Former World Bank official Robert Calderisi is an openly gay Catholic
who, in an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI, endorsed the ordination of
women, promoted gay “marriage,” and objected to the Church’s teaching
on homosexuality. In that letter, he even called the Church’s refusal to
ordain women ”un-Christian.” Yet Georgetown University, a Jesuit
university, is hosting him next week to speak on the topic of The Catholic Church and World Development Since 1945.
Calderisi will address the impact of the Catholic Church on economic
and social progress in Africa, Asia and Latin America at Georgetown on
Tuesday December 4th. His appearance is sponsored by the Berkley Center
for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, the Georgetown Jesuit Community,
and the SFS Program on Global Human Development.
Link (here) to The Cardinal Newman Society
7 comments:
Canon 915 seems appropriate again today for this article. They are entitled by our countries freedoms to believe what they choose, but they are not entitled to claim to be members of anything Catholic. Only the Church can rid us of these modern day heretics.
An Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI from a Gay Catholic
By Robert Calderisi
Excerpt:
"When I finished high school, my parents hoped I would choose to go
to McGill -- the prestigious English-speaking university in the city -- but my twin brother and I preferred to go to a smaller Jesuit college at the other end
of town. We were only fifteen years old, but my parents deferred to our view. There, I studied history and my brother took pre-medical sciences, but both of us were obliged to take philosophy and theology courses each year.
Over four years, only two of my twenty-two teachers were members of
religious communities; yet, it was they who rattled my beliefs. In my first week at college, as she tried to explain the use of literary devices in the Book of Genesis, a nun asked our theology class: “How many of you still
believe in Noah’s Ark?” I put up my hand immediately, but I was all alone, and everyone else -- including the teacher -- broke out into laughter. In my last year, a Hungarian priest led us through the documents of the Second
Vatican Council and told us that if we felt our religious aspirations could not be met within the Catholic Church, we would be sinning if we did not
experiment with Buddhism, Judaism or Islam. It was 1968, and he was a
Jesuit…"
A Mr. Calderisi Sampler
I accepted my sexuality during the years I left the Church…
Apart from my comfort with being gay, I am as close to the mainstream of Western Christianity as a person can get. I believe the
Church’s teaching on birth control is wrong, and even cruel…
I abhor abortion and believe that most mothers who resort to it are
probably scarred by it for the rest of their lives. But, apart from actively discouraging it, I do not believe the State or Church should interfere in individual judgments on the matter…
I hesitate to support euthanasia even though, in extreme cases, I can see that an individual can reconcile this ending of life with his or her own moral beliefs. But again, as for abortion, I believe that people should be free to make their own decisions in this intimate area..
let priests marry, open all the Church’s ministries (including the priesthood) to women
the doctrine of transubstantiation -- that priests convert bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood -- does not imply that there has been
any physical change in the earthly substances. The change is a spiritual one.
Alrighty, Mr. Calderisi.
An Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI from a Gay Catholic
By Robert Calderisi
Excerpt:
"On my fourth evening in France, over dinner in an apartment close to Notre Dame, I met a former monk of the community of St. Gervais, where I went to Mass every Sunday. He was now studying to be a priest at the Catholic seminary of Issy-les-Moulineaux south of Paris. During that year, we became very close -- much closer, in fact, than we imagined, until I left
Paris a year later to move to Washington. Within hours of being apart, we felt a great hole in our existence. From the start, neither of us expected to make a life together. He was going to be a priest and I was going to move
back to North America. When I left, Jean Daniel decided against becoming a priest and entered the Benedictine monastery at Mont St. Michel. From there, he started writing me letters every few days and eventually asked if he
could join me in the States. I answered that he had made a choice and he should try to live with it for at least two years before changing his mind again. I was worried about causing him to lose his religious vocation. I urged
him to be as strong as the mammoth stone columns in the 11th century
Abbey church where he prayed each day.
Eventually, his patience -- and my rationality -- ran out. He explained the situation to his superior, who lent him the monastery’s car to drive down
to Paris and meet me, on my way to a business trip in East Africa. In a small hotel on the Ile St. Louis, we spent 24 hours in bed -- mainly talking. We decided to live together and were both nervous about it. Part of this was
what the normal sense of responsibility that any serious couple would feel before marrying. Would we be up to caring for each other and having the wisdom to accept each other’s faults and build on each other’s strengths for
the rest of our lives? Part of our concern was also the unknown. How would our being a couple be accepted at the office? And how would we deal with US immigration rules that in 1980 still made homosexuality (like drug
dealing, Communism and mental illness) grounds for refusing entry?
Everything worked out, and we have been together for over 28 years.
In 2003, after moving back to Canada, we decided to enter into a civil union..."
St Ingatius, pray for us.
Agreed -you people are OBSESSED with sexuality weirdos must not have healthy sex lives
what person uses the word " alrighty'??
@Maria -- for a gay-bashing Catholic you sure do know a lot about gays in the Church; always ready with a link, a quote, an example...
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