Showing posts with label gay people. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gay people. Show all posts

Monday 20 May 2019

Controversial Pope



Lots of bishops having to chose the new pope thought to be on the save side by going for a simple humble South American Bishop.


It turned completely against their expectations, now having a pope who dares to say other things than lots of conservative bishops want to have the people hear.

Pope Francis is “turning” out to be one of the most “controversial” popes in modern history since his “election” to the papacy on March 13, 2013.

Some of his saying are called contradictory to Catholic teachings and even to his own sayings. 
For example:
  • The day he was elected pope he said he would “pray to Mary” for the protection of Rome.
  • Later he appeared to “contradict” himself by saying, “He who doesn’t pray to the Lord, prays to the devil.”
Concerning the salvation there seems a battle of thought by Catholics and Protestants, people saying by the death of Christ salvation is given to all. Though when the pope said everyone, “even atheists,” are redeemed with the “Blood of Christ” this was considered by many Catholic priests a heresy.
To enhance his “progressive” reputation, Pope Francis has written a long, open letter to the founder of La Repubblica newspaper, Eugenio Scalfari, stating that non-believers would be forgiven by God if they followed their consciences.

Worse was the pope his questioning who he was to judge for example gay people.
  “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”
Pope Francis “faulted” again the Roman Catholic church, according many Catholic clergy for focusing too much on “gays, abortion and contraception”, saying the church has become “obsessed” with those issues to the detriment of its larger mission to be “home for all”.

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Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, Cardinal Blase Cupich, former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Bishop Gustavo Óscar Zanchetta, Bishop Juan Barros, and Father James Martin, SJ., find lots of harm is caused by Pope Francis’s words and actions over several years, which have given rise to one of the worst crises in the history of the Catholic Church.

They wrote a letter following the 2017 “Filial Correction of Pope Francis,” which claimed that the pope Francis had
 “effectively upheld 7 heretical positions about marriage, the moral life, and the reception of the sacraments, and has caused these heretical opinions to spread in the Catholic Church.”
Four cardinals subsequently issued public demands for clarification to Francis. Francis did not “reply” to either request, prompting a group of  62 Catholic priests, theologians, and academics to issue a “filial correction” formally accusing him of “propagating” seven heretical positions and urging him to “correct” those positions.

Wednesday 7 October 2015

Different assessment criteria and a new language to be found for communicating the faith

Inside of the Roman Catholic Church in Újkér
Inside of the Roman Catholic Church in Újkér (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
After some questions put to him by the Synod fathers regarding the working method of the meetings, Tuesday the 6th of October 2015, Pope Francis delivered a spontaneous, last-minute speech to the Synod on the family which began meeting on Monday, clarifying that the question of remarried divorcees is not the only issue the assembly is dealing with.

Last year the cardinals had already a extraordinary gathering which was fairly rare in the 50 years of synodal history.  His two speeches at that Extraordinary Synod last year, along with the relation finale, are the official documents that this assembly delivered to this year’s assembly, which will be working in continuity with the previous one.

The cardinals had time enough to hear how the public and the press reacted, though some are much convinced nothing shall change, and certainly not in the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church which they considered to be a Church guided by the Holy Spirit.

The daily Vatican press is not afraid to let us know that some differences in opinion emerged between those who are more concerned about preserving Catholic teaching and those who underline the need for dialogue with the world.

For years it has been known that there were also many homosexuals under the clergy and that they too took on a negative position towards other sexual oriented people in their community. Though the last few years we have seen many more priests openly coming out for their feelings and publicly presenting their gay partner. Otherwise also priest who felt for the opposite sex and did not like to live in celibacy dared to come out and show their female partner and some even their kids they brought forth in a state of marriage, though not being officially being married.

Strangely enough those priests themselves seemed to work with two different weight measures.

The transition from the 20th into the 21st century, for many - believers, parishioners but also priests - requires a new language with which to communicate the Gospel and the possibility of coming up with local rather than universal solutions to controversial questions such as communion for remarried divorcees.

Mgr. Claudio Maria Celli, one of the Synod Fathers invited to the press briefing, said
“The concluding document of last year’s Extraordinary Synod and the Pope’s opening and closing speeches ensure the Church keeps an open outlook and encourage a pastoral attitude. The fact remains that the Pope himself underlined that communion for remarried divorcees is not the only subject being discussed at the Synod. But participants’ outlook remains open in pastoral terms. If all had ended with yesterday’s relatio, what would we be doing here?” 
Some Synod Fathers have placed a greater emphasis on Catholic teaching, others on the importance of improving communication with the outside world. Over the last twenty years this communication got very low, the same as we can see that communication is missing in a lot of families, resulting in divorce, many Catholics have left the ir church and many have become fed up with relgiion havingseen how the Catholic Church tried to cover up the many sex scandals under their clergy.

