Where are Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Fr. Bryan Hehir, 
Catholic Charities President Tiziana Dearing, Mass Catholic Conference Head Ed Saunders, and the leadership of the Knights of Columbus when you really need them?
While the State of Massachusetts faces an unemployment rate of 9.3-9.5% and has cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the state budget that was previously used to help serve the poor, mentally ill and elderly, the House of Representatives just passed $24 million in funding to the Departments of Education and Public Health for the 2011 state budget that could allocate millions of our tax dollars for gay school programs. Two senior House leaders (Speaker Bob De Leo and Ways and Means Chair Charles Murphy) who are members of the Knights of Columbus decided to include and approve this. According to MassResistance, if it goes through, this would allow the homosexual lobby access to “an enormous stream of money to fund programs such as gay-straight alliance clubs, gay/transgender appreciation days, Youth Pride events, homosexual-themed library books, gay assemblies, off-campus homosexual events, and other activities in the full kindergarten-12th grade spectrum.” The funding legislation now goes to the State Senate for their approval. The Mass Catholic Conference falls under the responsibility of Fr. Bryan Hehir and he led the 2005 search committee that hired its current head, Ed Saunders. What have Hehir’s Mass Catholic Conference, the Archdiocese of Boston and Massachusetts Bishops, and the K of C said about this and asked citizens to do about this? Nothing.
Here are a few examples of how state budget cuts are hurting the needy. Further below, you’ll find details on what you can do to try and break the “cone of silence” from our Catholic Church officials on this thing.
Elderly feel pinch of state budget (April 8, 2010)
“The Patrick administration has failed to follow through on key commitments to help older citizens avoid nursing homes and stay in their homes and communities, actions that could save the state significant money”
Women are especially hard hit by state budget cuts, report says (Jan 12, 2010)
“…cuts in state funding to programs that provide adult education, employment training, and child care subsidies are having a detrimental effect on women”
Budget cuts will imperil state’s poor (Nov. 19, 2009)
The state estimates that the children of 9,100 families with parents so severely disabled that they qualify for federal Supplemental Security Income benefits will lose their state cash assistance as a result of the $600 million in budget cuts that Governor Deval Patrick announced late last month.
Mental health liaisons laid off : Agency loses 100 case managers; more cuts feared (Jan. 8, 2009)
The state Department of Mental Health, facing a more than $9 million cut in its budget, yesterday laid off nearly one quarter of the case managers who supervise people with severe mental illness and make sure they get the services they need.
So what we have is the prospect of adding taxpayer funding for gay school education programs in the face of these massive cuts in aid to the needy. Are Fr. Bryan Hehir, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, MCC Head Saunders, Tiziana Dearing and everyone else who cares about social justice these days comfortable with this? Why is no one speaking out or sending an email from the Church to citizens of the state asking them to call their legislators and try to stop this? When will someone from the hierarchy public denounce the moves by so-called “Catholic” Knights of Columbus and ask them to resign from the Knights or stop promoting themselves as members of the Knights? We sometimes have heard certain people involved with public policy say they are not taking a public stance on a key issue because “We don’t want to alienate our allies in the Legislature.” To that perspective, the blogging team here would respond, “What allies in the Legislature?”
We received emails from John O’Gorman and MassResistance that further explain this. See below for more:
Dear Concerned Parents, Catholics, K of C members,
MA House Speaker Bob DeLeo and Ways and Means Chair Charles Murphy support giving millions of taxpayers’ dollars for homosexual programs in schools.
(MassResistance Update, May 6, 2010, below)
Both Bob DeLeo and Charles Murphy are Knights of Columbus members with top Planned Parenthood ratings.
The silence from K of C member Cardinal Sean O’Malley, K of C State Deputy Bill Donovan and K of C State Chaplain Bishop Daniel Reilly is deafening. Contact all of them. Make sure they hear your outrage!House Speaker Bob DeLeo, Robert.DeLeo@state.ma.us
PH: 617-722-2500Ways and Means Chair Charles Murphy, Rep.CharlesMurphy@hwm.State.MA.US
PH: 617-722-2990Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Sdiago@RCAB.org
PH: 617-254-0100K of C State Deputy Bill Donovan, WFDSR93KOFC@HOTMAIL.COM
PH: 781 551 0628K of C State Chaplain Bishop Daniel Reilly
PH: 508 791 7171Yours Faithfully,
John O’Gorman
By the way, here are descriptions of the actual legislation, as provided by MassResistance (their markings in bold).
