Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Boston Archdiocese decides it has no objection to a "gay pride" prayer service as Father John Unni implies in a homily that God made people homosexual

Joe Sacerdo over at Bryan Hehir Exposed is reporting this morning that, "The scandal over the St. Cecilia Church’s Rainbow Ministry Gay Pride Mass canceled by the Archdiocese of Boston got deeper with word in Monday’s Boston Globe that the archdiocese has flipflopped and now has “no objection” to a “prayer service” by the same group at the same time for the same purpose as before. The pastor publicly accused concerned Catholics of “hate” during his Sunday homily, and a diocesan auxiliary bishop who was there on Sunday is apparently OK with both the prayer service plans and the accusations of hate against orthodox Catholics.

After the archdiocese’s initial response canceling the Mass that sounded strong and courageous, things are now spiraling out of control. At the end of this post, we’ll tell you how to Take Action about the growing scandal, which now involves the pastor, Fr. John Unni, Bishop Robert Hennessey, Cardinal Sean O’Malley and his spokesman, Terry Donilon. If this scandal continues beyond the next few days, someone will probably need to resign.

First there was the Mass planned to celebrate Boston Gay Pride described in this way: 'The Rainbow Ministry of Saint Cecilia Parish invites all friends and supporters of the LGBT community to a Mass in celebration of Boston’s Pride Month.'...Then concerned Catholics complained and the archdiocese insisted the Mass to celebrate Gay Pride be cancelled. The archdiocese said, the 'wording and placement of a bulletin notice announcing that the St. Cecilia Rainbow Ministry will be joining the parish at a Mass on June 19 may have given the unintended impression that the Mass is in support of Gay Pride Week; it is not,' said Terrence C. Donilon, a spokesman for the archdiocese. 'The pastor will clarify this issue at the Masses this coming weekend.' Donilon declined to answer questions about the apparent contradiction of the church’s bulletin and his statement.

Clarify the issue, the pastor did. Monday’s Globe reports Fr.John Unni said this in his homily: 'You are welcome here, gay or straight, rich or poor, young or old, black or white,' Unni said as he paced up and down the center aisle. 'Here, you all can say, ‘I can worship the God who made me as I am.'" (Full post here).

There you have it folks: the same priest who has the full confidence and support of the Cardinal and the Boston Archdiocese is implying that God created people as homosexuals.  This is to suggest that God owes the people of Sodom and Gomorrah an apology for sending them His wrath.  For if He created them as homosexual, by what right did He destroy them with fire?  Father Unni is also implying in his homily that the Word of God is a lie.  For in the Book of Jude, verses 3-7, we read:

"Beloved, although I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation,  I now feel a need to write to encourage you to contend for the faith that was once for all handed down to the holy ones.

For there have been some intruders, who long ago were designated for this condemnation, godless persons, who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and who deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. I wish to remind you, although you know all things, that (the) Lord who once saved a people from the land of Egypt later destroyed those who did not believe. The angels too, who did not keep to their own domain but deserted their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains, in gloom, for the judgment of the great day.  Likewise, Sodom, Gomorrah, and the surrounding towns, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual promiscuity and practiced unnatural vice,  serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire."

Likewise, Saint Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, explains why an idolatrous people will fall into the vice of homosexuality.  He teaches clearly that the root cause of this vice is substituting the worship of the true God with a man-made imitation, an idol or idols:

"The wrath of God  is indeed being revealed from heaven against every impiety and wickedness of those who suppress the truth by their wickedness. For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse; for although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. While claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes. Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God handed them over to their undiscerning mind to do what is improper. They are filled with every form of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, rivalry, treachery, and spite. They are gossips and scandalmongers and they hate God. They are insolent, haughty, boastful, ingenious in their wickedness, and rebellious toward their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know the just decree of God that all who practice such things deserve death, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them." (Romans 1: 18-32).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches clearly that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered," that they are "contrary to the natural law," and "under no circumstances can they be approved (2357).  It also teaches that the homosexual inclination "is objectively disordered." and that those who suffer from this disordered inclination are called to "fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition." (2358).  Nowhere in the Catechism are homosexual persons encouraged to take pride in their disordered inclination or in gravely sinful homosexual acts by proclaiming "God made me this way."

It is most significant that certain Archdiocesan officials are anxious to encourage "gay pride" even as they attempt to paint Catholic bloggers faithful to the Magisterium as being "evil" or as "haters" who are harming community.  Here's why.

12 comments:

BostonCatholic2011 said...

I'm done. From this point on I withhold my tithe and I will encourage others to do the same. The Church in Boston is in a state of moral collapse.

Ellen Wironken said...

Fr. Unni is calling Catholics who accept the Church's teaching on homosexuality "haters." I agree with you totally. This is absolutely demonic. The faith is in eclipse in Boston. How much longer before homilies actually encourage homosexual sex and other expressions of sexual activity outside of marriage?

Will pedophilia now be encouraged under the pretext that certain people cannot help but have sex with minors because they were "born that way"? Bestiality perhaps?

Doc Brown said...