Many Catholics have seen priests in offering marriage guidance themselves not living according to their celibacy rules nor holding the same ethics normal people would profess. Older priests having sex with young children and than trying to cover this up or to escape civil judgement made many furious about that double-sided attitude of the Catholic Church.

Once more we may hear how the clergy is looking for finding a new “language of mercy” ahead of the next Jubilee of Mercy, to be used with “gay people” in particular.
More than once we may hear from Catholic clergy that
“They are brothers and children who should never be treated as outsiders; they deserve respect,” 
but often no respect is shown in parishes to such people who have other feelings than the mainstream.

As so often with the Catholic Church some of the proposed methods, like for addressing the issue of communion for remarried divorcees, was for a series of “reflection groups” to be created “on a local, national and continental basis” seeing as solutions may vary from culture to culture rather than there being “universal” answers. In past times the Catholic Church has always been very good in adapting her rules of play according the place where it was based. That way masses celebrated in Africa look totally different than those in Europe. And actions done in South America would be consider non acceptable Voodoo in the Northern part of the hemisphere.

Biggest problem for the Catholic Church is  that she has done away with all the modernisations of Pope John XXIII and has not taken in account enough how society has changed and a new language needs to be found for communicating the faith.

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A synod not leading to doctrinal changes because it is about pastoral attention

Portal of the Church of Pilgrims, in Washingto...
Portal of the Church of Pilgrims, in Washington, DC, with a LGBT banner. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The first day of the Vatican Cardinal's synod Cardinal Péter Erdő, of Esztergom-Budapest, Hungary, who is the synod’s general relator, commented on lesbian and gay issues, though not with much significance or specificity.    The National Catholic Reporter noted his comment:
“The cardinal also spoke of the church’s ministry to gay and lesbian persons, addressing the topic of persons with ‘homosexual tendencies.’
” ‘It is reiterated that every persons should be respected in their dignity, independent of their sexual tendency,’ he said. ‘It is desirable that pastoral programs might set aside a particular attention to the families in which persons with homosexual tendencies live.’ “
The most significant line of the day came from Paris’ Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, a synod president, who said that if people are expecting
 “a spectacular change in the Church’s doctrine you will be disappointed.”
and yes this would be very disappointing when the church-leaders would not come to see what is going on in our society and how the church can offer solutions if they want. Those Catholics who have set their hopes on changes in their church could be getting a cold shower at the end of the three weeks of intense debates.

The expression of Italian Archbishop Bruno Forte, the synod secretary, who said of the meeting:
“It will not lead to doctrinal changes, because it is about pastoral attention, pastoral care. We are about resonating pastorally.”
does not look hopeful for those who looked forward for getting a 21th century church.

The cautionary tone of these prelates differed greatly from the more open tone that Pope Francis expressed in opening the first session of the synod.  The National Catholic Reporter noted:
“Pope Francis has called on the hundreds of prelates gathered for his second worldwide meeting of Catholic bishops on family issues to remain open in their deliberations to the call of the Holy Spirit, repeating his frequent assertion that God is a God of surprises. . . .
” ‘It is the Church that questions itself on its fidelity to the deposit of the faith, so that it does not represent a museum to be looked at or only to be safeguarded, but a living spring from which the church drinks to quench thirst and illuminate the deposit of life,’ the pontiff said of the Synod.
” ‘The Synod is also a protected space where the Church goes through the action of the Holy Spirit,’ said Francis.
” ‘In the Synod, the Spirit speaks through the language of all people who allow themselves to be guided by God who always surprises, by God who reveals to the little ones that which he has hidden from the wise and intelligent,’ he said.”
Though at the opening mass the Pope, seemingly very tired, with a slow voice said:
” ‘This is God’s dream for his beloved creation: to see it fulfilled in the loving union between a man and a woman, rejoicing in their shared journey, fruitful in their mutual gift of self.’
At the change over from the 20th unto the 21st century those generations are shaken, after the horrors of two world wars materialist dreams have lured them away from spiritual matters and many are not any more aware of the real values in life which many had really felt severely when the battles went on in Europe. Now all the fighting goes on far a way from home and is presented as a reality show in each household where the ties have become very loose and because of no Judeo Christian values any more there is not much to bind them closely.

