Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Fr. Landry on St. Cecilia's "Gay" Mass.



Everyone is welcome.
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If that is true, why do some people feel the need for a very 'special' welcome?  The call of Christ is all about conversion - he welcomed sinners and ate with them - but his welcome included demands to change, to repent and convert; go and sin no more - and he himself made that possible.  That is how he acts through the Church today - he welcomes us to repentance and provides his real presence in and through the sacraments to help us do that; especially the sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist - in that order - to lead us on the narrow way of change.
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Fr. Landry.
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Landry praised Cardinal O’Malley’s strong June 22 statement for acknowledging that “gay pride” is “incompatible with the Church’s teachings.” But the priest lamented that the cardinal’s attempts to distance the Mass from the “gay pride” theme “sadly haven’t succeeded,” and that supporters of the event have used “coded language” “to communicate that supporters of the gay agenda do not have to worry about being made to feel uncomfortable.”
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Landry argued that the cardinal was right to resist pressure to cancel the Mass completely, saying “no pastor worth his sacred oils is trigger-happy to eliminate the possibility for people to come into Christ’s presence.” However, he said, there is a need to ask of such themed Masses “whether they encourage implicit or defiant rejection of Christ.”
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“Faithful Catholics seek to welcome everyone with the warmth of a brother and sister but also to call everyone to conversion with the humility of a fellow prodigal,” he wrote. Thus, he said, “parishes who are aware that parishioners are unabashedly engaging in practices contrary to the practice of the faith and who do not strive ... to help them eliminate whatever in them is leading them to sin, are culpable of the worst type of pastoral malpractice.”
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“Their behavior, no matter how they spin it, is inconsistent with genuine Christian love.”
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In a second column, Landry recalled the difference between a person and the behavior choices that may be destroying them: a distinction that is key to understanding the Church’s “true acceptance” of homosexuals, whose “sexual desires are neither co-extensive with ‘who they are’ nor constitute the fundamental basis of their identity and dignity.”
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“True love means, obviously, that we don’t condemn them for the behavior that disfigures their identity, but it does mean that we try to help them to change their behavior to align it with the love of God and true love of others,” Landry said.
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“The only adequate Christian response to anyone is love,” he added, “but this love can never remain a shallow hospitality that fails to help the person recognize and respond to the rather conspicuous ways Christ is challenging him to turn away from sin and believe in the Gospel.” - LifeSiteNews
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Real change is conversion.

22 comments:

  1. 'Real change is conversion.'
    Thanks for just saying it, Terri.

    Any other selective verbiage we've heard lately,is an insult to the cross of Christ...and the blood He shed so we CAN be free.

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  2. "Everyone is welcome.
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    If that is true, why do some people feel the need for a very 'special' welcome? "

    Because we sadly, and often, fall short of extending that welcome as His Body.

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  3. Anonymous1:45 PM

    U R G E N T !!!
    Hey Everyone,

    Sorry to get off topic, but as it is nearing 3PM, I wanted to ask if you could offer your chaplets today for:

    Four bishops loyal to the Vatican have been “taken away” by Chinese police in recent days to take part in a state-sanctioned ordination…

    Full story here: http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/07/chinese-bishops-siezed-in-advance-of-another-illicit-consecration/


    Please pray for the protection of these bishops and for the freedom and exaltation of Holy Mother Church throughout the world and especially in China at this moment.

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  4. “sexual desires are neither co-extensive with ‘who they are’ nor constitute the fundamental basis of their identity and dignity.”

    Ok, I agree w/this statement. But I'll play devil's advocate and ask you heterosexuals: how many of you consider your sexual attraction to the other sex a natural and normal extension of who you are as man or woman? Because for a person with SSA, it sure does feel normal and natural to have that attraction to the same sex. So, to choose to live in accordance with the Truth of sexuality when all your feelings & emotions tend otherwise, IS a cross. And while most of you, I'm sure, are sick & tired of all the special stuff for the gays (me too), remember that it is a legit struggle. I just pray to be faithful every day to my baptismal vows and not do, think, or say anything to offend my Lord. So. Please say a prayer for the success of the Courage Conference in August, and for greater understanding in the populace of why we need to be chaste.

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  5. Anonymous4:42 PM

    I assure you I've broken all ten commandments. Please don't ever have a Mass where you highlight my sins to make me feel welcome.

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  6. Anonymous5:21 PM

    Anon 4:42- That is great!

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  7. Not really. The Mass welcomed people- human beings- not sin.

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  8. Clark - thanks for directing our attention to the Chinese crisis - prayers.

