Dear Parishioners:
We welcome Father Skip Negley, M.S. (LaSalette Fathers) to our campus. He will serve as a spiritual director for priests, as well as help priests with sabbaticals, continuing education, and spiritual development.
The former convent will serve as a place of hospitality for visiting priests and seminarians during CPE education in the summers.
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Much has been made lately of the pastoral letter from a committee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Always Our Children. There is deep compassion and understanding called for by this letter. Indeed, we must love our children. They may be struggling with the problems of homosexuality, but they are still our children.
We must never use one's homosexuality as a reason to discriminate. We must not use stereotypic language when talking about them. Abhorrent behaviors must cease.
On the other hand, this document is being used to teach what it does not teach. Parts of the letter can be interpreted incorrectly because of its poor choice of phrasing.
One example should suffice. The letter says, "sexuality is a gift from God" and then quotes the Catechism "Everyone...should acknowledge and accept his sexuality identity" (# 2393)." What the sentence actually says is, "Every man and woman should acknowledge etc..." This is in the section on matrimony.
Our faith clearly teaches that man and woman are created in the image of God and are ordered towards each other. Homosexuality is not a gift from God. It is not another way of loving for the Church.
The letter also adopts a "wait and see" attitude about homosexual behavior in young people. Terrible advice. We do not wait and see about drugs, heterosexual behavior, etc. We should not wait about this either. This could be a very dangerous idea. I need not describe the various sexual practices that can lead to so many sexually transmitted diseases. Homosexual behavior often leads to serious illness and death. God did design our bodies to come together in certain ways. It is no wonder that nature rebels when we decide to violate His design.
Young people should be discouraged from any kind of experimentation in this area. It is immoral and can never fulfill one's prime directive for human love from the Creator. Parents seeking counseling should always make sure the counselor respects and follows our Church's moral teachings. We must also question the use of the word "gay" to describe persons with homosexual orientation which is a fundamental disorder in a person. We should never ascribe to disorder adjectives meant for joy and happiness. Jesus promises conversion for the sinner. It may be very difficult, but if we give into determinism, we leave out the healing power of Jesus.
AOC has much good. Please do not use the above to ignore its calls for compassion and understanding. On the other hand, do not be led into misleading and even wrong interpretations not intended by the authors. This is too important to be left to sound bites and clichés.
God Bless,
Fr. Bill
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