Hmmm....
Let's take a look at this piece of the Union of Catholic Asian News Editor Fr. William Grimm about the legalization of same sex "marriage" in "Catholic" Ireland.
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Voters in Ireland have made that country the first to recognize same-sex marriage by a national referendum. Various other countries have granted the same recognition through legislation. [This priest will now tell you that the numbers matter for dogma and morals.]
A New York Times column by Frank Bruni titled "On same-sex marriage, Catholics are leading the way" pointed out, "In fact, countries with a Catholic majority or plurality make up half of those where two men or two women can now wed or will soon be able to."
In other countries like the United States where Catholics are a large part of the population, polls show that Catholics as a group are more open to same-sex marriage than their non-Catholic neighbors.
And yet, in all these countries, the Catholic hierarchy has strongly opposed moves to recognize such partnerships, while the laity have declined to follow their bishops.
Are we seeing the collapse of the Catholic Church? [Is this priest wishing it to happen? Weird for someone to even think this will happen. Ha! Not even Hitler was able to accomplish it and he think sodomites and adulterers can accomplish it.]
If the bishops are the Church, [no they are not. The bishops don't even say so. But they are our shepherds and teachers. Get that!] then perhaps we are. But, if the Church is, in fact, the People of God, then we may be seeing the Church affirming something its leaders need to re-examine. [So if the majority decides to legalize murder....you know where this is heading.]
It would not be the first time. Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman pointed out that historically, when many bishops of the fourth century were in heresy over Arianism, it was the laity that kept the faith. The moral of that story for him was that it is essential to recognize that the laity are, along with Scripture, liturgy, the hierarchy and theologians, a valid authority in the Church. [Now this man here is either knows the real score about the comments of the Blessed cardinal or he is really oblivious about what the cardinal really meant. See my discussion below.]
Rather than the collapse of the Catholic Church, might we be living through a period when the hierarchy must defer to the experience, insight and faith of the mass of Catholics? After all, they, more than celibate clerics, have a clear idea of what might or might not threaten marriage. [Same reasoning we all heard about married life from the Episcopalians and Anglicans! Celibates can talk about the family and married life since they are not married. If that were true, were did the priests come from? Did they spring out of the ground? Did a stork deliver them to the doors of the seminary? They are humans right? And they were born to a human family. Is experience needed in order for a person to speak authoritatively about it? Does a doctor specializing in cancer (an oncologist) need to be sick with cancer before he can practice his profession? Does a priest need to have a wife before he can talk about keeping the a married couple's marriage holy?]
The Catholic bishops of Japan may be attuned to this. [Look at the number of Catholics in Japan! No, rather, look at the number of people believing in a deity in Japan!]
The mayor of Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward has announced that around the end of October the ward will begin issuing certificates recognizing same-sex partnerships. This follows the ward assembly’s passage last March of an ordinance that recognizes such partnerships as "equivalent to marriage". Other jurisdictions throughout Japan are expected to enact similar ordinances.
The Japanese bishops’ report for the next session of the Synod for the Family in October refers to the Shibuya ordinance and says, "Even though the Church cannot recognize same-sex marriages, there is no way that we can assume that a sexual orientation not chosen by someone is cause for their rejection by God." [So the bishops of Japan are for same sex "marriage"? So whatever happened to Fr. Grimm's hierarchy-laity dichotomy? What would happen if the laity came out with a manifesto not supporting the sodomite union?]
In Ireland and elsewhere Catholics speak much as the Japanese do. They favor legalizing same-sex unions precisely because of what they have learned from the Church about the dignity of all people and caring for the marginalized. The starting point is the love of God that does not punish people for being who they are. [Man. The Church has already taught us in the Catechism about this. Here in the Philippines, the CBCP just came out with another directive. Nothing new. It's just teaching what has been since the beginning.]
At the first session of the Synod last October, Ron and Mavis Pirola, a Catholic couple from Australia, addressed the meeting:
"Friends of ours were planning their Christmas family gathering when their gay son said he wanted to bring his partner home too. They fully believed in the Church’s teachings and they knew their grandchildren would see them welcome the son and his partner into the family. Their response could be summed up in three [sic] words, ‘He is our son.’” [Are we questioning the DNA of the son, or is the Church questioning the morality of the relationship?]
"What a model of evangelization for parishes as they respond to similar situations in their neighborhood! It is a practical example of what the Instrumentum laboris [working paper for the Synod] says concerning the Church’s teaching role and its main mission to let the world know of God’s love." [God's love does not mean we tolerate evil. Sodomy is evil. In fact, a city got burned because of that. God's love does not spoil. That is why God is called Father because He is a parent like me. Unlike Fr. Grimm who is celibate......Ha!]