Department of Education:
7010-0005 For the operation of the department of elementary and secondary education; provided, that not later than November 17, 2010, the department shall submit a progress report to the secretary of administration and finance, the chairs of the house and senate committees on ways and means and the house and senate chairs of the joint committee on education on efforts by the department to further define and advance the strategic vision of the department, along with a detailed implementation plan for realizing that vision; and provided further, that the department, in collaboration with the commission on gay and lesbian youth established by section 67 of chapter 3 of the General Laws, may allocate funds for programming to ensure public schools’ compliance with the board of elementary and secondary education’s recommendations which take into account the commission’s recommendations, for the support and safety of gay and lesbian students and the implementation of related suicide and violence prevention efforts and reduction of health disparities for GLBT youth”…………………………… $13,031,114
Department of Public Health:
4590-0250 For school health services and school-based health centers in public and non-public schools; provided, that the department may expend not more than 5 per cent of funds on administrative expenses; provided further, that services shall include, but not be limited to: (a) strengthening the infrastructure of school health services in the areas of personnel and policy development, programming and interdisciplinary collaboration; (b) developing linkages between school health services programs and community health providers; (c) incorporating health education programs, including tobacco prevention and cessation activities in school curricula and in the provision of school based health services; and (d) incorporating obesity prevention programs, including nutrition and wellness programs, in school curricula to address the nutrition and lifestyle habits needed for healthy development; and provided further, that the services shall meet standards and eligibility guidelines established by the department in consultation with the department of elementary and secondary education; and provided further, that funding shall be expended to address the recommendations of the commission on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth, established in section 67 of chapter 3 of the General Laws, for the reduction of health disparities for gay, lesbian bisexual and transgendered youth”…………… $11,697,967
Beyond following the instructions above, if you are disturbed that the Catholic Conference and Massachusetts Bishops are not taking action on these matters, please use our Take Action page to complain even higher up on the hierarchical food-chain.
You know if you call it F_G school funding at least you’ll get a rise out of Somebody!
There is a different paradigm. JPII called it the culture of Death, and it is really starting to roll.
Transgendered youth.
Did they say Transgendered youth?
Trans-gendered-youth.
Surgical operations to remove and replace genitalia of children.
I am open to the possibility of this being a tragic medical novelty. But as a lobbying group needing a voice?
This debacle is way, way worse than we think.
The lethal injections for the elderly are on their way.
The K of C in Boston has been a drinking club for at least a generation. (who to their credit has been known to do some swell work on occasion)
I am so glad this blog is pointing out the deafening silence we hear from Boston Church leadership on this issue. Many Catholic parents haven’t a clue as to how entrenched homosexual activism is in the schools. and those who do realize it look around at their peers, in their parish, and see no recognition from others of this danger to parental rights and freedom of religion. It’s a lonely, scary feeling.
For quite a while now MassResistance has been courageously and pretty single-handedly trying to inform the public about what’s going on.
We need our bishops and the Mass. Catholic Conference to step up to the plate, educate the laity and quite a few of the pastors about how Catholic moral values are being trampled on Beacon Hill by our elected Catholics-in-name-only legislators.
I hope readers follow through with your Take Action items.
I see that Pewsitter.com picked up this story yesterday. National exposure is bound to help!
Are we still chasing cockroaches in the corner as the thief breaks in the front door? Great quote from a new appointment to Boston College (BC barely Catholic) on pewsitter.
“the new executive director of the Center for Catholic Education at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education blasted what she called “faux Catholic schools.” She suggests that parents right to educate their children somehow needs the Bishops blessing? Totally absurd. This goes against not only Catholic teaching but common sense and order. Welcome to Boston! You’ll fit right in.
Can you say -parallel church-?
She will be breaking bread with Bad Hair within a month.
The Pope is in Fatima this month…
Where is the Cardinal and Bryan Hehir?
Have you checked out the Cardinal’s blog lately? He is quite the traveling prince.
As the Clergy Fund is going belly up, has anyone check out how much this man spends traveling around the world (he always travels first class), staying in the finest hotels and eating and drinking in the finest restaurants?
Vanity has become his quite obvious and publicly seen root sin. Bad Hair knows this, feeds this and uses this. I believe Hair’s drag with ‘his eminence the blogger’ is his access. ‘Sean would you like to join me at…’ ‘Perhaps you should attend; so-in-so will be in attendance’ Bad Hair has his number. I have not gone to the Blog since it was new. At that time I counted I think around 35 or 40 photographs of the Cardinal in various venues on one posting. It would be a rare prom queen that would not think 40 photographs of oneself would be in excess, yet in a Cardinals Blog?
These operatives conduct carefully orchestrated campaigns to achieve their end, Bad Hair being one of the go-to-guy in the American Katholic church.
Clergy fund? I’m thinking there is probably nothing of less concern for Bad Hair.
The fact that a group of anonymous people can smear a so good and faithful a priest as Fr. Hehir is a travesty. The morals of the people spending their time on this politically-motivated campaign are seriously deficient.
Concerned Catholic,
Can you further explain what makes you feel this group is “smearing” a good and faithful priest. We have focused on covering well-documented actions, and put a fair amount of attention into linking to those sources so readers can verify them. What information conveyed in the Chronology or individual posts do you feel is inaccurate?
