Sunday, November 18, 2012

Jesuit Professor, Confirmation And Gay Marriage

Fr. James Keenan, S.J.
............recently, Father James Keenan, S.J. was awarded the Portman Chair last year. Currently serving as the Founders Professor of Theology at Boston College, Keenan made headlines in 2003 when he appeared before the joint committee on the judiciary for the state of Massachusetts to offer his support for same-sex marriage. The judiciary was debating a bill (constitutional amendment H3190) that would mandate that only the union of one man and one woman be recognized as a marriage in Massachusetts. Claiming to present the Catholic perspective, Keenan claimed that “H3190 is contrary to Catholic teaching on social justice.… The Catholic theological tradition stands against the active and unjust discrimination against the basic social rights of gay and lesbian persons.” Keenan encouraged legislators to vote against a bill that would ban same-sex marriages
Link (here) to The Catholic World Report 


Bishop Michael Hoeppner
The parents of a teenage boy in the Diocese of Crookston (Minnesota) told the Fargo Forum that their parish priest has denied the Sacrament of Confirmation to their son, Lennon Cihak, because of his Facebook post in support of same-sex marriage. Father Gary LaMoine of Assumption Church in Barnesville denied the family’s charge but would not elaborate. “They’re my parishioners, and so when the press comes after me from different points of view and asks me all types of questions about their situation, I hesitate very much because I owe them, I owe that family confidentiality,” he said. “He said ‘I cannot, cannot confirm him,’” Lennon’s mother said. “Father would not confirm him, and they won’t confirm him unless he changes his views.” The parents also told the newspaper that they are no longer permitted to receive Holy Communion at the parish. “The mother did say that Bishop Michael Hoeppner of the Diocese of Crookston informed her that if Lennon stood before the church and denounced his support of same-sex marriage claims, he could be confirmed,” the Fargo Forum added. 
Link (here) to Catholic Culture.


18 comments:

Anonymous said...

How sweet it is!

Anonymous said...

I can understand why homosexuality strikes people as wierd or unnatural. It seems that way to me. But what does a "normal" sex life look like?

I also understand the perspective that the institution of marriage should be exclusively between a man and a woman, (although I do not agree) But this is a democracy. This is not an issue that involves life and death.

I don't think it's possible to oppose the validity of the union beween two people so vehemently and at the same time have God's children who happen to be homosexual feel they have a home in the Church. And if they don't have a home in the Church, then something is very wrong.

Anonymous said...

refreshing point marc

Anonymous said...

it is becoming increasingly odd that the some of those who think they speak for christ feel the need to be in the business of someones bedroom. the obsession is weird something is wrong

Lotmeets Darwin said...

It is not the Church that is imposing its will on the sodomite. It is the sodomite that seeks to impose its will on the the Church.

Maria said...

Contraception: Fatal to the Faith

"In 1968, when Pope Paul VI published Humanae Vitae, the episcopal conferences of one country after another met in solemn session to pass judgment on the teachings of the Vicar of Christ.

Bishops in what we call the "Third World Countries" stood firmly behind the Pope's teaching. But the bishops of so-called developed countries, like the United States, or Canada, or France, or Germany, or Austria, or Scandinavia issued long documents that, to put it mildly, compromised the teachings of the Vicar of Christ.

What followed was as inevitable as night follows day. Once firmly believing Catholics became confused, or bewildered, or simply uncertain about the grave moral evil of contraception.

The spectacle of broken families, broken homes, divorce and annulments, abortion and the mania of homosexuality--all of this has its roots in the acceptance of contraception on a wide scale in what only two generations ago was a professed Catholic population...

The single most crucial need to stem this hemorrhage from the Catholic faith is for the Church's leaders to stand behind the Vicar of Christ in proclaiming the Church's two millennia of teaching that no marital act can be separated from its God-given purpose to conceive and procreate a child.

I make bold to say that the Catholic Church, the real Roman Catholic Church, will survive only where its bishops are courageous enough to proclaim what the followers of Christ have believed since apostolic times. But the bishops are frail human beings. They need, Lord how they need the backing and support of the faithful under their care. So I would like to close with a prayer:

"Lord Jesus, you ordained your Apostles as Bishops at the Last Supper on Holy Thursday night. We beg You to give our bishops the wisdom to see that contraception is fatal to Catholic Christians. Above all, give them the courage of Thomas a Becket and John Fisher, to stand firm against the demonic pressure to destroy the human family by contraception. Amen."

