Last week, controversy erupted when Archbishop John Nienstedt informed St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Minneapolis that it could not hold a gay pride prayer service in its sanctuary. The service — held for several years in conjunction with the annual Twin Cities Gay Pride festival — celebrates the gay identity.
In response, organizers moved the celebration outside the church. One gay activist attended in what must have struck him as a clown’s outfit, given the occasion — the robes of an archbishop, miter and all. David McCaffrey of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM) condemned what he called Nienstedt’s “reign of homophobic hatred.” In an e-mail to the group’s members, he characterized the archbishop’s decision as “yet another volley of dehumanizing spiritual violence directed at GLBT persons and their families.”
Clearly, there is hatred here. But it is not coming from the Catholic Church. Rather, it’s a tool of those who are trying to compel the church to conform to their personal demands with caricatures and public mockery.
Please read the whole thing. It is rare that you see an article this good in the press and Katherine Kersten goes on to make very good arguments against those who criticize the Archbishop and see now problem with a Catholic parish participating in a gay pride parade. Katherine Kersten who is a Catholic is a consistently good writer and has also done some good coverage when it comes to the Church. Considering how bad the Minneapolis Star Tribune is normally when covering the Church with writers like Frank Rich it is nice to see such a solid column in a very liberal newspaper.
The whole thing about the language used by activists in support of homosexual acts is that their very intention is to force those who disagree into a closet and to be shut up and not heard from. You are a homophobe a the drop of a hat regardless of what you actually think. There is so much name-calling and hyperbole and so little respect of others that you wonder how they managed to forget what it felt like to be dehumanized by jerks with no charity in their hearts and no empathy for those suffering from same-sex attraction.
Via A Shepherd’s Voice.
13 comments
This is quite a well-written article. I never thought I’d see such a column in the Star Tribune; I’m so used to their extremely biased reporting. I can almost imagine the letters to the editor that will appear tomorrow…
Now if only someone hadn’t broken into the Archbishop’s residence and stolen rings and crosses used by bishops here for 150 years.
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/faith/22743644.html?location_refer=Homepage:highlightModules:1
Darn good story. Darn idiotic posters.
I now love Katherine Kersten and her ability to put it out there. God bless her. Christ’s love is beautiful when fully beheld. I have a hard time witnessing so wonderfully. Maybe its because I am a sinner who tries to talk sweetly but comes off sounding like a JERK.
The article is excellent, but it is horrifying how many commentors didn’t get it. Maybe it is that they refuse to get it! After all – if they keep on screaming loudly enough eventually Obama will fix it and make the big mean church go away.
What part of “we are all sinners” is so hard for sexual activists to understand? The sin part?
Gee I noticed some of the comments quoted scripture…to push thier cause..
Didn’t Satan do that to Christ when he stood on top of the temple?
Wow History repeats itself.
This was a good move by the Archbishop, but he needs to do more. Specifically, given the cesspool of heterodoxy that St. Joan of Arc Parish has become, the Archbishop needs to suppress the parish entirely, send its clergy to a penal monastery for a few quiet years, and erect a new parish, preferably with some butt-kicking FSSPers in charge.
We just had a gay pride parade in Providence that was billed as “mainstream” by the press (from their description, http://www.projo.com/news/content/GAY_PRIDE_06-22-08
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I expected to see photos of gay couples lining up to apply for mortgages, etc.)
At least the parade wasn’t as “proud” as those in CA and MA, I assumed. I googled the topic. Hmmm. Out of 180 or so pics published online, I endured the first 20. And out of those, I not only didn’t see “mainstream”, but noted that any other group who dressed or acted that way in public would cause an outcry and, I would think, some arrests. ( I haven’t found the RI lewdness/obscenity laws yet.)
These photos are NOT California gross, but they’re reaching for the same rainbow and they’re disturbing enough that I can’t send ’em around to prove my point.
I wonder what would happen if a journalist attended such an event and reported the truth of what they saw.
Rule #1 of internet secular news sites: AVOID THE COMMENTS SECTION.
I disappointed in the argument that the Church objects to gay pride in the same way it objects to straight pride, etc.
This misses the mark by implying that homosexualilty is akin to being straight, white, or black. The issue of pride is not our real problem with gay pride. The problem with gay pride is that it promotes sinful behavior and encouraging others to adopt it. We further object to our church buildings being co-opted for the purpose.
Placing this as her first argument weakens her moral stance on the issue.
I was disappointed in the argument that the Church objects to gay pride in the same way it objects to straight pride, etc.
This misses the mark by implying that homosexualilty is akin to being straight, white, or black. The issue of pride is not our real problem with gay pride. The problem with gay pride is that it promotes sinful behavior and encouraging others to adopt it. We further object to our church buildings being co-opted for the purpose.
Placing this as her first argument weakens her moral stance on the issue.
The problem with gay pride is that it takes pride it what is shameful. Who else parades lewdness under a rainbow banner and expects applause? That anyone DOES applaud fractures my brain.
And am I wrong in assuming that any other group or person parading down the street in skimpy underwear or grossly suggestive costumes would be stopped by the local authorities? If we staged a “straight pride” parade, pranced around in Victoria’s Secret “costumes”, added lewd pantomimes and carried offensive signs, would we get away with it? That’s a question that won’t be answered, because we wouldn’t do it. We can’t prove certain double standards, because we can’t do what these people are doing without cooperating in evil.
“One gay activist attended in what must have struck him as a clown’s outfit, given the occasion — the robes of an archbishop, miter and all. David McCaffrey of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM) condemned what he called Nienstedt’s “reign of homophobic hatred.” In an e-mail to the group’s members, he characterized the archbishop’s decision as “yet another volley of dehumanizing spiritual violence directed at GLBT persons and their families.”
At what point can one be so brazen and bold to actually just come out and say that folks who act like such clowns just wear their arrested development and emotional immaturity on their sleeve under the guise of being “flamboyant”?
Let’s get down to brass tacks and call a spade “a spade”: White males (the most privelaged class in the US) who prefer to have homogenital relations with other males are not a disenfranchised minority but a highly celebrated (Think Queer Eye for the Straight Guy/Brokeback Mountain!) subgrouping that enjoys the benefits of being double-income-no-kid (DINK) status when they partner up with likeminded males for sexual fun.
I can’t feel sorry for men who like to protest dressed up as archbishops in full pontificals because other people are “mean” to them in their hedonist pursuits.
It has gotten just plain silly and if ever there was a time for “backlash”/”gay fatigue” where people get tired of this privelaged class bitching for status as a protected minority… well the time has come!
“The love that dare not speak” has become the movement that dare not shut the heck up.
Two dudes who are usually above-average intelligence (unless suffering from unusually strong affectation to act like their grandmothers) demanding special rights? Can we wake up now?