Vatican Document Targets Gay Marrige

[foxy]

From those wonderful folks who ignore prosecuting child molesting priests we now have a worldwide campaign against legalizing same-sex marriages. Nice going "Your Holiness". Maybe someone should give him a copy of "Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe" by the late John Boswell who discovered Catholic and Orthodox liturgies for such unions.

[Guest VanBCGuy]

I doubt they will have much influence with the legislation in Canada. The pope just doesn't have much credibility outside of the Catholic community. The Prime Minister (Jean Chretien) is catholic after all, but also a proponent of gay marriage.

[Guest fukamarine]

>I doubt they will have much influence with the legislation in

>Canada. The pope just doesn't have much credibility outside of

>the Catholic community.

 

And is becoming to have less and less within as well

 

fukamarine

[Flower]

>a copy of "Same-Sex Unions in

>Premodern Europe" by the late John Boswell who discovered

>Catholic and Orthodox liturgies for such unions.

 

the title caught my interest so did a google and found the book with a review on the Barns & Noble" site

 

It says in part:

 

"For part of the book he covers old ground, talking about the milieu of the Greco-Roman world, and talks about the development of the idea of marriage and liturgical practices for that. He then proceeds to give examples of liturgies which, Boswell claims, are proof that the church did recognise and bless same-sex unions. This claim is still debated, as there is no blantant 'I now pronounce you husband and husband (or wife and wife)' kinds of statements or liturgies here, but rather testimony to friendship, companionship, communal support, of a sort that is ambiguous.

 

While this book is important for liturgical forms and narrative discussion (although the narratives can be reinterpreted as something different from Boswell's), it failed to deliver the knock-out punch readers of the first book had been waiting for, i.e., conclusive proof the church was up to no good. Boswell does make some points worthy of attention in the debate, such as, 'The extent of early Christian hostility to same-sex eroticism has been exaggerated by modern Christians, who tend to overlook comparable Christian strictures against divorce or other common aspects of modern life also condemned by the early church, while focusing their energy and moral outrage on this particular issue.'"

 

So I'm not sure that it would have a lot of influence, and certainly not what the title leads one to believe. Did you actually read? Is it any more factual or credible than the review says?

[Guest alanm]

The Pope doesn't have much respect in the Catholic community either.

I have a first cousin who is a nun and the head of her worldwide order. She told me today that the Pope should just die. (Standards really fall off quickly in my family; another cousin was part of a

boy band from Boston famous about 10 years ago--who still has a career

of sorts going).

[Kippy]

Would this have been the Singing Nun.......?;-)

[Doug69]

You have to hand it to the Catholic Church and the old, sick, bitter queens who run it. They have incredible audacity, and their shamelessness knows no limits.

 

For them to decree that child-rearing or adoption by gay couples constitutes "violence" to those children is beyond appalling; it is laughably sick!! This is the same institution whose employees have been molesting and raping large numbers of children for decades while the institution uses its resources to cover up and protect its child-rapists and molestors.

 

Obviously, when they say that it constitutes "violence" to children for the children to be raised or adopted by gay people, they are talking about themselves - old, miserable, depraved, tortured failures - and are not taking about gay people generally around the world.

 

This is an institution run by old, sad, absurd men running around palaces in Rome wearing pink dresses and kissing each other's rings. For them to beleive that they are in a position to decree what is "moral"; or what is best for children; or to declare as "evil" both homosexuality generally and the love which gay partners share for one other, truly is the pinnacle of absurdity.

 

Other than clusters of desperate, uneducated, easily propagandized victims in the developing world, I can't imagine that there is anyone who takes seriously anything which this decayed institution or its "leaders" has to say.

[Rick Munroe]

>another

>cousin was part of a

>boy band from Boston famous about 10 years ago--who still has

>a career

>of sorts going).

