Gay Catholics & Others Call For More Liberal Pope

http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/04/040505churchGays.htm

Whether they want recognition of gays, women priests, more say for the laity or a return to the Latin mass, Roman Catholic interest groups are sending their varied messages to Rome - attempting to exert some small influence on the selection of the next pope or at least get more attention for their causes.

``You can't exactly penetrate the conclave from the outside,'' Sister Maureen Fiedler of Catholics Speak Out in Hyattsville, Md., an organization that supports women's ordination among other changes. Fiedler also is a leading voice in the international We Are Church group.

``All we can do is put the message out there and hope these folks get it and respond,'' she said.


if this wasn't so serious, I'd be rolling on the floor laughing--JP2 appointed most of the cardinals and if anyone thinks that they're going to select a new pope that may go against his policies, they have another thing coming to them!

naive comes to mind

successor to John Paul is the almost unanimous praise from non-Catholics for his moving the Catholic church toward more tolerance of other religions. The Catholic church is still frightfully conservative on women's issues. It is disgusting.

he can be tolerant as much as he wants but it doesn't change that fact

Purgatory. There is an in between state from Heaven to Hell. If you lead a good life but don't believe in Jesus, you are a candidate for Purgatory. From what I can see it is only the Catholic Church which has a Purgatory.

Wasn't purgatory abolished by the Vatican a number of years ago? Maybe it was limbo.

go to Limbo(cept for Southern Baptists,they go straight to the bottom floor)only kidding) But they might have changed things since my 12 years of catholic school.

From CCD as a kid (this was late 70's early 80's) they told us Limbo and Purgatory were no longer - I think "recognized" was the term.

I believe their current stance is that Protestants are "seperate brethren" that can still live a good life in Christ and thus go to heaven.

The analogy I heard is to imagine you're on a sinking ship and two rescue crafts come. One is a huge ocean liner, the other is a small life raft. The ocean liner is obviously much safer (which in the analogy is following all the Catholic rituals and the like), but you can still escape on the life raft.

Since I'm not Catholic I obviously don't believe this however.

Hardly so, as Buddhists have not find much of tolerance and respect in JP's pronunciations on Buddhism. I'm not sure Wiccans, Satanists and other Neo-Pagans would agree on that "unanimous praise" either... :D

There's lots of honest and fruitfull dialogue between Buddhism and other Christian nominations, but not much if any with Evangelical fundamentalism and Roman Catholicism.

Declining enrollments in the seminaries.

Increasing recognition of LGBT issues as civil rights issues.

Declining audience for MSM.

Financial crises across the board among the faithful.

There are counterweights at work here, and imo, their heft will be felt increasingly.

Remember when it was against the law for common people to own a bible, then a bible in English? Let's see how we do.

John Paul I was pope for all of a month before he "mysteriously" died.

Frankly, the gay rights agenda is exactly what will push them into a reactionary corner. The Episcopal Church in America embraced gay rights and now they are looking at division from within and being alone among Anglican churches worldwide. The Catholic Church is not going to become tolerant of gays anytime soon. They are more likely to relax restrictions on priest marriage or ordaining women and neither of those things are going to happen any time soon either.

A more winnable issue is birth control. There is absolutely no reason at all to suppose that contraceptives are destructive to life. The absence of them certainly is as expanding populations outstrip resources. Further, the countries that use birth control are the ones that are the wealthiest and contribute the most to the church coffers. That's a reason to appease them.

At least not in catholic doctrine, and speaking strictly. It is related to the dignity of the human person. Otherwise why would the church be opposed to in vitro fertilization? All this "culture of death" thingy is part of the rhetoric of the conservative american priests which are trying to hang on to the * moral crowd.

For the church to budge even a little on birth control and procreation issues it would require some huge changes to the doctrine. It is much more likely that they would simply become less vocal, as in the case of fertility treatments.

-- as equal candidates for priesthood within the Church. Mary Magdalen virtually solves the apostolic descendency issue as far as I'm concerned.

John Paul II apologized to Jews and Galileo but rose from deep illness this winter from his bed to condemn gay men annd lesbians. May the new Pope, whoever is chosen, have a broader worldview.

tell people in AIDs ravaged countries that it's okay to use condoms.
Not much to ask, you'd think.

Very strongly.

I though it had something to do with the living conditions there.

Hey, there is some excuse for not wearing a rubber, "I didn't wear one not because I was stupid but because the pope said I couldn't". Come on now.

its catholic followers in AIDs ravaged countries to ABSTAIN from sex instead of wearing condoms is a problem???

To put it mildly, ummmmm, yeah.

AND YOU DON'T?

"Hey,there is some excuse for not wearing a rubber"

"because the pope said I couldn't"

Since you don't seem to know how AIDs is spread, here's a little clue for you: people's "living conditions" do not spread AIDs.