One of the authors of the Catechism and Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, has called on the Church to re-evaluate the moral quality of committed same gender relationships. This is because you are simply wrong; no amount of theology, tradition, or Scripture can make you right. A doctrine that leaves a trail of blood in its path, proves its own error.


Fr. Unni is absolutely correct.

http://www.glaaforum.org/glaa_forum/2010/05/cardinal-sch%C3%B6nborn-church-should-respect-longterm-gay-relationships.html

Peter said...

Faithful Catholics should give their tithes to faithful parishes or else to the traditional orders which are in communion with the Holy See, such as ICKSP or the FSSP. I certainly wouldn't give any money to a liberal parish or diocese.

Paul Anthony Melanson said...

Daniel, this may come as a shock to you, but not even a Cardinal has the right to contradict the mind of Christ as made known through the authoritative teaching of the Magisterium. And that authority teaches us with absolute certainty that, "Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.' They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine and affective sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved."

Under no circumstances may homosexual acts be approved. This is the mind of Christ, and He trumps a Cardinal. And faithful Catholics will not contradict God's holy will.

For those interested in what the confused Cardinal had to say:

http://news.change.org/stories
/a-catholic-bishop-in-favor
-of-gay-relationships

Daniel, thank you for showing us where Father Unni stands. You write, " A doctrine that leaves a trail of blood in its path, proves its own error.


Fr. Unni is absolutely correct."

What you are saying is that Father Unni asserts that the teaching of the Magisterium with regard to homosexuality and homosexual acts has left a trail of violence and bloodshed.

I'm sure Rome will find this of interest.

Phil Dzialo said...

God made everyone...there is a larger world than the myopic kingdom of the Roman Catholic Church. If homosexuality is an abomination, then it legitimates the RC's ability to justify their hate...look to history the "magisterium" has a lineage of being simply wrong.

Amanda said...

The only hate is yours Phil as you seek to thrust your immorality on those who accept God's plan. I always find it ironic that the same people who have a problem with the Magisterium's infallibility nevertheless believe themselves to be infallible.

Paul Anthony Melanson said...

The Catholic League is weighing in on this controversy and The Boston Globe article:


BOSTON GLOBE LECTURES ARCHDIOCESE

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the Boston Globe's response to Cardinal Sean O'Malley's decision to halt a Mass at St. Cecilia's in honor of Gay Pride Month:


In today's editorial, the Boston Globe pretends that "No one would have had the misimpression that the church was endorsing gay sex" by allowing the Mass to be said. Columnist Kevin Cullen also plays the role of virgin, wondering why anyone would think that such a Mass might turn the church "into an outpost of Sodom." The front-page news story goes one better, maintaining that the Boston archdiocese "gave the impression that St. Cecilia's supported the annual Gay Pride Celebration." The priest behind the Mass, Rev. John Unni, also feigns ignorance, saying of the Gay Pride agenda, "I don't know what that is."


Sounds like they all need a reality check. In the June 5 weekly bulletin of St. Cecilia's, it says quite plainly, "The Rainbow Ministry of Saint Cecilia Parish invites all friends and supporters of the LGBT community to a Mass in celebration of Boston's Pride Month." (My italics.) So there is no need to lie about the purpose of the event.


Gay Pride Month, for the uninitiated, is not exactly like Black History Month: the latter commemorates the achievements of African Americans, while the former celebrates libertinism. That's why African Americans do not appear naked on their floats. Nor do they engage in simulated sex. While evidently the marchers managed to keep their shorts on this year, they've had difficulty doing so in the past. In the late 1990s, naked women fondled each other on a mattress, and a man on stilts exposed himself, and yet the same Boston Globe that likes to lecture the Catholic Church said absolutely nothing about it.


At last Saturday's Gay Pride Parade, men dressed in leather—along with their trusty harnesses—marched alongside the drag queens and dancing go-go guys, while the boys from MassEquality "gyrated on a flatbed." As usual, organized homosexuals mocked nuns. But none of this disturbs the Boston Globe. Indeed, it pretends not to know what's going on!


Contact editorial page editor Peter Canellos: canellos@globe.com

Anonymous said...

There is more to our Catholic obligation than reciting church position on homosexuality. We need to keep the door open and our hearts open as well to the possibility that through our love they will find the way to God. This requires us to treat even those we disagree with in a respectful manner, which some of you don't practice here.

Thanks for staying on this important issue Paul. I know you have been criticized in the past but this is too important to be silent about.

Paul Anthony Melanson said...

The only people who seem to be behaving in a disrespectful manner are those who have been critical of Catholics faithful to the Magisterium, referring to us as "haters" and "bigots."

No one at this Blog has been disrespectful toward homosexual persons anonymous. It has been the other way around.

Anonymous said...

Paul, you seem overly selective about what you will allow on your comments section. I beg you to consider posting all comments that are respectful so that we have a more meaningful discussion.

I can understand moderating disrespectful comments, but not ones that offer dissenting points of view; that's simply not American.

Paul Anthony Melanson said...

Not true anonymous. But I will delete comments which are disrespectful. Please keep that in mind in the future.

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