Mark 10:18 (KJV)
And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.
Thanks for your concern.
Now leave and go back to your voice of the faithful meeting.
Hey Fellas,
You paying attention?
St. Paul’s Hingham, Associated Press
Local Pastor bars Dikes from enrolling stolen child in local Catholic school. (not exactly how they phrased it)
Catholic Schools Foundation – objects
Objects?
JPII called adoption of children by sodomite couples;
CHILD ABUSE>
…it is a carefully orchestrated campaign…
Catholic Schools Foundation- pretty obvious are a group who have done extremely well financially and have been prompted to do something with all the money. They are romanced by memories of the good old days of parochial school education circa 1965. The operatives like Bad Hair as usual see a ‘golden’ opportunity –
As stated in this blog previously, the head Archdiocese education makes roughly $350,000 / year.
WHAT?
Complete quasi-catholic bean town madness.
Hmmm…. “Dikes” and “sodomites,” huh? Quite a bit of hate there.
John 13:34-35, NIV:
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
So much for the teaching of the Pope and Bishops that discrimination against gay people is to be avoided.
I guess that makes you just another Cafeteria Catholic, so-called “last CatholicinBoston”?
Concerned Catholic,
Thanks for sharing that reading. Are you suggesting the reading means that we should simply love everyone and anyone–and ignore sin and sinful behavior?
Here’s an interesting article for readers:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/02/equality-laws-unjust-pope-uk
The Pope said, “”We do not support the notion of discrimination. But you have to distinguish between people.”
Please check out our next blog post shortly.
I’m surprised this thread has not been x-ed out but here is goes.
I’m in on the Roman Catholic thing completely, unabashedly and without regret. Besides being wrong on the Cafeteria Catholic issue I’d like to offer this.
I use strong language intentionally. Not because I’m hate filled, not because I’m an angry loony – I use it out of Charity. Would you raise your voice to stop a child from being struck by an on coming train?
Strong illness takes strong medicine.
Be mindful as well of this forum. I have homosexual acquaintances and am civil, but they do know my thought and belief on the issue. I have lost a friend or two over it, but such is life.
You balloon and butterfly Katholic’s don’t have the fortitude to warn these people of the clear and present danger of the Gay life style.
Rather than risk offending you patronize them into a fire filled pit – And call it Love! It is sentimental relativistic quasi-christian rubbish. The love you speak of is closer to ‘I love the Red Sox’ than the example of Christian Charity found in Christs actual teaching.
Amen !
Love one another as I have loved you!
If you listen to scripture you’ll find Christ giving much warning and very little if any “Go and embrace your life style.”
Did you see the Pope in Fatima today?
Very judgmental on this marriage thing.
I’m with Benedict XVI how about you?
And an Amen to the Pastor at St. Paul’s Hingham.
PS
No Place For Hate.
Plenty of room for stupid.
The Massachusetts Catholic Conference is no longer a real lobbying entity. It is a nice thing to have for Catholic Charities to use like “one-two” approach on obtaining public funding.
Let’s start at the beginning. I’m with Jesus.
Yes, LastCatholicinBoston, there is nothing wrong with taking a strong moral stand, but I don’t recognize Jesus in your stands or your way of voicing them.
The condemnations and derogatory comments posted here make me think of the Pharisees bringing the adulteress to Jesus, screaming insults and ready to stone her for her moral failings. Jesus did not hop on their bandwagon of hate, but instead was silent and drew in the dirt, much to the Pharisees’ annoyance. While they were focused on condemning the woman, Jesus was focused on her salvation. After exposing the Pharisees’ hypocrisy, Jesus specifically chose not to condemn the woman, instead telling her to sin no more.
I trust you are also familiar with the Samaritan woman from whom Jesus asked for a cup of water at the well; the tax collector with whom Jesus broke bread; the sinful woman who Jesus allowed to wash his feet… Again and again, Jesus had to disabuse both the Pharisees and his disciples of their holier-than-thou inclinations and grumblings while he preached to sinners. The Good News is that Jesus chooses to meet us sinners where we are, with respect for us as human beings, despite our sinfulness. It is thus peculiarly wrong-headed to smear Fr. Hehir as above because he has the gall to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and associate with the “sinners” you apparently revile.
It is also instructive that the only times Jesus is recorded in the Gospels as hurling insults are when he threw out the money changers from the temple and all the choice words he had for the aforementioned Pharisees. On issues of sexuality, he explicitly chose a more pastoral approach to the individual – an approach we and the Church would do well to emulate.
Finally, it was Jesus himself who admonished his own followers from keeping the children away from him. How can you then spew your venom against allowing a child to attend a Catholic school based on his parents’ sexuality? Should Catholic schools be turning away all children whose parents live in “sin”? are felons? Was it not Jesus again who had to remind everyone that the blind man he cured was not blind because of his parents’ sinfulness? While taking a moral stand is laudable, condemnation and hate speech are NOT what Jesus was preaching or living. He did not die on a cross so you could condemn a child because his parents are gay.
