THE PRIEST THAT SAID NO TO THE LESBIANS

This is the website of Father Bill Breslin, the priest at Sacred Heart Parish in Boulder, Colorado: The Heart of the Matter. He is the priest at the heart of the storm surrounding the lesbians that tried to enroll their kids in a Catholic school. His comments on the dispute can be found here. I'm going to post them in their entirety below.

Keep Father in your prayers. I'm sure he is blasted from every direction. Visit his blog and let him know that we're out here; that many of us still believe that the Church and God's law mean something.

Here are his remarks:

"If a child of gay parents comes to our school, and we teach that gay marriage is against the will of God, then the child will think that we are saying their parents are bad. We don't want to put any child in that tough position - nor do we want to put the parents, or the teachers, at odds with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Why would good parents want their children to learn something they don't believe in? It doesn't make sense. There are so many schools in Boulder that see the meaning of sexuality in an entirely different way than the Catholic Church does. Why not send their child there?

The core issue for us Catholics on this question is our freedom and our obligation to teach about marriage and family life as our Faith teaches. If parents see the cultural interpretation of what tolerance has become as more important than the teachings of Jesus, then we become unfaithful to the Lord and we lose the meaning of the beatitude, “Blessed are you when they insult you for My sake, for the Kingdom of Heaven is yours.” Many of Jesus’ teachings were not popular. In fact, He was crucified for His teachings.

Glossing over differences on essential matters, and pretending that crucial issues are irrelevant, is not tolerance.

It is relativism, meaning that nothing is important anymore and everyone can have their own interpretation of what is goodness and truth. This kind of tolerance, which is a decidedly secularist invention, seeks to separate all moral discourse from public life. However, those who embrace this kind of tolerance do not, of course, acknowledge that they are imposing their own moral judgments upon society.

The Catholic Church invests in parish schools so as to assist children in becoming disciples of Christ and to stand as a light shining in the darkness that has rejected Christianity and the truth of being human, including the meaning of human sexuality."

CHURCH, STATE, LESBIANS AND THE RIGHT TO WORSHIP

In light of the article preceding this on the collusion between Church and state, one has to wonder how long Archbishop Chaput will be able to maintain his stance on rejecting the children of lesbians from admission to Catholic schools as quoted below. While the Archbishop is correct in everything he says, if the Archdiocese is taking money from the state or the federal government to support its schools some hard choices are coming. The government will not allow the Church to enforce its own rules if some whiff of discrimination lingers in the air. If this is the case, will the Archbishop sever the ties that bind the Church to the state?

"The Church does not claim that people with a homosexual orientation are “bad,” or that their children are less loved by God. Quite the opposite. But what the Church does teach is that sexual intimacy by anyone outside marriage is wrong; that marriage is a sacramental covenant; and that marriage can only occur between a man and a woman. These beliefs are central to a Catholic understanding of human nature, family and happiness, and the organization of society. The Church cannot change these teachings because, in the faith of Catholics, they are the teachings of Jesus Christ.

The policies of our Catholic school system exist to protect all parties involved, including the children of homosexual couples and the couples themselves. Our schools are meant to be “partners in faith” with parents. If parents don’t respect the beliefs of the Church, or live in a manner that openly rejects those beliefs, then partnering with those parents becomes very difficult, if not impossible. It also places unfair stress on the children, who find themselves caught in the middle, and on their teachers, who have an obligation to teach the authentic faith of the Church."
Denver Catholic Register
H/T Inside Catholic

LESBIANS, CATHOLIC SCHOOLS AND KIDS CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE

"Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver weighed-in today on the recent decision to not re-enroll the child of a lesbian couple in a local Catholic school. The archbishop explained, “If parents don’t respect the beliefs of the Church, or live in a manner that openly rejects those beliefs, then partnering with those parents becomes very difficult, if not impossible.”
Catholic News Agency

Why is this so hard to understand? If you engage in activities contrary to Church teaching your kids and you will not be welcome at Catholic schools. These are private institutions and they have the right to pick and choose who they allow in.

If you have beliefs contrary to those of any private organization why should that organization be forced to allow you to participate? Should the Lions Club be forced to accept you as a member if you hate blind kids?

Beyond that, as a parent I wouldn't want to send my kids to a school that is going to teach them not only that the life I live is wrong but that the activities I engage in will condemn my soul. What does this do to the kid? It seems as though these people are using their kids as pawns in some sort of political statement regarding their sexual licentiousness. In some ways one could make the argument that by bringing their kids into this these people are committing a form of child abuse.

You can't tell me they didn't see this coming.