She should have asked the priest if he still condones the diddling of boys.

Keizer_Ghidorah: Lucifer as we know him today? Also a Catholic creation

As for the image of the devil, you can thank Dante and Milton for that. And the Catholic church has never really been that big on the devil anyways. Now Evangelicals and various others? Oh boy...

Red Shirt Blues: It would be an improvement over "Be Not Afraid" or "On Eagles Wings". Dammit.....we had Handel and Bach!

Ahhh Be Not Afraid and On Eagles Wings, permanently imprinted in the memory of every Catholic school kid from the 80s. Yours truly included.

CanisNoir: I'm pretty sure they do.

Being a homosexual isn't a sin. Having sex as a homosexual is no worse than any other non-marital sex. And if that was a mortal sin, there'd have been a lot fewer kids at my high school going for communion during school masses.

CanisNoir: As others have pointed out, the Catholic Churchs position on Homosexuality is not new, nor is the idea of them with holding communion from those they feel ignore their doctrines. If communion meant so much to her, she could have found a denomination that accepted her life style

Why? It was her PARENTS funeral at the church her PARENTS went to.

Rapmaster2000: Guidette Frankentits: [4.bp.blogspot.com image 400x300]

Dont like the religion? Then don't be a part of it.

True. Not liking the religion has become a serious problem for the Catholic Church. They dialed it back with Vatican II and they still couldn't keep people in the seats.

They need to amp up the excitement to appeal to today's youth. That's why I've got my own church with snake handling, lasers, and blackjack. The kids love it.

These guys could at least try a little Christian rock. And would it kill them to tone it down on the super-bloody Jesus statues?

People always seem to go straight from the Catholic Church to a televangelist or megachurch preaching prosperity gospel, unfortunately. All the exclusiveness and bigotry of the hardline Catholic Church with none of the silly guilt or penance.

cameroncrazy1984: CanisNoir: As others have pointed out, the Catholic Churchs position on Homosexuality is not new, nor is the idea of them with holding communion from those they feel ignore their doctrines. If communion meant so much to her, she could have found a denomination that accepted her life style

Why? It was her PARENTS funeral at the church her PARENTS went to.

For the first time in the history of ever, I agree with Cameroncrazy.

This guy was wrong, wrong, wrong

Researcher: EXACTLY ^^ This

No, denying her communion also makes him a dick.

WhyteRaven74: Jesus Christ it's a lion! Get in the car!: didn't allow the daughter's eulogy,

That is a true dick move.

Isn't that standard for a funeral mass?

WTF Indeed: GAT_00: Yes, how dare she go to her mother's funeral. The nerve of her.

You know how I know you don't understand the complete meaning of "Separation of Church and State"?

You know how I know that YOU don't understand the first and most BASIC thing about "separation of church and State"?

There's a similar story in two of the canonical gospels about some Jewish priests who took Jesus to task for failing to observe the law on handwashing.

Jesus asked the priests if they killed their sons when they were disobedient, as required by the same Mosaic law.

The priests blathered some nonsense why that inconvient law that plainly did apply to them somehow didn't actually apply to them, but the other laws did apply to other people.

Jesus dismissed them as hypocrites.

That really should settle the matter for Christians. Fascinating how the gay-baiting Christians have piously chosen to side with the hypocrites, rather than Jesus.

Hmmm. What are the odds on this 'homophobe' having a high pitched and/or feminine voice?

/Purdy lips

Then there's the Jewish view of Satan/Samael. He's the Accuser, the cosmic DA who tests you. Like all angels he is incapable of rebelling against God. Angels are single-purpose beings with precious little existence outside their designed function.

Being a Satanist is kind of like saying the Pledge of Allegiance to the postman.

MasterPython: Isn't that standard for a funeral mass?

When I was an alter boy, while most funeral masses had no eulogy, a few did, and this was in the 80s. And the priest never left the alter during the eulogy.


simplicimus: If she was expecting communion, she bought her ticket, she knew what she was getting into.

At yet at any number of churches she'd have been given communion no problem.

Researcher: No one MADE her go, no one MADE her que up for communion.

No one made the priest forget to act like Jesus or forget two rather important rules "As you love yourself, love your neighbor" and "Judge not, lest you be judged".

EggSniper: i.dailymail.co.uk

He strikes me as the type who became a priest because he has an authoritarian streak and the only place where he could get a position of authority to act on it was the priesthood.

Red Shirt Blues: Dude.......get outta my head.

