http://catholicnewslive.com/story/580574 The Cathedral of the Holy Cross of Orleans [Cathédrale Sainte-Croix d'Orléans] was lit in the LGBT colors in honor of the victims of Orlando!A correspondent contacted the Cathedral. The reception was rather chilly. The decision on the lighting was taken by City Hall, but, in a general manner, the Cathedral has consulted. In the present case, it was Bishop Blaquart who personally approved the request of City Hall. The Cathedral of Orleans is a late Gothic treasure that had to be almost completely rebuilt after being the object of terrorist attacks by French Protestants (the violent Huguenots), who blew apart with explosives the four main columns of the transept, on March 24, 1568. It is particularly important in French history for the Masses heard there by Saint Joan of Arc during the Siege of Orleans, in 1429.[Source: Riposte catholique] Feed: Rorate Coeli Link: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2016/06/cathedral-of-orleans-france-fabulously....
https://cardinalnewmansociety.org/jesuit-university-president-orlando-shooting-glbtq/ Jesuit University President on Orlando Shooting: ‘We Are All GLBTQ+’ Adam Cassandra / June 16, 2016 / Opinion The entire nation was horrified by the massacre at an Orlando, Fla., nightclub last weekend that claimed 49 victims with dozens more injured. All people of goodwill rightfully condemn this act of terror, and it’s appropriate to pray for the victims and their families. Catholic leaders around the country have expressed their deep sympathies, shared by all of us at The Cardinal Newman Society. But the statements of several Jesuit educators in response to the attack are ambiguous and potentially misleading, in part because their universities have repeatedly undermined Catholic teaching and a correct understanding of homosexuality and gender confusion. It’s been reported that the nightclub where the shooting occurred was a popular hangout for individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) or by some other sexual attraction, and it seems likely that this played into the shooter’s motives. So the Jesuits rightfully display compassion by consoling students and faculty members, many of whom may claim such “orientations.” But there is no genuine compassion that denies Truth, and Catholic educators have a responsibility to be clear in leading students to the Truth. They do not need to fall into the trap of defining students by their sexual desires and expressing solidarity with the “LGBTQ community.” Sadly, this is precisely what was done by the leaders of a number of Jesuit colleges — many of which, along with other Catholic colleges, purposefully foster separation among students through departments and programs that reinforce and even celebrate students’ identification as LGBTQ. The Cardinal Newman Society’s decades of monitoring such concerns at Catholic colleges across the country — including pride events, activism conferences, “lavender graduations,” housing and records policies, etc. — reveals a noticeable lack of grounding in Church teaching on human sexuality in students’ education. Rather than leading students to unity through the Truth in Christ, the main emphasis of LGBTQ outreach and ministry at many Catholic colleges is to accept and celebrate disordered sexual attractions and, by implication, immoral sexual activities. These misguided efforts seek a more accepting and inclusive campus environment, but instead they sow disunity on campuses, in the community and in the Church by promoting “pride” in disordered sexual desires instead of nurturing a deeper understanding of human dignity and human sexuality through the teachings of Christ and His Church. All students on campus — those who identify as LGBTQ and those who do not — are thus led to confusion. In one especially harmful statement about the attack, Father Brian Linnane, S.J., president of Loyola University Maryland, told students and staff “today we are all GLBTQ+” in solidarity with people who struggle with sexuality and gender: The mass shooting in Orlando this weekend is a horrific act of hate and terrorism, and we are called to respond with righteous anger, conviction, and courage. As we reflect and respond, I am particularly concerned with assuring those in our community who are GLBTQ+ that we stand shoulder to shoulder with them in condemning this crime and advocating for justice. Just as the French said in January 2015 that we are all Charlie Hebdo, today we are all GLBTQ+. The attack on this community represents a grave assault on the genius, beauty, and freedom of our American society. Charlie Hebdo is a magazine that was attacked for its cartoons; GLBTQ+ is a claim to a personal identity marked by sexual inclinations that are, according to Catholic teaching, contrary to the natural order and God’s will for mankind. Fr. Linnane’s assertion that “we are all GLBTQ+” sends a confusing and harmful message to students and the general public, accepting that certain people are defined by their sexual attractions, and appearing to condone a lifestyle that encourages mortal sin. Without clarity, even general statements about solidarity with the “LGBTQ community” from Catholic college leaders could lead students to