"A $2 million study commissioned by Roman Catholic Bishops at the height of the Church's sexual abuse scandal has found no connection between sexual orientation and abuse of children by clergy, the AP reports:posted by ericb at 11:43 AM on November 18, 2009 [13 favorites]The full report by researchers at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice won't be completed until the end of next year. But the authors said their evidence to date found no data indicating that homosexuality was a predictor of abuse. 'What we are suggesting is that the idea of sexual identity be separated from the problem of sexual abuse,' said Margaret Smith of John Jay College, in a speech to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. 'At this point, we do not find a connection between homosexual identity and the increased likelihood of subsequent abuse from the data that we have right now.' The question has been raised repeatedly within and outside the church because the overwhelming majority of known victims were boys. As part of the church's response to the crisis, the Vatican ordered a review of all U.S. seminaries that, among other issues, looked for any 'evidence of homosexuality' in the schools.According to the AP, almost 14,000 sexual molestation claims have been filed in the past 60 years against Catholic clergy."
110 All people feel the interior impulse to love authentically: love and truth never abandonHow senseless to come so close to a humane and affirming recognition of love and devotion and then just stepping away from it all.
111 them completely, because these are the vocation planted by God in the heart and mind of
112 every human person. The search for love and truth is purified and liberated by Jesus
113 Christ from the impoverishment that our humanity brings to it, and he reveals to us in all
114 its fullness the initiative of love and the plan for true life that God has prepared for us.
These unions pose a serious threat to the fabric of society that affects all people.Amen. Just like heliocentrism.
"When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620, among the first things they did for the well-ordering of their new commonwealth was to institute the Dutch custom of civil marriage with which they had become familiar during their long sojourn in the Netherlands.posted by ericb at 1:16 PM on November 18, 2009 [6 favorites]
The Dutch made civil marriage the law of the land in 1590, and the first marriage in New England, that of Edward Winslow to the widow Susannah White, was performed on May 12, 1621, in Plymouth by Governor William Bradford, in exercise of his office as magistrate.
There would be no clergyman in Plymouth until the arrival of The Rev. Ralph Smith in 1629, but even then marriage would continue to be a civil affair, as these first Puritans opposed the English custom of clerical marriage as unscriptural. Not until 1692, when Plymouth Colony was merged into that of Massachusetts Bay, were the clergy authorized by the new province to solemnize marriages. To this day in this Commonwealth the clergy, including those of the archdiocese, solemnize marriage legally as agents of the Commonwealth and by its civil authority. Chapter 207 of the General Laws of Massachusetts tells who may perform such ceremonies.
This little bit of social and legal history should prove instructive in the current debate concerning marriage in this Commonwealth, and the controversial ruling thereon by the Supreme Judicial Court in Goodridge vs. Department of Public Health. The petitioners did not address religious issues, and the court's ruling was not premised on religious grounds: Marriage, its definition, rights, and responsibilities, was understood here as a civil matter, as it has been since 1621.
Thus, while the legitimate interests of religious communities in what some of them regard as the sacrament of marriage are worthy of consideration, those interests must not be confused either with the civil law of the Commonwealth or the civil rights of the citizens under its constitution.
No clergy of any denomination are required to wed anyone of whose union they do not approve: There is no civil right to be married in church or with its blessing. The civil law is just that, and the distinction between it and ecclesiastical law is as important as the necessary distinction between church and state. Surely, after two years of protracted debate between church law and civil law in the child-abuse scandals we should appreciate the necessity of these distinctions.
It is to the civil rights of the citizens of Massachusetts that the Supreme Judicial Court responded in the Goodridge case, and this was no attack on the church, nor on religion. It was recognition that the social custom restricting marriage to heterosexuals, a custom long sanctioned by church and society, was no longer to be regarded as consistent with the rights of citizens under the constitution.
We have seen this before. When the courts eventually invalidated long-established laws sanctioned by church and society that forbade interracial marriage, the so-called 'miscegenation' laws that obtained in many parts of this country within living memory, the courts that did this were invariably maligned as interventionist, arbitrary, and usurpatious.
Most now would agree that those laws were wrong, indeed unconstitutional, and that the courts were right in their judgments on behalf of the petitioners
....[more]"*
"Catholics are strutting around boasting about their role in repealing Maine's gay marriage law. At least they're taking responsibility for it. Catholics are the new Mormons—which sucks for me because I was raised Catholic. Can I unbaptize myself? Can I do it in a hot tub? How many guys will it take?"October 2009: Maine's Catholic Church donations to anti-gay campaign top $550,000.
I think that being Catholic is what brought me around to opposing the death penalty.You're aware that the Roman Catholic Church is not opposed to the death penalty?
"This site was created to provide you with an outlet to save LGBT children from the hypocrisy of priests in the Archdiocese of Washington who engage in romantic and sexual relationships, and yet stand silent while Archbishop Wuerl and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops increase their dogmatic war against all LGBT children of God. If you know that one of the priests in the Archdiocese is gay, or having a heterosexual affair, please share your story."posted by ericb at 2:30 PM on November 18, 2009
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posted by mr_roboto at 11:10 AM on November 18, 2009 [21 favorites]