310 comments and counting. Click
here to see the carnage! 'Oh those Christians, see how they love one another!' There's blood everywhere! All you have to do is walk into the bar and shout, "Homosexuality", and everyone is at each other's throats.
The room seems to be divided between conservative reactionary traddies who love Holy Mother Church (but secretly hate gays), annoying, heretical liberals who love gays but attack Holy Mother Church, and a few level headed, doctrinally sound, men and women who just love Holy Mother Church and try to respect their brothers and sisters. I've lost my rag once or twice, once at a reactionary and once at a liberal.
If you can go in, get a round of drinks in and get them to settle down...I'll be mighty impressed!
Here is the Catechism of the Catholic Church on Homosexuality:
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.
2358, by the way, is not the official number of men in the World who have the condition of homosexuality, just in case you were wondering. It's
2360. I know this because I counted last week. Neither is
2359 the number of homosexual persons who are called to chastity. It's
2360. Current comment count:
621! Oh, boy...is my 'story' ever going to sell!
10 comments:
Laurence
You're doing a fine job of battling the loonies on either side.
Regards
Thomas (the Raven)
Cheers, Bro!
God Bless you Laurence for getting in the middle of that brawl. They are up to 367 comments. I'm not one of them however. The CCC is clear- nothing more needs to be said, but a little teaching with love [and maybe a drink or 2 :)] might help many in that crowd.Wish I could be the one to do it but I would just start strangling people with my rosary beads! (I know- praying on them is better.) I read a few comments and got the heck out of Dodge!
I've been trying to think of something sensible to add to that debate, but suspect that balanced comment will inflame all extremes... So rather than pour fuel on the fire, I've gone off on a pub (blog) crawl of my own...
Waste of time. Read a book, watch a film, phone a friend or relative... anything would be better than participating in this trash-fest.
A well chosen headline - made me investigate further! They have topped the 400 mark now!
Apart from the main theme there seemed to be a diversion (as so often happens!)regarding some comments written by Pope Benedict many years ago on the adoration of the Eucharist. I found this quite upsetting and hard to believe and waited for more comments. If as someone has said it was probably a mistranslation then that may explain it. I am hoping a theologian reader may comment on this in due course.
551 comments reached now on Holy Smoke! I wonder if this is a record? There are some interesting comments about daft sects of the past. Not sure how the thread got on to those. I see Chipfat has returned - can't work out which one he belongs to or why he persists in reading Catholic blogs.
Incredible stuff...Even in the Telgraph, sex sells!
Nothing new there, Laurence: the Telegraph has been using sex to boost circulation for two or three decades now: its scurrilous and sensationalist page 3 practically rivals the Sun on some days, with the only difference being words rather than pictures.
BTW I did eventually post on Holy Smoke on this one...
Thriller, you know I love you, but your classifications are useless. It just doesn't break down that way. I adhere to the catechism, and push that line, as recently as yesterday in a conversation with someone defending gay marriage; and when I do, I am called a bigot and a reactionary. I was not trashing gay people, I was calling on them to be celibate (as am I, a heterosexual). I do not wish them either, to hide their homosexuality if that means not dressing like women or not affecting what they presume to be feminine mannerisms. But still, my position is, to the person I was arguing with, a reactionary one. In short, I cannot see anyone who gets into the fray of pushing the gospel, as we are to do, because pushing the gospel is for charity's sake, as all of the gay friends my kids have are in trouble physically and emotionally and celibacy would be the best medicine they ever got free, ever being called a moderate about anything. Okay I lost control of that sentence. But the point is, if you push a moderate position, as you consider yours to be, with that catechism quote and all that, they do not take it so. The world does not take it so. They will take you as a loony. One of the loonies. They will get furiously (and fakely) angry and throw things at you on your way out. Thus, I imagine, many people get into a harsher position from a moderate one, since the gay movement just cannot see reason and pushes the most extreme positions themselves, or rather either pushes or tolerates the most extreme sexual politics and behavior imaginable. So far I have avoided becoming angry and uncharitable, but I understand the impetus, and blame the 'loony' on that side more than the 'loony' on the other. And I don't think much of calling them loonies, either, for that matter.
The only way a person can be 'moderate' on this subject is not to be in the struggle with actual living humans for their souls. That's uncharitable, no not toward them, toward Christ who died for them!
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