misunderstand the message. Such statements may appear to “recognize and tacitly endorse the sexual identities promoted by the LGBT Community — identities bound up fundamentally with the gender ideology promoted by the Community,” as Elliot Milco writes at First Things this week: There can be no question … that at present the label “LGBT” and its components represent more than simply a fact about the dispositions, lifestyles, or biologies of various individuals. They represent a highly developed political and anthropological ideology, which makes hard claims about human nature and desire, morality, the structure of the family, and the proper use of bodies. To be clear, everyone who identifies with any of the labels that go into “LGBTQ…” is worthy of our love, our sympathy, and our solidarity in their quest (with all Christians) for the truth, for justice, and for eternal happiness. But what we share with our brethren on account of our common humanity does not nullify what divides us in terms of our choices and beliefs about happiness, justice, and the truth. And so, here’s the rub: The Catholic Church and the LGBT Community have divergent understandings of human nature, personal identity, the proper use of bodies, and the requirements for happiness. Milco said it would be “an evangelical failure, and a failure of charity” for statements to express solidarity with the LGBTQ community while remaining ambiguous about Catholic teaching. “The mission of the Church with respect to the LGBT Community is to oppose the fetishization of gender identity,” he writes. Like the bishops, the duty of Catholic college leaders “is to tell LGBT people that they are known and loved as more than just exemplars of a sexual type.” The claim Milco was responding to by Father James Martin, S.J., an editor at America magazine and frequent speaker at Jesuit colleges, that we cannot properly express sorrow for the victims in Orlando without identifying them by their sexual attractions and behavior is misguided and uncharitable. Their most important “identity” is as a human being made in the image and likeness of God. Helping students understand and embrace their relationship with God as His creations, and how that impacts their identities as human beings, should be of primary concern for Catholic educators in their mission to lead students to Truth.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/n...r-orlando-shooting-religion-including-our-own Notorious Catholic bishop after Orlando shooting: Religion, ‘including our own,’ targets gays orlando terrorist attack , robert lynch Analysis ST. PETERSBURG, Florida, June 14, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – As Central Florida and rest of the U.S. began to process Sunday’s heinous terrorist attack on an Orlando gay nightclub, certain factions and compliant media have predictably politicized the horrific terrorist act to push gun control, anti-Christian bias, and to decry purported Islamophobia and homophobia. But in what may be the most outrageous case of speciously projecting fault, the Catholic bishop of St. Petersburg, Florida, distorted the very faith he was ordained to uphold. “Sadly it is religion, including our own, which targets, mostly verbally, and also often breeds contempt for gays, lesbians and transgender people,” Bishop Robert Lynch wrote in a June 13 blog post. “Attacks today on LGBT men and women often plant the seed of contempt, then hatred, which can ultimately lead to violence.” The Catholic Church teaches that individuals experiencing homosexual tendencies “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity,” and that, “Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.” It further teaches that homosexual persons are called to chastity, and that homosexual acts are “acts of grave depravity,” as well as, “intrinsically disordered.” “They are contrary to the natural law,” the Catechism states. “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.” Bishop Lynch further misconstrued the Constitutional right for U.S. citizens to bear arms, and implied that to be pro-life, one must actively support gun control measures. “It is long past time to ban the sale of all assault weapons whose use should be available only to the armed forces,” said Bishop Lynch. “If one is truly pro-life, then embrace this issue also and work for the elimination of sales to those who would turn them on innocents.” Bishop Lynch has a troubling history of apparent support for homosexuality and hostility toward those who support the pro-life cause. Despite religious liberty threats across the nation against those whose faith convictions aren’t compatible with homosexual “marriage,” the bishop said in a January 2015 Tampa Bay Times column that homosexual relationships pose no risk to the Church, and in fact can be godly and elevate society and the Church. “I do not wish to lend our voice to notions which might suggest that same-sex couples are a threat incapable of sharing relationships marked by love and holiness and, thus, incapable of contributing to the edification of both the Church and the wider society,” he wrote. The former chairman of Catholic Relief Services’ board of trustees from 2001 to 2007, Bishop Lynch besmirched the character