The same as the families are far away of the spiritual life the same are the cardinals away from real life with changing dapers. Even in the own household they often do not want to see how their priests and nuns look for love by their own sexes.
Just days before the Synod of Bishops kicked off in Rome 43-year old Monsignor Krzystof Charamsa announced he was gay and partnered. The theologian for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, assistant to the International Theological Commission, and professor at several pontifical universities in Rome, said he hoped to be “a Christian voice” influencing the Synod on Marriage and Family as it discusses LGBT pastoral care among other topics related to family life.

Thursday 18 June 2015

Jehovah’s Witnesses Shunning ex-members adverse effects on family relationships

pt: Salão do Reino das Testemunhas de Jeová, P...
pt: Salão do Reino das Testemunhas de Jeová, Portugal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Majority of former Jehovah’s Witnesses believes the organization’s policy of shunning ex-members has had adverse effects on family relationships.

When you meet Jehovah Witnesses mostly they say they do not have any schisms in their organisation. None of them seems to have ever done something wrong when a Witness of Jehovah. Before they became a Witness it might well be that they did something wrong, but the changed and when a baptised Witness from then onwards they do not seem to do bad things any more.

Though we can find many ex-Witnesses. From those who left the organisation we do find some who kept to the Most High and left because their own changed views or where asked to leave the organisation because of their other views. But we also do find lots of ex-JW who were put out of the organisation because their lifestyle did not fit a lifestyle of a Christian.

98% of the people responding to the questioning by JWAlumni.org said leaving the faith impaired or destroyed their relationship with their family. Though we do have to question what was destroying the family relationship really. In the 1950ies we also in Catholic families could find quarrels about attending or not the church services and having family members going out of the house wanting to have an other way of life. It is also not so long ago that in many atheist and Christian families gay people became excluded form the family, and it still happens in such families today.
Big problem with the JW seems to be what happens when one family member quiets the organisation and what the organisation then demands from the other family members.

According to the survey, 76 percent of former Jehovah’s Witnesses are being shunned (minimized or no association) by their families. 90 percent were told it was due to the respective member not being a Jehovah’s Witness any-more. Strangely enough not so much effort was or is put in trying to get them back into the flock. We wonder how much time is invested in trying to keep the person in the faith.

Whereas the Catholic Church encourages association with excommunicated members and tries to keep them involved in the community, JW.org (or the Watchtower Society) admonish avoiding former Jehovah’s Witnesses all together.

Shunning was introduced by Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1952, only five years after they had denounced excommunication as an instrument of “ecclesiastical power and secular tyranny” that is “altogether foreign to Bible teachings.”

Though we may not forget that also in many other religious groups excommunication exists and also brings problems in families making siblings not coming together any more under one roof or having children loosing contact with their parents. Certain social and gender reasons have also serious percussions in non-religious families.

JWalumni - Jehovah's Witnesses News asked former and active members
 “How have Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW.org) affected your family?”
in a survey* they conducted in May 2015 among 1,055 individuals in the USA, Australia, Canada, UK and Germany.

One of the bigger impacts for the JW members may come from them growing up in a religion where they are taught to centre their life around it. Everything is supposed to conform to specifications set out by the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses. While the consequences are less drastic when it comes to recreation or one’s choice of entertainment, they are all the more dramatic in regards to association. Granted, the rank and file Jehovah’s Witnesses all have a measure of contact with Non-Jehovah’s Witnesses through work or school. But the average Witness will limit their contact with ‘worldly people’ to such unavoidable occasions. So when they leave the so-called truth, they are literally on their own and do feel the shock only when they feel the solitude once out of the group, because before that they did not socialise enough with others.

Misha Anouk, Founding Editor of JWAlumni.org and author of the german-language bestseller Goodbye, Jehova! in her book Goodbye, Jehova!  describes the hell she went through in the years following her departure.

According to her the  system of shunning is purposely used to let the doubting or leaving person feel the loneliness.
The ‘shunning policy’ relies on: emotional blackmail through social isolation which will eventually make you want to go back. And the strategy sadly works in one of three cases.

Experts call the silent treatment manipulative punishment – something JW.org condemns in their literature.
Steve Hassan, Cult Expert at Freedom of Mind and Author of Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults says:
Information Control (all the others too: Behavior Control, Thought control, Emotional Control) is a major reason cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses disfellowship and threaten to disfellowship. They do not want people speaking with ex-members because they will start thinking independently. They will realize the phobia indoctrination (emotional control) is just that – people can leave and live a happy, spiritual life outside of the confines of the group. I do believe all totalistic cults need to stop violating their members fundamental human rights.”
When we look at the magazines and go to a Kingdom Hall meeting, at a service or at a Bible study meeting we can not ignore that the questioning- answering system has something of an indoctrination system. Often it looks like people are also not free to make their own opinion and to discuss their other view openly with others in the group.