Eric, the thoughts you have so beautifully and respectfully articulated are shared by many of us Catholics who love Christ and the Church and want to remain faithful to his gospel of peace and mercy.
While I understand that the authors and many readers of this blog feel they are standing up for what is right and true, at least according to the letter of Church law and Tradition, it seems to me that many supporters of these views are grossly neglectful of that law’s SPIRIT, as incarnated by Christ in the numerous examples Eric cited from the Gospels.
Hostility and disrespectful tones and attitudes can only serve to undermine what earnest and fervent believers sincerely hope to accomplish. Contempt is the opposite of charity and humility; Jesus said in John 13 (in a translation from the Catholic “New American” Bible), “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another,” yet anyone reading many of the comments here will see only the most prideful and un-Christian sort of lack of mercy that gives so much of Christianity a bad name and lack of credibility.
If we can’t even live according to our own faith, and the teachings of a Lord and Master who commands us, “Do not judge,” how can we presume to be critical of others? Judgmental Christians make fools of us all. Jesus was unambiguous: cast stones only if you yourself are faultless. Disrespect is the refuge of those who are either too intellectually or too morally weak to express their thoughts with the recognition for intrinsic human dignity the Catholic Church exhorts us all to see in each person, whether “sinner” or “saint.”
Jesus was also explicit in criticizing those who “strain out a gnat and swallow a camel,” calling them blind guides and whited sepulchers in Matthew 23. Such people, today’s militant and merciless, would probably crucifiy him all over again if he were to come among us today consorting with outcasts and preaching the forgiveness of sinners and love of the “unworthy” that cost him his life 2000 years ago.
I would like to begin by seconding everything that Eric Thompson said.
Secondly, I would love to know whether either the people who run this blog or the many hateful posters here have ever met Father Hehir. They surely cannot have, or they would castigate this web site, as I am about to do.
I was honored and privileged to know Father Hehir when he was the Pastor of St. Paul’s Church and the undergraduate chaplin there. As a member of the Catholic Student Association in the mid-1990′s, I listened to his formal homilies but also knew him informally, as he would often visit the undergraduates who, at that time, used to study and socialize at odd hours in the Catholic Student Center. My friends and I would joke and laugh with him, and yet we bore him a deep, deep respect.
The true character of a priest, in the end, comes down to how he cares for his flock. Father Hehir was already a prominent man when we knew him–well-known to the media as well as in church leadership–with many, many demands on his time. He certainly could have treated his role as undergraduate chaplain as a trivial one, a post he held in name only. But he did not. He led, calmly and carefully, through example. He made the Catholic Student Center available to us at all times of day and night, insisting only that we leave when the priests themselves went to bed. (More recent pastors have curtailed that policy). In doing so, he provided a refuge for my group of friends, people who wanted to be serious Catholics, who sometimes wanted to get away from Harvard’s more secular atmosphere, and gave us a place in which to socialize and become more deeply involved in our faith. At least six marriages, that I know of, came out of our years “hanging out” in the student center, and many more friendships. My faith grew in those years, because Father Hehir provided a space for it to grow. He led our undergraduate retreats himself, speaking to us honestly and wisely, pushing us to think and reason for ourselves, at the same time that we strove to understand church teachings. When, during one retreat, I learned that my grandmother was in the hospital, he drove me back a day early from Cape Cod to Boston so that I could be with her.
I could have written an entirely different post here, objecting to the very premise of thinking that being a “gay-friendly” priest is a bad thing, but I knew that would fall on blind ears. I strongly support gay rights, and I do not find that belief incompatible with my own ability to continue as a practicing Catholic. I know that many people will think that stance automatically disqualifies me and all of my words, which is why I put my own politics at the end.
But let me close by reminding people that Jesus himself told us to judge not, lest we be judged, and to love our enemies, as well as our neighbors, and to protect little children (something that the Church hierarcy has done a wretched job of, to all our shame). True Catholics (and Christians) are not the haters, but are those who strive to live by those principles.
To Eric and Isabel,
Please, oh please, for all our sakes:
Please stick to the topic of the post, which is: a priest took a stand to do his job and his cardinal did not back him up. I appreciate your carefully articulated but contextually limited Bible quotes, which are obviously intended to obfuscate this sad fact.
As the blog founders have reminded us, this forum is to expose specific problems here in the Archdiocesan leadership. That problem was glaringly apparent this past week with this situation.
The St. Paul’s pastor, who was being protective of the child in question and of his teachers and the other children, was absolutely raked over the coals publicy. He’s a good and holy priest who’s given his whole life to the service of the Church. He was unfairly “judged” in print by those pulling the pursestrings for Catholic schools, ironically, for doing just what Pope Benedict praised in Fatima the same day: being strong in defense of Church teachings on moral issues.