I see we have quite a bit in common ;) Any memories of funerals where it was you, the other alter boy and the priest being the only three people singing the songs?

Diverting from the main argument, I'd like to make 2 points.

Catholic funeral masses are still Masses, with a prescribed liturgy and rites, and they are defined by the Church as celebrating the return of the deceased to God, not as being for the "entertainment" or even consolation, of the bereaved, no matter how odd or cold that sounds. Real Catholic funeral masses don't actually have any space in them for eulogies by anyone other than the priest during the Homily section, any more than Catholic Wedding masses make room for happy stories by the maid of honor about how they all met in college or something. It's not about that kind of thing.

If a priest lets people come up and speak a eulogy during a Mass, in the section devoted for his Homily, he's doing something outside of normal church procedure. Even in death, the mass isn't about a person but about God, praised by everyone together as one mind. The church's line on this is that the eulogies and singing pop songs and whatever else the bereaved want to do, is all cool, but is all to be done at the funeral parlor in a chapel service, or the wake at a bar, whatever, before the Mass and burial. Then the Mass is "just" the Mass. Gay or straight, a lot of people over the years have not understood this, and gotten bent out of shape that the structure of a wedding Mass or Funeral Mass was not modified to conform to their ideas on event planning.

Second item: the Church, last I read from Rome, does NOT consider being gay itself to be a sin, hasn't for some time now. They consider it a sin to ACT OUT ON IT, and to have relations with a partner, but no more so than if single straight people act on THEIR lusts outside of the Sacrament of Marriage, which has always been the case.

I agree it sounds like a minor quibble, yet, it shows that the Church, in it's glacial way, is slowly coming around to be more accepting. You gotta give them a century or two on these things. At one time, long ago, Catholic priests and Bishops had children and wives, and the Church eventually forbade it, I'll say, because it set up those priests and bishops to have heirs to church property, and all the property was considered Church property, owned by the organization, not meant to be divvied up by a shadow version of the royal family, which might be seen by the existing government as a rival for power. So they decreed that the priests, bishops, cardinals, and Pope, would have no heirs, to keep the peace.


As far as the main arguments in this thread, the fact is the Diocese apologized and said the Priest did wrong, in how he went about what he did. They didn't have to do that. They chose to do that. To me that ends the matter, and actually puts the church in a better light.

Are the civilly-married lesbians illegal under Church law? Yes. If they are getting it on as woman-and-woman outside of a Catholic Sacramental Wedding, are they technically sinners? Um, yes, just like common-law straight couples who didn't have a Sacramental wedding. In my view, she knew she was breaking the Church rules deliberately when she went forth to receive Communion. It seems pretty clear to me the lady has a chip on her shoulder and was using the event as an opportunity to make a political statement thru direct action. This is not what the Mass is about. That's individuality being thrown in the face of a communal event. The occasional folks that kneel all thru the Mass saying a Rosary don't "get it" either; there's a time for individual prayers and a time for group worship, with group rules. By doing their individual prayers in the middle of a mass, they are attention-whoring, setting themselves apart.

But back to the lesbian couple: the civil law states that religious organizations need not recognize a gay marriage for purposes of spiritual worship life; they only have to respect the gay couple's civil rights as a couple, in dealings with a secular arm of the church, like an adoption service or public hospital. This is a big deal lately, with many Catholic Charities adoption services around the nation deciding to quit a well-respected and needed hundred-year-old community service, because accepting support of government dollars for running part of it on behalf of the state, obligates them to follow civil law in their dealings with gay couples wanting to adopt. They have the right to say no, if they are not taking government money. If they take government money, it comes with government rules. That's pretty straight-forward. As the government has no right to come inside the church and tell you what or how to worship, neither can any faith use government money, public money, to further it's own agenda.

Can someone get this priests email info or the address of his church and we all ban together to get him fired? That would be fun.

Keizer_Ghidorah: Nuclear Monk: Keizer_Ghidorah: Jesus said these things, so they must be true and correct

And if Jesus said that the only way into heaven was to eat still-living infants while their parents were forced to watch and then smother yourself in the bodies of those you ritually sacrificed until you died of suffocation, would you say that's true and correct?

He also said some things about not eating sea creatures, not wearing a blend of fabrics, and to force people to become Christians or slaughter them in his Father's name and take all they own. Come on, all ye faithful, chop chop.

I happen to think his views on polyester were spot on.

Hey, not all polyester is evil. If you find a well-made blend, it's pretty comfortable.