 

YUMMY JOE MAC??!! :9

 

http://www.joeymcintyre.com/sites/content16/gallery_images/volume_171/one%20night-roch%20jen%20b.jpg

[Doug69]

>I doubt they will have much influence with the legislation in

>Canada. The pope just doesn't have much credibility outside of

>the Catholic community. The Prime Minister (Jean Chretien) is

>catholic after all, but also a proponent of gay marriage.

 

From what I have read, the fact that Prime Minister Chretien is Catholic is one of the motivating forces for why this destructive screed was issued now. A high-ranking Bishop in Canada this week threatend that unless Chretien reversed his support for same-sex marriages, he will be subject to excommuniation and, presumably, will burn in hell for eternity.

 

I highly doubt this will have succeed in intimidating or coercing the Prime Minister to abandon his support, but it does reflect the barren, corrupt, thuggish, integrity-free character of the Catholic Church hierarchy these days.

[imrthr]

Right on Doug!!!!!!!!!!

 

P.S. As a child I was raised a catholic and educated at catholic schools. As an adult, I no longer accept or believe the fairy tales, hatred and stupidity that were forced upon me during my catholic upbringing. With respect to the current catholic involvement and their attempt to denigate marriages/gays, I refer the catholic hierarchy to the "bible" which has a discussion relative to casting stones by "he who is without sin."

 

Doug, your message is refreshing.

[trilingual]

Besides, was anyone REALLY expecting anything much different from those happy folks who brought us the Inquisition? Who kept silent during the Holocaust? Who continue to fight tooth and nail against women's rights to control their own bodies and destinies? Who continue to insist that women are lesser beings incapable and unworthy of being priests?

 

Isn't this the same outfit that combats birth control, leaving more unwanted children available for adoption? But then tries to make it even harder for those unwanted kids to find a good home by claiming that gay adoption is "evil?" Or, in other words, whose hypocrisy has sunk to depths so low it can feel the heat from the center of the earth? Or maybe that's hell? Because that's where those hateful people are going to end up, for sure!

 

From what I've read on some Brazilian websites, campaigns are being started in a number of countries, including Brazil, to get people to send in their "resignations" to the Catholic Church, renouncing their baptisms and any affiliation with the whole hateful enterprise. Maybe it really is time for people to start doing that in droves. There are alternatives, after all.

 

(By the way, the gay candidate to become the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire cleared the first hurdle in the process today. So clearly not all Christians are swayed by the kind of hate-filled "teaching" that emanates these days from Rome and from the Pat Robertsons of the world!)

[bluenix]

Catholic opposition is so beside the point, a next-to-last gasp from an exhausted dinosaur.

 

For a better take on where this is heading, take a look at Queer Eye/Straight Guy. MSNBC didn't decide to run it on network television because they wanted to give more viewers an opportunity to see a fun show, they ran QE/SG to sell more advertising. Which spots were snapped up faster than Lucky can post a message. Why? Because gays are "on trend," (they're cool) which means that aspirational groups (those who want to be cool) will avidly watching gay oriented programming. Hell, that's the functional point of QE/SG. We're cool and we can help you be cool, too.

 

To recap: it isn't just the $645 billion in gay discretionary spending anticipated by 2007 that makes advertisers readier than ever to "support," gay programming. It's that even more lucrative targets also like to watch same.

[trilingual]

Well, if anyone wants to help the dinosaur along to an even earlier extinction, mass renunciations of Catholic affiliation can help. The Church runs on money (gasp!) and the fewer people contributing to it, the harder it is to promote all its various nastinesses. As you may or may not be aware, in some European countries, like Germany, people formally declare their religious affiliations to the government, which then sends part of a person's income tax to the religion indicated in their official affiliation. In the past few years, people in the German-speaking countries in particular have been renouncing their Catholic affiliation in droves, thereby helping to dry up a very large source of revenue for the Vatican.