Dr. Jim, Respectfully, it is NOT a priest’s job to punish a child over judgments about that child’s parents, and it is NO ONE’s job, as articulated by Christ himself, to pass judgment on anyone else.
Although discussion of Archdiocesan leadership may be the principal objective of this blog, I humbly submit that “for all our sakes” the pastoral, scriptural, and religious context in which ALL Church issues should be considered is also worth bringing to the fore. We may have to agree to disagree on that point, and I thank you for voicing your opinions without the rancor that has characterized many other comment posts here.
Thank you, Eric and Isabel and Jane, for expressing your views so well. Dr. Jim, thank you for turning the volume down on from the overblown rhetoric which unforunately prevails on this blog.
Dr. Jim, you seem to speak from experience in calling Fr. Rafferty a “good and holy priest,” the same phrase that I used to describe Fr. Hehir, whom I knew personally (in the same context as Jane Reynolds, above). I don’t actually doubt that goodness or holiness of either man.
However, there is a difference between the specific policy decision made about the child attending St. Paul’s School and the Holy Father’s statements about marriage at Fatima. The Holy Father teaches that we must support marriages. The teaching does not dictate an attendance policy at Archdiocesan schools. That policy is a matter of prudential judgment, to be made in light of the Holy Father’s teachings of course, but the Archdiocese of Denver’s approach to this same issue is hardly a mandate of the Holy See.
Further, this blog’s professed goal is to “expose” Bryan Hehir. I have seen no report anywhere, including this blog, that claims that Fr. Hehir was involved in the Hingham decision. I have found this “guilt by association” tactic throughout this blog. It is unfair to Fr. Hehir, unChristian in its approach, and it should stop.
Finally, the language used above, including “Dykes,” “Sodomites,” and (in comments on other posts), “fag,” also must stop. Respectfully, “lastCatholicinBoston” cannot take the high road here… his language, and that of others, incites violence. Examples of violence against gay people abound; the Church itself teaches that this violence is wrong. One cannot hide behind being “deliberately provocative” when one is hurling hate speech. THAT is the issue that should not be obfuscated by your more respectful tone, Dr. Jim.
Finally, I will now do something that the authors of this blog do not have the courage to do–identify myself by name. The most shameful aspect of this campaign against Fr. Hehir and Cardinal Sean is that it is being carried out by people who choose to remain in shadow and darkness rather than in the light of day.
Regards,
Michael Cedrone
Dr. Jim: My post, discussing the life and message of Jesus Christ, not only was a direct response to the subject of this post (the misguided rejection of a child) and the ensuing comments, but also went to the heart of the purpose of this blog “Bryan Hehir Exposed” as I read it, which is to attack a good man and wonderful Catholic priest whom the writers here clearly do not know personally. It is easy to anonymously engage in McCarthyesque tactics of guilt by association. Jesus had to deal with the same thing from the Pharisees and Sadducees. I am saddened by the whole tenor of this blog.
Eric,
You seem to have a straw man on your back.
Jesus’s conversation with the adulteress and the woman at the well doesn’t apply in this situation.
When you filter through the hundreds of thousands of pictures the Cardinal takes of himself and posts on his blog, you won’t find one where he is sitting among the gays teaching what the Church teaches about human sexuality. Unless we missed it, we don’t see him eating lunch with the prostitutes on Mass Avenue teaching human sexuality.
This would be inappropriate. yet he willingly is turning every Catholic classroom into an inappropriate situation to discuss the teachings of homosexuality.
It is my understanding the two lesbians set Fr. Rafferty up for all this. When they “applied” they only wrote their first initials and last names. They did not state their gender. They’ve blown it up so that Jack Connors and Jim McDonough and other dissident Catholics now operating the Archdiocese can turn our classrooms into an impossible situation to teach the next generation of children our faith.
Let’s have the decency not to sully Scripture with this.
“Keeping the children away from Jesus and his teachings” is precisely what the Archdiocese is doing.
Jesus is not the Archbishop of the Church. Jesus the teachings of the Church.
Since teachings of the Church will not be able to be taught, it is the Cardinal Archbishop who is keeping the entire next generation of little children away from Jesus.
The other scenario is, the teachings of the Church will be taught and the child will be traumatized by learning about the state of their parents souls. Once the other children learn the lesbians are not in good standing with God, they’ll be as interested in playing with him as they would beezabul.
Speaking of straining the knat and swallowing the camel, if the Cardinal, Michael B. Reardon and Mary Grassa O’Neil want to sit among the adulterers and teach them the teachings of the Church, this is fantastic.
When the Cardinal puts a couple of hundred pictures of himself doing it on his blog, please do alert us.
