NEWS NOTES: Bishop Categorizes LGBT Acceptance with Murder; Other LGBT Catholic News

Here are some items that you may find of interest:

1) In a Palm Sunday homily, Bishop Patricio Buzon of Bacolod, Philippines, lamented: “It’s now okay to kill; to allow couples to go on divorce; honor the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community; tolerate same-sex union, among others, where I am scared of these present situations.”

2) John Freml, the gay Catholic coordinator of the Equally Blessed coalition of Catholic groups working for LGBT equality, was interviewed for an extensive NBC News piece on the broadening LGBT acceptance in the U.S. He spoke about several topics, including the need to meet with church leaders so they “can no longer think about us [LGBT people] in an abstract way.”

3) A Catholic parish in Philadelphia said it was not behind an anti-marriage equality sign hung over the church’s main sign on the front lawn of the church. The pastor, Fr. Robert Feeney, posted on Facebook that “ALL are always welcome at St. Bridget Parish.”

Leo Varadkar, right, with Cardinal Timothy Dolan

4) Ireland’s first openly gay prime minister, Leo Varadkar, marched alongside his partner in New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. Until two years ago, the parade barred LGBT groups from marching. While in the city, Varadkar and his partner also visited the historic Stonewall Inn, widely recognized as the place where the movement for LGBT equality began in 1969.

5) In an interview with Catholic News Service, Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, said “gender ideology is problematic” and it was “deeply troubling” that there is a movement “to enforce the false idea – that a man can be or become a woman or vice versa.” Conley was one of four U.S. bishops to sign an anti-transgender interfaith letter last year.

6) Catholic leaders in the Philippines voiced their disapproval of marriage equality after the nation’s dictatorial president Rodrigo Duterte reversed his position and backed LGBT rights.

Robert Shine, New Ways Ministry, April 8, 2018

1 reply
  1. Friends
    Friends says:

    Good Lord. Where to start. The guy in the Philippines has no business calling himself a professing Catholic, let alone a hierarchical Church official. What would Jesus Himself had said to him? Other members of the clergy are at least trying, in their own ways, to reach some accommodation with the diversity of views held by professing and practicing Catholics of several different generations. A lot less attitudinal arrogance on the part of the clergy, and a lot greater willingness to listen to the real lives (and life concerns) of their parishioners, would be huge step in the direction of affirming the criterion: “What Would Jesus Do”? Jesus would NOT be doing what those clerics in the Philippines are doing.

    Reply

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