 

I'm sure this is a hard decision for someone to make, but at some point one has to decide whether the good the Church does actually outweighs the bad. I'm kind of at the point where I think the bad is outweighing the good, so if I were Catholic I'd stop giving. At this point they're about as attractive a charitable choice as Hamas or Hezbollah, which run schools and clinics, but mainly promote terrorism and suicide bombings. In my own case, I finally decided to stop contributing to the United Jewish Appeal, at least as long as the Israeli government is doing immoral and unspeakable things to the Palestinians under the guise of "security." (Instead, I give to the New Israel Fund, which supports progressive organizations in Israel including the Israeli gay movement.) Of course, if things change, I'd probably start giving again, and I don't think the current miserable situation in the Middle East is a permanent one. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that things will get any better in the Catholic Church, at least in any of our lifetimes. After all, Popie Jopie has utterly stacked the college of cardinals with ultra-conservative clones of himself, to assure that the next Pope will be just as extremely conservative as he has been. If the Episcopalians do the right thing at their convention this week and appoint a gay bishop and approve ceremonies for same-sex unions, I think if I were Catholic I'd be looking into switching, because at least the Episcopalians (Anglicans) are honestly struggling with the issues and, slowly to be sure, moving forward. The Vatican, regrettably, is trying to march directly back to the Middle Ages. Somehow I can't imagine that there really are legions of followers who actually want to go back to the Middle Ages with them!

 

Oh, well. Does it seem to anybody else that the old Chinese curse has come true, and that we're living in "interesting" times? And how long do you suppose they're going to last?

[Guest fukamarine]

>As you may or may not be aware, in some

>European countries, like Germany, people formally declare

>their religious affiliations to the government, which then

>sends part of a person's income tax to the religion indicated

>in their official affiliation.

 

Very true - and if I'm not mistaken I think it's 15%

 

And - what would really bug me is that you don't have a choice. You must name a religion you want the money sent to. I don't think you can escape the toll if you claim you are an agnostic. I hear they take it anyway and make a determination for you as to where it goes.

 

So much for the seperation of church & state.

 

fukamarine

[Doug69]

>And - what would really bug me is that you don't have a

>choice. You must name a religion you want the money sent to. I

>don't think you can escape the toll if you claim you are an

>agnostic. I hear they take it anyway and make a determination

>for you as to where it goes.

>

>So much for the seperation of church & state.

 

The concept of "separation of church & state" has been, until recently, a unqiuely American concept. Throughout the last millenium of European history, there was no such thing. To the contrary, the European monarchs were deemed to have ultimately derived their royal authority from religion and from God, and their legitimacy was expressly dependent upon the formal sanction of religious leaders.

 

Many of the laws which are being discussed here (such as the mandatory contribution by German citizens to the Church - Austria has the same thing) are merely remnants of that now-obsolete premise.

 

Probably, Europeans now have a stronger divide between chruch and state than the U.S. does. Reflective of that is the humiliating defeat which the Vatican recently suffered when they tried to coerce European leaders to include a reference to Christianity in the newly unveiled EU Constitution. The Vatican was almost completely ignored, and the EU Constitution contains no reference whatsoever to Christainity or to any religion.

 

That is a rather remarkable event, given how formally Christian the countries in Europe have been for the last 1,000 years.

 

Now, if only it would start dawning on people in the United States that laws and Governmental institutions (such as marriage) are not supposed to be tied to religious ceremonies and specific religious beliefs, but rather (unlike religion, which has the perfect right to "discriminate"), are supposed to be applied equally to all citizens, great progress will be made.

[trilingual]

To my knowledge, such taxes are no longer mandatory. They're more in the nature of a check-off, and it's possible for Germans (and probably other nationalities) to declare themselves religiously unaffiliated, in which case no deduction is made for the church tax. However, in the past decade or so, as the Church has grown ever more conservative and bizarrely out-of-touch with the sexual mores of the faithful, tens of thousands of Catholics have decided to vote with their pocketbooks by declaring themselves unaffiliated or non-religious. In fact, there have been active campaigns in the countries with such taxes to convince people to stop supporting the Church financially.

 

It would be good if American Catholics would join the movement, so that the Church could learn that people have had enough. Money talks. It may be the only thing that will force the Church to take a good hard look at itself and the direction in which it's going.