Much too often we do hear that such person doubting or having questions about certain teachings do not want to receive the 'new light' or are not yet ready to see the light and should be more patient.

Very often families shunning other members of the family even do not want to see the real reasons of the other being disfellowshipped or why he or she wanted to leave the organisation voluntary.
Most of them added that the reason for them leaving the group had to do with what JW leadership commanded them to do.
We also cannot ignore that the organisation seems to victimize their members time and again, with horrific policies that hurt them when they stay and punish them when they leave.
The shunning often has had adverse effects on family relationships: two-thirds feel that Jehovah’s Witnesses doctrine “destroyed or seriously disrupted” their family.
Shunning is an extreme form of excommunication (“disfellowshipping”) whereby a person who committed a sin according to the Watchtower Society’s standards or who has chosen to revoke their membership in the organization is then socially isolated by Jehovah’s Witnesses – including family members.The Watchtower Society, the corporation overseeing Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide, promotes the policy of shunning former members
72 percent of families who shunned a disfellowshipped member did so because of what the Governing Body told them through the literature of JW.org. And 59 percent admitted that the reason for shunning their relative was the hope they would return to the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Only 2 percent of Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses who are being shunned feel that the practice of disfellowshipping and isolating former members socially had no effect on their family.

In contrast, 52 percent stated that their Jehovah’s Witnesses family wanted “no contact at all”, with 17 percent only getting in touch when they “need something”.

The findings are not surprising, given the fact the not so family friendly shunning policy of Jehovah’s Witnesses has been called cruel and inhumane by cult experts like the Australian Psychologist Raphael Aron and is even categorized as psychological torture. Nonetheless, only 50 percent of Jehovah’s Witness families who are actively shunning a relative would welcome a change in policy, despite the fact that they have hardly any contact.

Read more about it >

Jehovah’s Witnesses ‘destroy or seriously disrupt’ Families due to their Shunning Policy, Survey finds

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Tuesday 24 March 2015

Hiding or opening attitude for same sex relationships

In this world lots of people seem to question their own personality. From the babyboom generation there are a lot who have problems with their outer-side or do not feel happy with what they get inside and outside not colliding.

We perhaps may say that there has been an "ethical earthquake" in the past decade in several countries. In Belgium people do not look strange any more when they hear the people opposite them are a married gay couple. for women going with women that was already long ago accepted, but for men it was much longer more difficult to walk hand in hand or to show their same sex love to others.

The gay parades and open same sex parties did not help but the opposite confirmed such negative ideas certain people had about gay people. Those events mostly accentuated perverse actions, though lots of gay people have a personal private relationship with one partner of the same sex, and are not interested in having partnerships with many.

Change in the feeling of the English people is notated by the results of the research by the Oasis Trust. According to the review almost half (49.6 per cent) of Christians across the main 11 denominations believe that monogamous same-sex relationships should be fully embraced and encouraged. More than two-thirds of respondents (68 per cent) said that their views have become more inclusive over the past decade, with 61 per cent noting that the shift had come as a result of "understanding or interpreting the Bible differently".

This is the most difficult issue, how to interpret the Bible and how to look at people with other feelings than your own.  I would say people should look more at Jesus and see how he went about people who were different than others, or who had an other ethic or other religious point of view. Can we see the churches of today take on such a gracious patient attitude as Christ did?

In many countries we also can see that the churchgoers have less problems about the gender issues than the church-leaders. Ten per cent are more likely to support gay marriage than their leaders, but Oasis found that those clergy who supported same-sex relationships were also reluctant to share their views. Some respondents said that admitting to it could put funding at risk, or even cost them their job.
"Whatever the stereotype, it's clear that attitudes in the church toward loving, committed and faithful same-sex relationships are changing,"  
director of Oasis, Steve Chalke said, adding
Many of the most senior church leaders in the country have said they support same-sex relationships, but feel they cannot state it publicly
"It's crucial that we keep talking about it."
According to the survey, the most accepting denomination of same-sex relationships is the Quakers – with 100 per cent of those asked saying that they had no problem with those in faithful same-sex relationships fulfilling a leadership role in the church.
Almost 9 in 10 (88 per cent) of Methodists agreed, along with 79 per cent of those who belong to the United Reformed Churches. Just over half of Anglicans (57 per cent) also affirmed their support of gay people participating in all areas and levels of the church.

The majority of respondents said they would be comfortable with their church leader conducting a blessing or marriage ceremony for a gay couple, but some people who said they had no issue with same-sex relationships didn't think churches should hold gay weddings. Five per cent said they were definitely against it, while eight per cent favoured a blessing.

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