Catholic Priest Challenges Church on Hostility to Gays

http://www.advocate.com/politics/religion/2014/05/07/catholic-priest-challenges-church-hostility-gays

Catholic Priest Challenges Church on Hostility to Gays
In an essay, a D.C.-area priest talks about how his conservative parish welcomes all people.
BY Michael O'Loughlin.
May 07 2014

The pastor of a conservative Roman Catholic parish near Washington, D.C., believes that his church’s “hyperbolic and harsh language” around LGBT people “will have to change. It is not accurate, and it is not charitable.”

At the National Catholic Reporter, Father Peter Daly writes that in his parish, St. John Vianney in Prince Frederick, Md., older people tend to have a harder time accepting gay and lesbian relationships, but that younger Catholics “nearly always know someone who is out as gay and find it very easy to accept.” In fact, he writes, the church’s hostility toward LGBT rights “determines whether or not [young adults] will remain Catholics.”

Daly says the purpose of the Catholic Church is to be faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ, and notes that Jesus had little to say explicitly about homosexuality.

“Our purpose as a Christian church is to remain faithful to the teaching of Jesus Christ. It is significant that Jesus had nothing to say about gay relationships. If homosexuality had been important to Jesus, he would have said something about it. After all, he told us his views on divorce and adultery and many other ethical issues. But Jesus said nothing about it. Maybe it was not important to him,” he writes.... MORE at above link.

Father Daly's essay for the National Catholic Reporter may be read here:
http://ncronline.org/blogs/parish-diary/what-our-parish-does-about-gay-relationships