Catholic Paradox

Okay, I’m going somewhere a little risky with this one, but the Catholic Church cannot come on my ark.  That is not to say that no Catholics are invited, but the Catholic Church as an institution is out.

            You may have noticed in the national media last week, that a Catholic School in Massachusetts rescinded their acceptance of an eight year-old boy to their school because they learned that his parents were lesbians.  I am not going to use this forum to preach about tolerance or challenge anyone’s personal preferences.  I’ll leave that to another blogger.  But what I do want to point out is my outrage at the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church.

            What I want to ask someone in charge is: is homosexuality a cause for exclusion from the church or not?  What is the church’s official position?

            That is the joy of the Internet; you can find the answers right from the comfort of your living room.  According to many websites I read, including this one, the following is the Church’s position on homosexuality:

“Every human being is called to receive a gift of divine sonship, to become a child of God by grace. However, to receive this gift, we must reject sin, including homosexual behavior—that is, acts intended to arouse or stimulate a sexual response regarding a person of the same sex. The Catholic Church teaches that such acts are always violations of divine and natural law.

It goes on to say:

“However, the Church also acknowledges that "[homosexuality’s] psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. . . . 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 that they may encounter from their condition.

"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" (CCC 2357– 2359).”

So the way I read that is this.  Although the Church believes homosexual acts to be a sin, homosexuals themselves should be received with love and compassion.

 Is that what they are doing in Massachusetts?  I think not. 

But where my real problem comes in is here.  The church rejects parishioners who are consenting adults engaging in homosexual relationships, BUT it protects Priests who rape innocent children, and may I point out that in the majority of those cases the Priests were also engaging in homosexual activity. The only difference is what they were doing was actually a crime, not to mention disgusting, immoral and certainly unchristian.  Why does the church take a greater stand against a child of two consenting adults in a loving relationship than it does against the monster raping little children?  And how can anyone then defer to the authority of such a Church?

Do not be confused.  I am not bashing Catholics.  Individual Catholics are not my target here.  My target is the Catholic Church, the institution that has grown so massive that its power has corrupted it allowing it to say, do, and support things in the name of God that are not only so obviously wrong but also unconscionable.  Where is the logic here?  Who is the person who made the decision that the eight year-old boy and his two moms were not allowed to be a part of the church but Father Geoghan and others like him, who should have been excommunicated and were not, would be protected?  It certainly wasn’t determined with the theory of WWJD. So to the Catholic Church as an Institution….I hope you can swim, but it looks like you are starting to sink.