are very good at doing that. 

So... although it is VERY eyebrow raising, if he did march in the old fashioned pride parades (which, that's all there was in the 1990s) I'm more troubled by other things publicly known. It's been reported in mainstream media that he ad-libbed the Mass, gave communion to non-Catholics, and discouraged a Jewish person who longed to convert from doing so. Those are just a few things that are reported. There are just serious reservations in my mind when there is evidence of serious moral failure in priestly ministry, which I consider those being. 

I have read that there is no evidence he broke his promise of celibacy. So there's that. Although like Cardinal Newman he had an intense, intimate relationship with a man. As I said, we are in need of gay saints. 

It's true that there is a new category of saint, or I believe there is, for people who give the last full measure of devotion, although not technically martyrs for the faith. They maybe did not live a life of heroic sanctity but in did so in their last moments. So possibly he could fall into that category. 

Although I hesitate because frankly, there were 300+ firemen and police officers who did the same that day. It's heroic and praiseworthy but not all of them who died that day were canonize-able, to say the least. 

 

[little2add]

21 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

Have you ever been to a gay pride parade?

No, It all seams a bit too silly and perverted.  

[Norseman82]

I see that people are starting to fling Bible verses that have nothing to do with the subject in the hope of pulling the wool over our eyes. 

2 hours ago, little2add said:

Just like Jesus advocated 

IE: But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ Then Jesus told them this parable: ‘Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?’” (Luke 15:1–4).

 

4 minutes ago, little2add said:

No, It all seams a bit too silly and perverted.  

Well, is marching in a pride parade an attempt to convert sinners so that they stop sinning, or is it an approval and advocacy of perversion, which makes it scandalous? 

If he is canonized, what will the "spin" be?  Will it be "See, pride parades are OK because one of the participants in them was canonized"?  Or will it be "By his sacrifice, he redeemed himself for his prior causing of scandal by marching in pride parades"? 

[little2add]

Judge was also well known in the city for ministering to the homeless, the hungry, recovering alcoholics, people with AIDS, the sick,injured, and grieving, immigrants, gays and lesbians,and those alienated by the Church and society.

You may or my not see the connection to the “Luke 15:1–4” parables, sorry , I do!

i have a vivid imagination 

Edited September 14, 2019 by little2add

[dominicansoul]

I believe it is dangerous to look at works without faith.  The two go hand and hand.  A person may live in mortal sin their entire lives and feed the poor their entire lives...feeding the poor doesn’t change their state of mortal sin...

Also what does “alienated by the Church” mean?  

I really hope this priest didn’t make lgbt peeps believe they were okay in their sins.  If he was just trying to promote respect and kindness towards people who struggle with same sex inclinations, that would be one thing... although walking alongside peeps sexually perverse dancing in streets showing the world pride in their sins isn’t my idea of promoting “love the sinner but hate their sin...” 

With all that said, no one knows the state of this mans soul at the end of his life... so yes celebrate his deeds on that fateful day...but I personally don’t canonize people (only my mom...)  

Edited September 14, 2019 by dominicansoul

[Guest]

I can underscore "alienation by The Church" as a valid statement - and I know from long experience what it means.  It means that the hierarchy of The Church can say all the right words; however, on a parish and diocesan level in the day to day what The Church as hierarchy states is not enacted and one feels alienated i.e. experiences feelings of isolation or estrangement as a result.

Homosexuality or same sex attraction itself is not sinful, nor is the embracing and active support of those who suffer in this way, which does not mean that one embraces and actively supports what we know and acknowledge to be sinful.  Just as all sexual activity outside of marriage is sinful be one homosexual or heterosexual, which does not mean one supports homosexual marriage.

I too am a sinner, what might separate us all is the kind or type of sin.  "To whom much is given, much will be expected".

 

Quote

 

"The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to him,

but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__PWY.HTM

 

Quote

 

"No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends"

"Much is forgiven her (or him), because she (or he) has loved much"

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"

 

 

[Guest]

18 hours ago, Norseman82 said:

I see that people are starting to fling Bible verses that have nothing to do with the subject in the hope of pulling the wool over our eyes. 

 

"if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them".................."Whoever has ears ought to hear" Matthew Chapter 13

 

 

http://www.osservatoreromano.va/en/news/parable-patience

"Jesus’ teaching does not focus on why the weeds sprang up, but on how to behave when faced with these weeds. “No” : it is an order that disconcerts us, that contrasts with what we consider the best part of ourselves, our desire for justice, truth, holiness and radicalism, namely that zeal which we all too often believe to be good zeal but which in reality proves no different from the zeal of those two Apostles, James and John, the “sons of thunder” (Mk 3:17), who on seeing Jesus refused by the inhabitants of a Samaritan village ask him: “Lord, do you want us to bid fire come down from heaven and consume them?” (Lk 9:54). They had not understood much of their Master’s teaching! And yet how frequently over the course of history have we felt authorized to light fires at the stake to burn those who, in our opinion did not accept Jesus! There is a will to uproot evil by uprooting the sinner which is not God’s way. The Church is not a sect of pure people nor are our communities the kingdom of heaven."