The laity are challenging the leaders of the Church to find ways to affirm the sacramentality of matrimony [affirm? Follow Jesus!] while recognizing that marriage is a broader and more varied reality with legal, social, cultural and anthropological aspects that may differ from the practice of the Church. [Modernism alert folks! This is how modernist heretics work. They want you to accept that dogma and doctrine and morals need to keep up with the times. Truth needs to be updated and made relevant. Heresy is written all over it. How? Let's use his logic. If we go to a society where being married to an animal, or a sibling, or an inanimate object has become the "varied reality with legal, social, cultural and anthropological aspects that may differ from the practice of the Church", this priest, this so called Roman Catholic priest, this so called Priest of Jesus Christ, wants you to accept that we need to change what JESUS CHRIST himself has taught that marriage is between a man and a woman and that what God has joined together, no man can separate. This priest is teaching another Gospel.]
Sacramentality is not threatened by same-sex marriages. The sacrament of matrimony remains something for the Church to administer according to its understanding of that type of marriage called sacramental. [Ughm....marriage is a sacrament and not a sacramental. Does this priest really know his religion?]
And after all, homosexuals are only about five percent of the population. It is ridiculous to claim, as the Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin did, that because some of that five percent can have legally recognized relationships it is "a defeat for humanity". [Yeah. Five percent is exerting pressure to the rest of the 95% of the world. How could it not be a defeat for humanity?]
The Japanese bishops are calmer, kinder and more correct in saying, "At the least, the Church should convey the message that households that have been set up by men and women with a homosexual orientation are also blessed by God." [How? Sodomy is blessed? Ugh!]
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Now let me quote Blessed John Henry Newman about the role of the laity during the Arian heresy:
"Here, of course, I must explain: -- in saying this, then, undoubtedly I am not denying that the great body of the Bishops were in their internal belief orthodox; nor that there were numbers of clergy who stood by the laity, and acted as their centres and guides; nor that the laity actually received their faith, in the first instance, from the Bishops and clergy; nor that some portions of the laity were ignorant, and other portions at length corrupted by the Arian teachers, who got possession of the sees and ordained an heretical clergy; -- but I mean still, that in that time of immense confusion the divine dogma of our Lord's divinity was proclaimed, enforced, maintained, and (humanly speaking) preserved, far more by the 'Ecclesia docta' than by the 'Ecclesia docens;' that the body of the episcopate was unfaithful to its commission, while the body of the laity was faithful to its baptism; that at one time the Pope, at other times the patriarchal, metropolitan, and other great sees, at other times general councils, said what they should not have said, or did what obscured and compromised revealed truth; while, on the other hand, it was the Christian people who, under Providence, were the ecclesiastical strength of Athanasius, Hilary, Eusebius of Vercellae, and other great solitary confessors, who would have failed without them. I see, then, in the Arian history a palmary example of a state of the Church, during which, in order to know the tradition of the Apostles, we must have recourse to the faithful...." [my emphasis]
From "On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine"
From this quotation we can clearly see that Blessed Newman did not refer to the laity as "authority" like how this priest was implying. Rather, it was through the support of the laity to the guardians of orthodoxy led by St. Athanasius that the Arian heresy saw its doom.
We are of the same situation right now.
It is the few brave cardinals, bishops, priests and religious who need the support of the laity to stand up against a few hijackers of the Synod of the Family.
It is not even an ecumenical council! It is a synod, a consultation. And they want to redefine what the Church has taught ever since it was founded by her Divine Founder.
This is what Fr. Grimm says "varied reality with legal, social, cultural and anthropological aspects that may differ from the practice of the Church". This is what modernist heretics say as the updating of dogma and "keeping up with the times."
The sad news today is that we see the wolves inside the pen with the sheep. They are not anymore in sheepskin. They have shed the pretenses and proudly proclaimed that they call themselves Catholic but profess a faith different from those that came from the Apostles.
The best way to combat these wolves are:
1. Prayer - for their conversion or if they are obstinate, for God's mercy and justice to befell on them.
2. Boycott - do not support their endeavors. Don't visit their websites, don't donate to their causes.
3. Expose - share to the whole world who these men and women are so we others will stay away from them.
PS: Makes you realize that we really have a lot of active homosexuals in the clergy no? Right Fr. Grimm?
In a saner time priests- or even bishops- thinkilng and saying such things would either have been silenced or reduced to the lay state. We can only hope such a time will come again.
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