and motivation of pro-life entities in 2013 for their having exposed serious concerns over the US bishops’ contentious relief agency, accusing them of “attacking” CRS as a “money raising scheme.” Perhaps the most widely publicized instance of Bishop Lynch’s animosity toward support for life was his refusal to act in defense of Terri Schiavo’s life as the Florida woman was starved and dehydrated to death by court order at the hands of her husband Michael Schiavo within the St. Petersburg diocese, even as the Vatican appealed to the presiding judge to spare her from the enforced euthanasia. To express concern, contact: Archbishop Christophe Pierre Apostolic Nunciature 3339 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20008-3610 Phone: (202)333-7121 Fax: (202) 337-4036 nuntiususa@nuntiusa.org
It's always tempting to go into an impassioned rant about stuff like this. But what good would it do? Apart from putting up my blood pressure. The solution to the problem? Well as Our Lady has indicated, the rosary, prayer, fasting , penance. Ranting about it is kind of fun , but barren. A bit like banging your head against a wall it only leaves me with a headache. People who knwo these things are worng already know it. people who imagine these things are right will only laugh at the like of me bursting a blood vessel. But someone mentioned and I suspect this may be ture that the level of corruption and let's face it depravity in the Church at the moment has gotten so bad that ordinary lay people like you and me must take some responsibilty in attempting to combat it. I think part of this combat is to speak out against it. Of simply saying it is very wrong. that a tleast is an apsotolic start. Prayer and fasting and penance is the lauching pad for action. I don;t beleive the good God is calling us to sit on our hands in all this. Plus I think its takes folks to get a little angry in order to kind of force us of the fence and off our asses. At least it does for me, who tends to be naturally lazy and why bother about such events. I think of the Scripture, 'Zeal for your house consumes me!' I need a heavy dose of zeal even if it does raise my blood pressure a little.
I am the first official genderless person in the United States Jamie Shupe ‘My court victory has broken a gender binary that many said could not be dismantled.’ Photograph: Natalie Behring for the Guardian Jamie Shupe becomes first legally non-binary person in the US As a transgender person with male biology and distinctly feminine traits, I believe myself to be a unique variation of nature. I am not ashamed of who I am. I was not born into the wrong body. My genitals are not a birth defect. And I am not to be sterilized by psychiatry and a medical establishment that has run amok. After a historic court ruling, I am free. I am the first non-binary person in the United States to be officially recognized. I refused to be classified. And now, I’ve been vindicated. Transgender people such as myself were once a celebrated part of ancient civilizations. The downfall for transgender people began when societies and countries such as the US decided that I had to be made into the equivalent of a cisgender female. That was the only way to make my existence palatable for the sake of religious extremists, which insist that their gods have declared that males and female exist without variance or alternatives. My court victory has broken a gender binary that many said could not be dismantled. In doing so, I have won the right to exist in any manner that I choose throughout the gender spectrum. The traditional constraints imposed by an unjust sex classification system of just male or female, that still governs those who lack my freedoms, has been lifted for me. In the face of adversity, I have declared my right to define my existence and won that right. As a transgender person, I can no longer be accused of appropriating the identity of a cisgender female, because I have created my own, and been awarded the right to exist as that identity. But most importantly, my court victory has opened the door for all those like myself to also taste freedom from the gender binary. The United States desperately needed a third sex classification of non-binary for all of the people such as myself that simply do not fit into the existing binary system of just male or female. As a transgender person who was forced to live as a male for nearly 50 years, and who then electively lived as a female for the following three years to alleviate my gender dysphoria, I have discovered that I am healthiest and best served by not being forcibly classified as either male or female against my will. During my three-year journey to discover my gender identity, the experience led me to conclude that I must first and foremost make peace with my biology of being assigned male at birth, because it simply cannot be changed. No amount of female hormones or surgeries can change that. Similarly, no amount of male socialization or masculine life experiences were able to erase my feminine gender identity traits. By having this lived experience as both sexes, I ultimately concluded that a different way to be transgender needed to be created in the United States, because classifying me as a female was simply not the appropriate solution for me. The solution of how to categorize someone such myself with this mixture of male biology and female gender identity traits is not to attempt to turn me into the passing equivalent of a cisgender female for the sake of respectability politics. Or for the lack of other viable answers. And it was for this reason that I sought my needed solution: a non-binary sex classification. http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...irst-official-genderless-person-united-states