Right now, we are speaking about a group of children who Fr. Rafferty being thrown under the bus for wanting to teach the teachings of the Church to without exposing the child of the lesbians to psychological trauma. And, we are speaking about Michael Reardon and Mary Grassa O’Neil threatening to cut off funding from Catholic Schools unless they agree to psychologically traumatize the child of the lesbians or they refrain from teaching the teachings of the Church to the next generation.
We can all agree to disagree about whether psychologically damaging children and families makes Bryan Hehir and the thugs operating the diocese holy people.
Thinking this is a conversation where we are all going “agree to disagree” about their shutting down the teachings of the Church, ultimately keeping the little children from Jesus is sorely underestimating the resolve of Boston Catholics to get the corruption ousted.
Pull up a chair and set a spell. Take your shoes off. Buckle up.
Redmond,
I’m not sure I’m following your argument here.
But if I read you correctly, the child should be excluded from a Catholic education because his parents are gay for his own good. So are we also going to “save” all the children of unmarried heterosexual parents from the trauma of a Catholic education because they will be taught that their parents are fornicators? How about the children of convicted felons or those who have a parent that has had an affair? Not many kids will be getting a Catholic education if we exclude for their own good those whose parents have violated the Ten Commandments.
The point of a Catholic education is a grounding in the teachings of Christ as passed down by the Church. If we feel so threatened by homosexuality that we refuse to educate the children of gay couples, have we not failed in preaching the Good News?
“My post, discussing the life and message of Jesus Christ, not only was a direct response to the subject of this post (the misguided rejection of a child) and the ensuing comments, but also went to the heart of the purpose of this blog “Bryan Hehir Exposed” as I read it, which is to attack a good man and wonderful Catholic priest whom the writers here clearly do not know personally. It is easy to anonymously engage in McCarthyesque tactics of guilt by association. Jesus had to deal with the same thing from the Pharisees and Sadducees. I am saddened by the whole tenor of this blog.”
Characterizing Catholics sick and tired of the 35-year chronology of this “wonderful priest’s” assaults upon Christ’s Church and Her teachings as McCarthyesque tactics of Pharisees and Sadducees is as silly as the intimidation tactics used by diocesan employees for years on people trying to tattle on the pedophile shuffle was going down.
Michael Reardon and Mary Grassa O’Neil’s threatening letters have done us a favor. There are terrorists running the Archdiocese of Boston.
There’s a big picture of Bob Kraft who was behind the gay marriage movement at the Catholic Foundation fundraiser. Catholic priests are now under siege.
I don’t think you understand how fed up Catholics faithful to doctrine are under the regime of Cardinal O’Malley.
Good luck circling our wagons.
Redmond,
I’m happy to sit a spell. Here’s my first question: Why do you know the teachings of the Church better than Cardinal O’Malley?
Eric,
“How about the children of convicted felons or those who have a parent that has had an affair? ”
Still struggling with that straw man eh?
Did I miss something?
Is there a movement to eradicate the teachings of the Catholic Church on human sexuality of sleeping with your neighbors wife?
This is apples and oranges.
People having affairs aren’t out in the public square saying they were born that way genetically, are victims of discrimination by the Church and are being excluded from the health benefits of their lovers.
Tiger Woods isn’t running around town with a rainbow flag saying the Pope is an affairophobe. People having affairs are not having pride parades. There is no movement among adults to come out of the closet of sleeping with your friend’s wife. There are no high schools running sleeping with your neighbors wife – straight alliances.
If you can point to a single person in the history of the Catholic Church who has or is challenging the teachings of the Catechism of sleeping with your neighbors husband, please cite them.
Fr. Rafferty is lightyears ahead of you in pastorally caring for that child and his family.
Redmond, you write on the Hingham situation:
Since teachings of the Church will not be able to be taught, it is the Cardinal Archbishop who is keeping the entire next generation of little children away from Jesus.
The other scenario is, the teachings of the Church will be taught and the child will be traumatized by learning about the state of their parents souls.
**
I’m sure I can’t impact your thinking here, but I must try.
Sexuality is a part, and only ONE PART, of our existence. Do you actually KNOW any gay people? I know many–not because I am a radical who has deliberately sought them out, but because they live in our world! The gay people I know are teachers, scientists, lawyers, and small business people. They are committed to their partners (often far more monogamous than many heterosexuals I know), to their jobs, their communities, and yes, in some cases, their churches and their children, too. They are fair and honest and intelligent and good.
The Church has its right to teach what it does. It has history and tradition behind it. And I am not advocating some kind of sexual free-for-all across the world. But the harshness of the Church’s teachings must create a crisis for people of sympathy across the world. If you believe that God will damn all people who commit any sexual offenses–that is, anything other than “conventional” sexual intercourse without birth control between married couples–then the number of people going to heaven will be tiny. And maybe you’re OK with that belief, but I’m not.
