In a recent service that looked nearly identical to a traditional Roman Catholic mass, four priests were ordained at Yale’s Dwight Chapel in New Haven, Conn.But three of the new priests are openly gay men, something the Catholic Church has refused to allow.
The men were allowed into the priesthood because they were ordained by the North American Old Catholic Church (NAOCC), which refers to itself as a denomination in the worldwide, universal church of Jesus Christ on its Web site.
“We walked away from the papacy in 1870,” Michael Seneco, the Archbishop of the NAOCC, said to the New Haven Advocate.
Seneco, who is openly gay, said he and his colleagues belive the stances that the Roman Catholic Church has taken on homosexuality and women as priests don’t gibe with Jesus’ teachings.
“Jesus was a radical and the church has forgotten that,” Seneco said.
In addition to Connecticut, the NAOCC has parishes and ministries in several other states and in Washington, D.C.
The Roman Catholic Church, however, does not approve of their actions. And gay priests are not the only issue: the Church issued a decree of excommunication last year against those who ordain women as priests.
But the NAOCC stated that theirs is only one of many non-Roman Catholic churches in the world that “not only welcomes, but strongly embraces and encourages women to answer the call given to them by God.”
The NAOCC’s disagreement with the Catholic Church over the ordination of gay priests brings to mind the scuffle within the Episcopalian church regarding a similar issue.
In August, divisions within the church were felt sharply at its decennial policy forum, the Lambeth Conference.
Following the Episcopal Church’s ordination of openly gay bishop V. Gene Robinson in New Hampshire,230 traditionalist bishops boycotted Lambeth, instead attending the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon), held in Jerusalem in June; this despite the fact that Robinson had not been invited to Lambeth.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, ended the conference, by saying the church needs “space for study” about gay clergy.
The 1998 conference ruled that gays should be embraced as members of the church, yet it “cannot advise” ordination of homosexuals or bless gay marriages. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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Sotto Voce
(Source: FDLI)
Check out this new Christian band that just released their first album.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I heard on the samples site, they sound really good.
Introducing the new Christian National Anthem: Guns & Jesus.
http://ccrg.info/cas.htm
I am sure most of the child abusing Priests were STRAIGHT and NOT GAY.
ReplyDeleteMore boys were possibly abused than girls because in the days when most abuse happened they only had access to Altar BOYS with girls not being allowed at the time to serve.
Maybe that was the only time it was actually a Godsend in disguise that the girls were discriminated against in the Church as it saved a lot of them from abuse.
What message does that send out to members of the Church?
The Church has the nerve to discriminate against a gay man who may have a genuine calling from God yet a straight man is allowed to become a child abusing Priest.
Both are being asked to keep a vow of celibacy and the straight men have such a very very poor record in that regard maybe the gay men in the ranks could show them a thing or two about keeping their vows.
What about the reports from Poland of the men there who have broken their vows and have sexual partners and have no intention of giving them up either. They are still welcomed as Priests but the gay man is not even given a chance to serve his Church and he may do a lot better job in keeping his vows.
Like with everything else the Catholic Church should be called The Church of Discrimination, Abuse, Greed and Bullying.
This is the charter that a lot of its clergy follow. Was it the UNIFORM that attracted them? Thought it would bring them adoration and respectability in the community? For some was it a choice of "an easy number" instead of them having to work to support a wife and family they would have the Church support them and perhaps even have some of the other (partner and maybe even a child or two) hidden away out of sight?
Give the gay men a chance - they CANNOT do a worse job than many who are not gay and clergy now.