What a load of rubbish. Didn't that Jamie Shupe ever hear of Eunocks, there have always been fellas who were not able or willing to perform the mating process. So what is the big deal. Do you know I am convinced these people are drama queens. We were in our favourite pub grub place last week. The chef happened to walk through the bar bringing food to some customer while we were ordering. I said to him, "oh hi. don't forget to put a couple of fish in batters ready for us," just jokingly because we are regulars. He said "of course, they are already in." The bar MAN who was taking the money up front for the order was there, and I said to him "that chef is the best, even the number one nicest guy in the world." To which the barman replied. "But he is a crap kisser." I already think the barman is gay, and I said to him, "that is the sort of thing teenage girls come out with, not boys." Although I said this in good humour, I was absolutely disgusted. And that is what we have to be prepared to listen to in this day and age. If he ever comes out with something like that again I shall say to him. "I am a born again virgin, you are embarrassing me saying rude things like that." For all the good it will do.
Julia, Very sadly, I saw in another article that Jamie is living with "their" wife of 19 years, Sandy. So instead of using he or she, Jamie uses "their." And demands other people use that when referring to "them." This was a decision by a single state judge, by the way. So far, no other jurisdiction has done this. It is not a federal law (of course, we have until next January with the current administration).
I do think we have to fight back or raise objections, especially when silence implies agreement. I am so tired of being called a hater for calmly and rationally explaining Christian values as opposed to politically correct ones. I decided that every time I am labeled Islamophobic, homophobic, Obamaphobic, transphobic, everything phobic, I am using their vocabulary and calling them Christophobes. They must hate Christ and everything He stands for. They are appalled to be called intolerant. In fact they are enraged all the more. It's not hard to see satan's impact on these not-always-so-young people. I'm sure that it gets me nowhere but I feel better. Then I shake the dust from my feet and move on.
How "compassionate" Catholic priests help imprison gays in a deadly lifestyle... This article is by an ex-"gay" man, Joseph Sciambra, who has returned to the Church after a life as a gay escort and porn actor. He takes on Fr. James Martin, a liberal Jesuit who writes for America magazine (Jesuit magazine) and often speaks out against the Church's teaching. Fr. Martin is also frequently on TV talk shows, "discussing" Church issues (from a very liberal slant). "A Response to James Martin S.J. First of all, I think it is wonderful and noble for any Catholic to honor and pray for those who died so needlessly in the Orlando massacre, but a Catholic can do this without adopting the vocabulary or the symbols of the modern gay rights movement. As then Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in the 1986 Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons: “The human person, made in the image and likeness of God, can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation.” Therefore, by applying such terms as gay, lesbian, or LGBTQ is to do exactly that: it is to define every man and women with same sex attraction – solely by that attraction. This also pertains to the use of such imagery as the rainbow flag which is inherently politically charged: it does not define us, just as calling us LGBTQ indiscriminately and unnecessarily categorizes many diverse individuals by only one aspect of who they are, or may have been. For, there are countless men and women, within the Catholic Church, who once self-identified as “gay,” but do so no longer. Through the Grace of God, we have refused to be defined either by ourselves or by the “gay” community. In the wake of the Orlando tragedy, James Martin S.J. states that: “…the LGBT community is invisible still to much of the Church; even in their deaths they are invisible.” In the late-1980s and early-1990s, I was living in San Francisco, California as a young “gay” man. While I had unofficially left the Church of my childhood years before, I took notice when I made a last visit to a friend, dying of AIDS, and a Catholic priest arrived to hear his Confession and to anoint him. The priest had been sent by the man’s mother; although my friend lay there rather stinking and spotted with Kaposi Sarcoma, the priest took his hand – and then I left the room. Around that same time, I attended a funeral for a neighbor who