I believe in a God of mercy, not one who will necessarily ignore our sexual choices, but one who will judge us based on what use we made of our God-given talents and how we lived our ENTIRE lives. At the time of death, will not these things matter? Were we good friends? Good children to our parents and grandparents? Kind to our neighbors? Truthful and honest and dedicated to our colleagues? Loyal to our country and to the cause of justice? Generous to the poor? Forgiving of our enemies? A light in the darkness to others? Do you seriously believe that God takes NONE of that into consideration, and judges us on our sexual lives alone? I guess you’re entitled to your view, but I believe in a God who is more merciful than that.
You lost me again Redmond.
If your stated concern is for the child who will be traumatized by Catholic moral teaching if he is allowed in a Catholic School, then all my examples are valid for children whose parents are not living according to the Ten Commandments. Why would they also not be traumatized to find out that their parents are sinners? Is the pastoral response to exclude the children from a Catholic education? Of course not. That would be to abdicate pastoral responsibility.
“I’m happy to sit a spell. Here’s my first question: Why do you know the teachings of the Church better than Cardinal O’Malley?”
Well, in this instance, he’s unaware there is a difference between people having affairs and repenting of them quietly in the confessional – and masses of people claiming they are genetic mutations of human beings that are being discriminated against in the Catholic Church. He is ignorant of the differences between a man cheating on his wife and the campaigns brainwashing children into promiscuity and sleeping with partners of the same sex in gay/straight alliances.
He is unaware that teaching the child of two lesbians that their parents are out of favor with God will ruin that kids childhood. It will ruin his relationship with his parents. It may in fact ruin his entire life.
Cardinal O’Malley has admitted himself he doesn’t not know the teachings of the Church numerous times. In fact, when lay people tried to explain the teachings of the Church to him in the Caritas Christi abortion dust up, he was so befuddled he had to call in experts who confirmed the lay people were correct.
He was also befuddled that there is a Canon called 915 which he is compelled to obey.
The list would exhaust you.
We are not dealing with the sharpest tools in the shed.
Eric,
Parents who have affairs don’t typically tell their children. They don’t have pride parades. They don’t have flags dedicated to the sexual practice. They are not challenging the teachings of the Church and calling it discrimination.
The country is not in the throes of a revolution on silencing the teachings of the Church on sleeping with your neighbors wife.
The Church and the Pope is not out in public saying families who are living with parents who have had affairs are doing “violence” to their children.
If you can’t see the difference then you are swimming in a river of denial and I cannot help you.
“Is the pastoral response to exclude the children from a Catholic education? Of course not. That would be to abdicate pastoral responsibility.”
Again going back to the reasons you don’t see hundreds of thousands of pictures of the Cardinal crashing meetings of gays to teach them Theology of the Body, is because it is inappropriate.
The mother of this child has said she does not want the teachings of human sexuality taught to her child. She has said she is going to ask a lot more questions about what they’re going to teach her child about sexuality before she agrees to send her child to a Catholic School.
So you can stop talking to us like we’re ignorant of what the mother has expressed about her expectations in whatever school the Archdiocese places her in.
The teachings on human sexuality will have to shut down to keep her quiet on a claim of “discrimination”.
There is a Christ. The Cardinal, Michael Reardon and Mary Grassa O’Neill are not it.
Yes, a pastor of souls, the true shepherd wants to teach the teachings of the Church to his children. He wants to bring those children to the heart and the soul of Jesus Christ.
The pastoral response in this circumstance was from Fr. Rafferty.
The diocese is exploiting this child and willing to damage this child out of concern about the “money”.
Again, we are not dealing with the sharpest tools in the shed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redmond_O'Hanlon
What’s your real name?
If it’s not Redmond O’Hanlon, why is it acceptable for you to bash individuals–leaders in the Church–but hide your own identity?
Your response to me above focused on the Cardinal’s ignorance of your political agenda. (It’s all about denying Communion to politicians, isn’t it?) What’s YOUR qualification to judge these matters?
Last I checked, referring to gay people as “genetic mutations” runs afoul of a clear Church teaching against unjust discrimination against gays. The Cafeteria is open; you have chosen your meal. Please do not cloak your position in the truth of Christ.
Oh, and, by the way, what is the appropriate way to teach about human sexuality in a first grade classroom? Should the difference between heterosexual and homosexual intercourse be taught at that age, just so we can be CLEAR that homosexual intercourse is sinful?
We have a unique situation on our hands.
The world has accepted a movement that people who sleep with same sex partners are genetic mutations of humans. They are fighting the teachings of the Church as discrimination. They have developed a rainbow flag as the national flag of their species. They celebrate their sexual acts with pride parades.
The Church rejects this.
Yes, people have affairs. When Tiger Woods had one, he ended up being ashamed and sorrowful. The secular world still sees affairs as offenses to be sorrowful for. There is no movement taking foot to rebel and persecute the Catholic Church for these teachings. There is nobody in history who had an affair and who had a pride parade about it.
To not take the attempts to silence the Catholic Church on Her teachings on homosexuality into the context of two lesbians that set up Fr. Rafferty is deception.