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  9. Anonymous6:06 PM

    I'm not sure why Masses need titles at all, but...Why not just a Mass entitled, "A Mass For Those Who Are Called to Chastity?"

    And why aren't so-called "gay masses" ever on the more traditional side? Always relegated to the looney bin. (Perhaps that's more rhetorical)

    As someone commented on another blog, "Remind me to call my pastor this week to make sure I'm invited to come to Mass."




    Terry, you're welcome. Please do keep this in your prayers. The situation there is quite serious.

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  10. Perhaps it was rhetorical, because the majority of gay Catholic men adore lace and Latin. More "traditional" parishes are full of them.

    Excuse me.. they aren't "gay Catholic men." They are men who are Catholic who are "afflicted with SSA" who lie and say they aren't. They're easily found in chat rooms and seedy bars.

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  11. watch it, thom, or i'll slap you with my beaded handbag ;)

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  12. Anonymous7:20 PM

    ThomSFO: More "traditional" parishes are full of them.

    Yes, because who in their right mind wants to see a tatted, pierced leather daddy in cut-off jean shorts, tank top and stretched earlobes (in his 50s) bearing the crucifix in a provocative manner as he processes down the aisle? And yes, I saw that at the AGLO Mass once in Chicago.

    Note to OLO Mt Carmel parish: Please explain what an AGLO Mass is before unsuspecting attendees mistakenly walk-in to what they assumed was just good 'ol "Mass".

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  13. db: LOL! It would take a special kind of courage to flounce around with a beaded handbag. :-p

    Clark, I have seen leather daddies at Mass, too, although they preferred chasubles to jorts.

    Don't judge priests by Corapi, and don't judge gay people by that leather daddy you once saw. ;)

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  14. Anonymous8:14 PM

    It isn't a matter of "judging" gay people Thom. I was commenting on the decorum at a so-called "gay Mass that I attended."

    So-called "gay masses" are unnecessary for those struggling to keep the Church's teaching of chastity. It only serves the agendas of those who want to live openly gay lives (with all that entails) and their enablers.

    Where is the straight, single, old maid's Mass? I know plenty of them and don't see them screaming for a special Mass, yet they're called to live chaste lives as well. Not an easy task these days, when women are expected to live like the girls on Sex and the City.

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  15. i went to a Dignity 'Mass' when i lived in DC once and it was kinda creepy. it was not held at a catholic parish, as Dignity is not a recognized apostolate. i went because i wanted that feeling of solidarity with other gay men. at the time i was an active member of the gay community, but even then something seemed off. i clued into it during communion, when i noticed that all the guys were cruising each other. at mass. instead of praying. it was the bar scene transplanted to a sacred space with all the window dressing. but it was still about us and sex and finding someone.

    of course that 'finding someone' is an authentic need to be filled, just misdirected. but that's another topic.

    i can say, though, that i understand that need to be around others who have an understanding of your particular struggle. they're going through it, too, and you're there. together. there's solace in that. so when at a Courage Mass you have all these persons, male and female with SSA, gathered together to support one another to live chaste lives, THAT is a Spirit-filled experience and it's wonderful.

    so i don't know. do alcoholics experience the same thing if they come together to have a special Mass said quietly for them? or divorced catholics?

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  16. Special Masses huh?? Ever been to a LifeTeen Mass??

    Sara

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  17. "Where is the straight, single, old maid's Mass?"

    They aren't currently an object of ridicule and scorn in Catholic media- pubs., blogs, "news," etc.

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  18. This just in....

    While you guys are worried about gay marriage, Utah's marriage law is being challenged in a different way......


    'Sister Wives' family to challenge Utah bigamy law


    http://www.ksl.com/?nid=155&sid=16338798

    The fun never ends...

    The states with gay marriage I'm sure will be challenged soon by the polygs..

    Sara

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  19. 'so i don't know. do alcoholics experience the same thing if they come together to have a special Mass said quietly for them? '

    Yes! And their families and friends attend too, in my area.

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  20. Straight, single, old maid's aren't ostracized?! You don't know the half of it.

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  21. Swirling in Me-Me Revolving door9:16 AM

    CK - touché! (LOL) guess it can be identified as, "the grass is greener on the other side..."

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  22. Anonymous10:28 AM

    "Where is the straight, single, old maid's Mass?"

    They aren't currently an object of ridicule and scorn in Catholic media- pubs., blogs, "news," etc.

    I beg to differ, Thom. As a straight, single, chaste, old maid in the 21st century, our ridicule is served to us daily in a passive-aggressive manner by Catholic and non-Catholic alike. However, if you are talking about us being physically assaulted because of our spinsterhood, then no, what we receive isn't meted out in that manner.

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