 |
| Nienstedt |
Apparently this is par for the course for Nienstedt. According to an article in the Minnesota's Star Tribune, Nienstedt has raised eyebrow with how he has led the charge against marriage equality in Minnesota:
Working aggressively behind the scenes, the 65-year-old Nienstedt has emerged as a key financial and political force for passage of the marriage amendment, which will be on the Nov. 6 ballot and is the most contentious issue in the state this election season.
He has committed more than $650,000 in church money, stitched together a coalition of leaders from other faiths and exerted all his power within the church to press Minnesota's million-plus Catholics to back him.
. . . Nienstedt is not a new disciple to the traditional marriage campaign. In 2006, as bishop of the diocese of New Ulm, he mobilized Catholics to send postcards to lawmakers urging them to support a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Not long after he was promoted to archbishop in 2008, Nienstedt ordered an end to the gay pride prayer service at St. Joan of Arc Church in Minneapolis. Before the 2010 election, he led a move to send DVDs opposing same-sex marriage to 400,000 Catholics in Minnesota . . .
. . . Undeterred by the criticism, Nienstedt has raised the stakes. To a mother who pleaded for acceptance for her gay child, he wrote: "I urge you to reconsider the position that you expressed. ... Your eternal salvation may well depend upon a conversation of heart on this topic."
To clergy, he issued orders that no "open dissension" would be allowed. He wrote one outspoken priest, the Rev. Mike Tegeder, that if he persisted, "I will ... remove you from your ministerial assignments."
"He silenced his priests under the order of obedience," said Ed Flahavan, a member of Former Priests for Marriage Equality, a group that went public in May with the names of 80 former Minnesota Catholic priests against the amendment. "It's the first time in my experience or knowledge that kind of blanket order has been given" in this archdiocese.
Individual Catholics have seen their parishes directed to form committees to work for passage of the amendment. The archdiocese also appointed married couples to talk up marriage at Catholic high schools. Nienstedt asked priests to recite a "marriage prayer" during mass.
Folks like Nienstedt is most likely the reason why some people are making the choice to turn away from religion.
6 comments:
This is exactly why churches should no longer be tax exempt. If they are going to use their funds to attempt to change the system then they should be participating in the system
Her salvation depends on not accepting her son as God made him?
Since I'm not sure what the mother wrote exactly, I don't know for sure if his response is cruel. However, his final statement isn't what the church believes and the paragraphs she was quoted show that, the second paragraph in particular.
That paragraph states: "2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition." Bolding is mine, not the Church's.
Unless she was trying to say she was gay right along with him, the Bishop was incorrect. According to the Church's own Cathechism, as he provided, the only soul that would be at risk for homosexual behavior is that of the son.
As I don't believe that man can properly understand what God wants for ourselves, let alone others, I don't agree with the Church on a lot of things. But the bottom line is, she's not going to hell and the Bishop is an idiot.
@John Powell--Ninny appears to have lost touch with the fact that it is not acceptance of her son that determines her afterlife address... but acceptance of His Son.
Ninny also missed the point that Jesus was about forgiving, and about praying for the unrepentant. He was most certainly NOT about judging and publicly condemning the unrepentant.
Where is the Catholic conscience?
This is what those sections say:
"Chastity and homosexuality
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."142 They are contrary to the natural law. 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.
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection. "
Now I find it interesting that the church thinks it is intrinsically disordered but yet tries to say there should not be discrimination against the LGBT person.
It's a special kind of fucked up thinking prevalent in the Catholic church.
"where is the catholic conscience?" why its right over there next to the easter bunny and santa....please....
Post a Comment