Michael Reardon and Mary Grassa O’Neil’s letter is straightforward.
The Archbishop and his luminaries were concerned about their donations. Bob Kraft signed the gay marriage petition. They didn’t and don’t care about the child or the family so can it.
Wait a minute….let me get me tin foil hat for these conspiracy theories.
You asked why lay people got the impression they were more knowledgeable about Church teachings. I gave you many examples.
Check in with the gay community. They are people who are claiming they are genetically born as gays. Hence, genetic mutations.
Trying to make this everything but what it is. Fr. Rafferty is aware of the circumstances that would cause Catholic education to be silenced or would cause psychological damage to a child of two lesbian parents. He is the good shepherd in this scene.
The Archbishop and his luminaries are not. They were and are concerned about their cash cows cutting off money and they have no conscientious objection to destroying the child and the family to get that money.
Bob Kraft, Jack Connors and others who support gay marriage are funding the Catholic Schools Foundation. Michael Reardon got caught in the all together circulating the letter saying their donors are not happy about the situation and they will cut off all Catholic schools from funding.
They have drawn their line in the sand. They want to violate children to keep donors happy.
Some things never change do they.
“Oh, and, by the way, what is the appropriate way to teach about human sexuality in a first grade classroom?”
You begin by explaining that Catholics live their lives to be pleasing to God. They teach right from wrong in small things to connect their intellect to their conscience so that they recognize how they feel when they do right things and how they feel when they do wrong things.
This is the foundation they will use for the rest of their lives to recognize whether they should stop themselves from urges or act upon them. You develop their conscience so that it becomes a tool to discipline themselves until they die.
Just like you don’t tell them there is no Santa Clause, you don’t tell them everything all at once. All you are doing in the first grade is teaching them how to recognize the signals that stop us from committing acts displeasing to God which we are all born with.
The dishonesty from the archdiocese on what this is about is, once again, breathtaking.
The lesbian mother initiated the conversation with Fr. Rafferty to talk about what would be taught to her son in “religious education”:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jiATz-H-WPYxoZ0rhzd8oYgjOxvQD9FLFP3G1
“They paid their deposit and got uniform order forms, and last week the woman visited Rafferty to discuss their son’s religious education.”
She did not want her child taught that her lesbian relationship was in discord with the teachings of the Church.
At this point, Fr. Rafferty took a private moment with a mother to discuss how her relationship was in discord with the Church and her own salvation.
This is what priest’s do.
Fr. Rafferty knew from the conversation that the woman’s demands upon the religious education of her child would either silence the teachings of the Church or do harm to the formation of the wishes of the lesbian mother if he insisted upon teaching the other children enrolled the teachings of the Church.
The Cardinal and his staff have promised to find a Catholic school who will acquiesce to her demands. She has told the press that she will hold an inquisition about what will be taught to her child in religious education about her lesbian relationship and she will not send her child to a Catholic School unless she gets the right answers.
Mr. Reardon and Ms. O’Neil have assured the lesbian mother that they will find a school where the teachings of the Church on sexuality will be silenced.
The marching orders of donors in Boston about the silencing of Catholic education has been published across the internet. The Cardinal will stop funding Catholic schools who do not acquiesce to the demands of lesbian parents to silence the teachings of the Church.
Like the last 40 years of pressure not to teach women about reserving their sexuality for marriage, the sinfulness of contraception, abortion is the killing of another human being – the priests in the Archdiocese are now being ordered to stop teaching Catholic religious education about homosexual unions to the next generation.
The homosexualization of Catholic children is the final affront from the cabal of active homosexual priests in the Archdiocese of Boston who are on their way to retirement. They have complete control under Cardinal O’Malley.
Father Hehir has lined up donors, with the help of National Roundtable of Leadership, to get control of Cardinal O’Malley’s administration. BCTV has developed a television program to teach other diocese how to do it. Father Hehir is the star of the television program.
If you are reading this from another diocese, brace yourself. Like everything else that started in Boston, it will be coming your way sooner or later.
The nuncio wearing his burberry scarf will call us imbeciles and idiots as people are trying to hold him and the Vatican accountable for it. As he and Cardinal O’Malley dine in the lap of luxury down in D.C., they will arrange to have Fr. Hehir give a speech at the Peace and Justice Pontifical Council as a slap in the face to Boston Catholics exposing it.
They will send a cabal in com boxes to assault and insult the truth. They will have Jack Connors arrange a publicity stunt in the Boston Globe to cover it all up.
Content they will all be that they it will never come down, this buddy wuddy system. Palsies, they all are.
God help me, for I have contempt for this criminals who abuse children and Christ’s Church in every conceivable way.
Folks, we feel this discourse has run its course. It’s Sunday, the Lord’s day of rest and a beautifully sunny day in Boston. We are closing comments. Look for a new post on Monday.