That supposed 'comfort' is just the wicked embrace of Lucifer, you heathen!

genner: coveting present participle of cov·et
Verb:
Yearn to possess or have (something).


The problem isn't having things it's the greed of wanting more.
If you hate every guy in a expensive suite your the one with the problem.


If someone covets things that exceed their material needs then that is inherently sinful because it precludes serving God to the fullest according to the parable I quoted, Luke 12. The priest singled out one type of sin as unworthy of communion, while offering to other sinners. That makes him a hypocrite, in the religious sense of the term.

I don't think it matters whether or not the priest was "right". I am a Christian first. I am also Catholic. As a Christian, I am supposed to try my best to follow Christ's example...to be Christ-like. Nothing about what this priest did was Christ-like. He acted exactly the opposite of the way Jesus did in very similar situations.

Jesus said: "Take this, ALL OF YOU, and eat of it: for this is my body which will be given up for you." Not "take this...those of you who are good enough...." Yes, I know what the Church says about the sacrament. But let's remember who was sitting at the table during the last supper. Judas-who betrayed Jesus. Thomas-who didn't even initially believe in the resurrection. Peter-who would soon deny Jesus. Matthew-basically the biblical Mitt Romney. Think about it....these were not perfect people. Yet Jesus didn't deny them holy communion.

Red Shirt Blues: That or he has dreams of becoming a superstar such as Corapi or Pavone. Both had Hindenburg like results.

There's that option as well.

Nuclear Monk: Keizer_Ghidorah: Nuclear Monk: Keizer_Ghidorah: Jesus said these things, so they must be true and correct

And if Jesus said that the only way into heaven was to eat still-living infants while their parents were forced to watch and then smother yourself in the bodies of those you ritually sacrificed until you died of suffocation, would you say that's true and correct?

He also said some things about not eating sea creatures, not wearing a blend of fabrics, and to force people to become Christians or slaughter them in his Father's name and take all they own. Come on, all ye faithful, chop chop.

I happen to think his views on polyester were spot on.

Hey, not all polyester is evil. If you find a well-made blend, it's pretty comfortable.

That supposed 'comfort' is just the wicked embrace of Lucifer, you heathen!



You think I'd say "no" to that sexy biatch?

Karma Curmudgeon: genner: coveting present participle of cov·et
Verb:
Yearn to possess or have (something).


The problem isn't having things it's the greed of wanting more.
If you hate every guy in a expensive suite your the one with the problem.


If someone covets things that exceed their material needs then that is inherently sinful because it precludes serving God to the fullest according to the parable I quoted, Luke 12. The priest singled out one type of sin as unworthy of communion, while offering to other sinners. That makes him a hypocrite, in the religious sense of the term.

Even your right your guy in the suite still only exists in hypothetical argument. You have no proof that he was actually there.
For all you know everyone there was poor.

zena: I don't think it matters whether or not the priest was "right". I am a Christian first. I am also Catholic. As a Christian, I am supposed to try my best to follow Christ's example...to be Christ-like. Nothing about what this priest did was Christ-like. He acted exactly the opposite of the way Jesus did in very similar situations.

Doesn't surprise me. Seems like anyone in a position of power in the church is a sanctimonious dick who's got the churches priorities farked up so much that we invest more time and money into stopping abortion and gay marriage instead of fighting to reduce poverty.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people in the church who do a lot of work with the homeless and unfortunate but they get drowned out by the dickbags like this priest in the story.

I'm a Catholic but this crap really tests my patience with the church...would Jesus be doing the same thing these guys are doing?

He didn't turn her away. If he had forbade her from coming to the funeral, they'd have a point. He'd be an asshole. All he did was say that she couldn't take part in the Catholic Mass event where you get a biscuit and a sip of grape juice. They don't have to give you the biscuit and the juice. I was in a Church once where a protestant chick had to be told that taking Catholic communion probably wasnt going to fly since she was a protestant.

Mrs. Beasley: Promulgated by a MAN who truly hated women? T

Paul didn't hate women at all. Whoever wrote 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, and plastered Paul's named on those letters, however did. Also Paul wrote just a few decades after Jesus died. He was executed sometime between 63 and 65, maybe 66 CE.

genner: Even your right your guy in the suite still only exists in hypothetical argument. You have no proof that he was actually there.
For all you know everyone there was poor.

All people are sinners according to Christian doctrine. The hypothetical nature of the example I used is irrelevant.

My imaginary friend doesn't like you either.