Read what you just posted then go do some research.
unbelievable

The problem you talk about is in Africa. In South America, which has 50% of the world's catholics (much greater than Africa's Catholic population) the problem isn't even close to that of Africa. 34.3 million people in the world have AIDS -- 24.5 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa. The problem is hardly with the church, the problem is simply with these people not having access (what I meant by living conditions) or the will to use condoms. Lets get real here.

you don't consider that a problem?


on edit: I should have read your original post before I responded.
If you ever do find a clue, hang onto it.

kiss kiss
:*

Have you ever met a single person that said they didn't use a condom because of their faith? Lets get real here. The pope is preaching what the religion says, he CAN NOT CHANGE IT. This has been like this forever (1930 in the case of birth control since it came out). Like I said, I disagree with it. however, that means I disagree with the religion, not the pope.

besides, birth control is not an 'article of faith" it could be changed with the stoke of a pen. While it is a matter of 'morals" and he does speak ex cathedra a change id quite possible.

For a long time, Catholic Church condemned taking interest as sinfull. That changed, the religious dogma was changed by the decisions of Pope, and today Vatican banks are major players in the financial casino, with all kinds of murky stuff going on...

Catholic dogma is a creation of human minds, of course it is subject to change by human minds ...

It ain't hard to find if you look in Catholic News
http://www.cathnews.com/news/310/53.php

Here is one report from The Guardian
Thursday October 9, 2003
Steve Bradshaw

" Vatican: condoms don't stop Aids "

"The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass - potentially exposing thousands of people to risk.
The church is making the claims across four continents despite a widespread scientific consensus that condoms are impermeable to HIV.
A senior Vatican spokesman backs the claims about permeable condoms, despite assurances by the World Health Organisation that they are untrue."

"The president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, told the programme: "The Aids virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon. The spermatozoon can easily pass through the 'net' that is formed by the condom."

"The WHO has condemned the Vatican's views, saying: "These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people, and currently affects at least 42 million."

"In Lwak, near Lake Victoria, the director of an Aids testing centre says he cannot distribute condoms because of church opposition. Gordon Wambi told the programme: "Some priests have even been saying that condoms are laced with HIV/Aids.
Panorama found the claims about permeable condoms repeated by Catholics as far apart as Asia and Latin America."

source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/aids/story/0,7369,1059068,00.html

Here are some other links Catholic News provides:
Vatican: condoms don't stop Aids (The Guardian)
Vatican in HIV condom row
Vatican says condoms don't stop AIDS (Reuters)
Program: Vatican misinforming on condoms (UPI)
Vatican Says Condoms Don't Block HIV, BBC Reports (Bloomberg)
Catholic Relief Services: HIV/AIDS in Africa
African Jesuit AIDS Network
Pope urges AIDS programs that respect church teaching (24/9/03)
Kenyan archbishop warns condoms will not prevent AIDS (5/8/03)
Catholic bishops back government AIDS plan (14/8/03)

You posted:

"The problem is hardly with the church, the problem is simply with these people not having access (what I meant by living conditions) or the will to use condoms. Lets get real here."

Is that real enough for you?

The church is LYING to these people. I cannot think of a worse betrayal because of the massive influence the church has over them.

It is beyond revolting, it is EVIL to allow people to DIE because of a "belief".

NO, you "get real here".

The same as the "acceptance" of evolution. It is written in "catholicspeak", which makes it seem (to the layman) like a recognition of mistakes on the part of the church, but in the end is not.

Pure an simple propaganda..

look, the church was designed with certain traditions in mind. It is the pope's job to hold up those traditions, not cave in political pressure to change them. If you expect the next pope (or any pope) to change stances on this any time soon you will be greatly disappointed. This is not the fault of the pope who is there to spread and teach, not change, that religion. The Catholic religion has always tought to think with an open mind, however, the pope has to follow the strict teachings of it. If you disagree with it, that is your choice. What I loved about this pope was that he openly reached out to other religions and I think the church will continue to do this, but they will not change what they stand for.

Too much of open mind and speaking openly used to guarantee in worst case getting burned on a stake by the Catholic church ...

Hypatia, Giordano Bruno, Huss etc., the list is endless ...

Sexual orientation is not a personal "choice". Otherwise it would be impossible to understand HOW a rational person can be gay and still embrace the bigotry spoused by the catholic church.

you can't change your orientation, but you can change your church. Why can't these gay Catholics find a much more accepting church?

So strong, in fact, that it can compete with the genetic and environmental factors that determine sexual orientation.

I think an analogous question is: why so many women belong to religions that subordinate them? Some people would answer that it is because they don't have the option of moving away from that religion. But here in the states is pretty clear that most women CHOOSE to subordinate themselves. Take for example muslims and orthodox jews (and a lot of baptists too).

That's probably why religion is loosing it's footing in Western Europe: most societies are very egalitarian and run against most of the major religions..

Cheers.

That the Catholic church isn't a democratic institution. A fact re-enforced in my mind as I watched the drama of church closings unfold in the Boston area.

How often does the church really bend to the calls of lay people when it comes to changing or modifing a decision or policy?