Servus Dei John Anthony Hardon SJ

Bishop Hoeppner, we laud you and stand behing you! God bless you!






Anonymous said...

The candidate for confirmation in this case cannot in good conscience state that he assents to the teachings of the church and so should be encouraged to abstain from the sacrament until that time when he can assent freely. The sacrament's integrity and the candidate's integrity both need to be respected.

Re: 'finding a home in the church' I am not sure what that means. We are all in need of grace; none of us are without sin. All of us have weaknesses. If the church makes me 'feel at home' without helping to give me that which I need to overcome temptation, than the church will have failed me.

Anonymous said...

I can understand why 'c'atholics [sic] who willfully reject Church doctrine on sexuality want to remain in the Church. But divinely revealed truth and the natural law are not subject to revision.

Everyone can have a home in the Church, but the precondition is that you convert to Christ, which entails accepting the Catholic Church's magisterium as having the authority to teach in His name. Pretending that you have converted to Christ is just as silly as pretending that two men can marry each other or that two women can marry each other.

Even if some deeply misguided legislatures or judges decree that two men can marry each other, the attempted marriages are null; they are an exercise in pure fantasy. A legislature or judge might as well decree that aspirin cures cancer. Saying so doesn't make it so.

Anonymous said...

"It is the sodomite that seeks to impose its will on the the Church."

Yeah, doesn't it just bug you when people demand their rights and dignity?!

Anonymous said...

Servus Dei John Anthony Hardon SJ

Oh, I know him--you should add the credential that he is the Patron Saint of Sexual Abusers.

Anonymous said...

Many Jesuits have come out in favor of gay marriage! Good for them!

Anonymous said...

Would you grant drivers licenses to the blind because they asserted that treating them with equal dignity demanded giving them equal rights to drive?

You probably would, if you were a deranged liberal dissenting 'c'atholic, or a Jesuit -- just about the same thing.

Sodomy is one of the sins that cries out to heaven for vengeance. No dignity in that.

The tirades and juvenile slogans and immature, simplistic worldview of the left have become tiresome.

The wrath of God will fall upon you if you do not repent and amend your ways, and He will come like a thief in the night.

Anonymous said...

"Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some shall live forever, others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace."

"But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

Both quotes from today's Liturgy of the Word.

Pay heed. Life is short; hell is forever.

From the CDF instruction "Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons":

In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection.

If it is true that all Catholics are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are obliged to do so in a particular way, in keeping with their responsibility as politicians. Faced with legislative proposals in favour of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are to take account of the following ethical indications.

When legislation in favour of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favour of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.

The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions. The common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of society. Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity. The Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society itself.

Anonymous said...

"The wrath of God will fall upon you if you do not repent and amend your ways, and He will come like a thief in the night."

Laugh out loud funny!

Anonymous said...

You laugh at the prospect of eternal punishment? You laugh at the truth about grave immorality?

You have fallen quite far, and I suspect that your false bravado at the prospect of eternal punishment belies deep-seated insecurities you have about your life and the state of your soul.

You need to read this entry by Fr. Z

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2012/11/hell-and-the-enemy-exist-priests-and-bishops-who-dont-teach-about-them-will-probably-wind-up-there/

Anonymous said...

No, I laugh at your sanctimonious comments. And your arrogance to play the role of God.

Anonymous said...

Faithfully conveying God's revealed truth is not playing God. It is being his instrument, salt and light on the earth.

Those who would -- in their pride -- twist, mangle, corrupt, distort, confuse, adulterate, water down, conceal or reject God's revealed truth are -- like Adam and Eve -- grasping at the forbidden fruit that causes downfall.

Why don't you just say, "Non serviam," and be honest about whose side you're on.

Anonymous said...

Faithfully conveying God's revealed truth is not playing God. It is being his instrument, salt and light on the earth.

You must be a delight to be around.

I think I'm "faithfully conveying God's revealed truth" as well. Is this a duel?