had died of AIDS, his parents and family had somewhat abandoned him, but a group of his friends got together and arranged a small prayer service and burial. A local Catholic priest, who didn’t know the poor soul, but was somebody’s friend, agreed to officiate and bless the proceedings. Years later, at the AIDS hospice run by the Missionaries of Charity, I accompanied a friend to visit someone he knew, but had lost touch with, that was now staying at the Hospice; the place was simple, but incredibly clean. Most of the men were too poor and evidently forgotten to go anywhere else; so the Sisters were giving them a place to at least die in dignity. Were these “gay” men invisible? Martin also states that the Church has created an atmosphere in which the gay community is perceived as the “other.” Partially this is true, but not for the reasons that Martin is proposing. In reality, clerics such as James Martin have made “gay” men and women the “other:” principally in his insistence that everyone must make an “explicit reference” to the LGBT community. He wants us to be categorized, to be labeled, to be confined within his own world-view. This is evidenced in Martin’s almost neurotic contention that the Church can only “stand with” the LGBT community, by naming the community – by naming every one of us – by naming you and by naming me. But with what name? And, is this a name that we want or is it one that has been imposed upon us by the likes of the intolerant do-gooder? James Martin S.J. – here is one man who refuses to be named. Ever since I was a scared, lonely, and confused little boy, I have been confronted by people who repeatedly wanted to label me. When I was a kid, they called me all sorts of “gay” slurs. When I went to San Francisco as a still scared, lonely, and confused boy, now 18 years of age, a priest tried to comfort me as he said: “You were born gay…this is where you belong.” After over a decade of continued loneliness as a “gay” man, after seeing friends die of AIDS, after becoming more and more desperate to find love, I decided to leave. Seeking guidance, I spoke with another priest, he told me: “But you were born gay…you should go back.” Like you, these were compassionate men; they were the priests willing to do what few, if any, were willing to do at the time– to touch the dying and to bury the victims of AIDS. But, also like yourself, they had a penchant for reducing all of us into one group – or into the artificial and clunky LGBTQ bundle. There were moments, when this attitude could be both paternalistic and reverential; for they saw us as their slightly mischievous sheep, but also as cultural and social rebels who were taking on the Catholic institution – something that all of them viewed as a highly flawed organization which they outwardly served, but constantly criticized. Only, I was truly invisible to these men; for they could only see a “gay” person – a member of the LGBT community, someone who had been born “gay,” someone who needed to accept their gayness – no matter how bad it got. Then, I met someone who was infinitely caring and sympathetic, but he also didn’t look at me as a “gay” man or a member of the LGBT community; he looked at me as a man, and as a member of his community, as a “human person, made in the image and likeness of God.” This saintly disciple of Christ was Fr. John Harvey. And he once said: “Our uniqueness as persons is not rooted in our sexual inclinations, but in other intellectual, volitive and bodily characteristics. Our personhood is much more complex than our sexual identity. To center personal identity in a homosexual inclination is to accept a false identity.” Often, I remember the men who died of AIDS, over 300,000 “gay” men in the US alone have succumbed to the disease, and I knew just a few. But, they came from different parts of the country, from different ethnic backgrounds, and from different creeds, but, for the most part – we all shared an intense desire to be loved. In his Introduction to Fr. Harvey’s 1987 book “The Homosexual Person,” Fr. Benedict Groeschel wrote: “If there is any group of people who are aware of the painful need for love, it is those who, for want of a better name, are called homosexuals. In working with this part of the human family for more than a decade, I have come to appreciate that they more than most others experience a profound hunger for love, for love that does not fail.” Why many of us looked for this “love” within a collective identified as the “gay” community is a complex and difficult question. And, the where, and with whom, we sought to fulfill this love – is not what ultimately defines any of us. Instead, our true fulfillment is in how we found, not our identity, but God. James Martin S.J. – look beyond “gay” into the deeper realms of our humanity and into that part of us, as Fr Groeschel wrote, is our “…hunger for God.” We do not want your labels, we want what every man and woman desires: a chance to move beyond ourselves, so we too might one day understand and know God. http://josephsciambra.com/jesus-loves-gay-men/
Disturbing article from last year, but very applicable for today. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/l...ach-young-kids-about-homosexuality-so-i-can-h
