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Australia's Documentary:
Queer & Catholic
The television documentary, Queer & Catholic, produced by Mark Dowd and transmitted 5 May on Channel 4 raises some serious issues which we hope will receive equally serious responses. Nevertheless, the presence of significant numbers of homosexual men serving as ordained ministers in the Roman Catholic Church is no new phenomenon.
What is new is that increasing numbers of gay men, openly accepting and comfortable with their sexual orientation, are making effective and important contributions in their ministerial priesthood, including the episcopate. Some of these value and maintain their commitment to celibacy or vowed chastity. Others experience similar challenges as do their heterosexual brothers, questioning the discipline of compulsory celibacy as integral to exercising ordained ministry in the Roman Catholic Church.
Mark Dowd's programme often conflates these issues to the point where the presence of gay men in the priesthood is seen to assume excessive and allegedly problematic significance. As lesbian and gay Catholics we believe this is but a focussed and concrete symptom of a wider systemic failure in Roman Catholic Church leadership to grasp developing insights into human sexuality generally, and sexual orientation and diversity in particular. The major problem is a fundamental dishonesty in public rhetoric and pastoral care in most matters of personal sexual ethics, including homosexuality.
What is required is an acceptance by Church leadership that
the language of 'intrinsic disorder,' etc, whether applied to the physical expression of same-sex relationships or psycho-sexual orientation, is at best inconsistent with much contemporary Catholic theological scholarship, as well as its doctrinal traditions.
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At worst, it is a dishonest invention of philosophical/theological jargon . It is long overdue for Vatican authorities to engage in an open and honest dialogue with lesbian and gay Catholics, theologians from around the world, and others, through the establishment of an international study commission to review statements on homosexuality issued by the Church's teaching authorities since 1976.
The Extraordinary Consistory of Cardinals, to be held in Rome from 21-24 May 2001, would appear to offer a window of opportunity here. One of the seven key questions on the future of the Roman Catholic Church, to be considered by the Cardinals, asks whether there is a discrepancy between the views of ordinary Catholics on sexual and family matters and prevailing Catholic doctrine.
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Massive Crowds March Through New York City
The Secret Origin of AIDS and HIV
Related Sites:
Courage Apostolate
Dr. Alan Cantwell
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We urge the Cardinals to accept the challenge of this question honestly, working towards an affirming and inclusive statement, acknowledging the specific gifts and contribution of lesbian and gay people in the Church's life and mission, as fulfilling in the words of the late Cardinal Hume each one's own 'created design.'
We especially regret Bishop Peter Smith's remarks during the course of Queer & Catholic, simply repeating past statements by Cardinal Ratzinger, the Prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).
The negative tones and preoccupation with genital activity in his comments make no acknowledgment of the more nuanced guidelines for the pastoral care of lesbian and gay people, developed under the authority of the Roman Catholic Bishops of England & Wales in 1979, nor of the late Cardinal Hume's reflections on the subject from 1993 to 1997.
Signed,
The Roman Catholic Caucus
Mothers March on AIDS
I am a mother who lost her daughter to AIDS in 1991. I have been running the
Candlelight Vigil in Greenwich Village every year on the Friday night of Gay
Pride weekend. It is an expression to honor the dead and support the living.
It is very important to get the word out because the media is allowing
people to think it's over and I am still going to memorials all the time. I
need to get the word out. Can I advertise this very important event on your
site? Thank you.
Beverly Rotter
AIDS Origins
While Dr. Alan Cantwell, Jr.'s, suppositions and hypotheses regarding the
origin of AIDS and the alleged misninformation/disinformation on the origin
coming from major media writers may be entirely accurate, as a gay man with
AIDS I can only respond, "Yeah? So, who gives a shit?"
I have AIDS. Whether the virus came from an interspecies leap from monkeys
to humans; or was the result of polio vaccine inadvertantly contaminated
with AIDS DNA from monkeys, or even (as some have claimed) is a
biological-warfare agent that somehow got away from the CIA's "black budget"
mad scientists, does not matter at all to me. It's like spending time
arguing whether Mrs. O'Leary's famous cow started the great Chicago Fire or
not. The city burned anyhow, and the productive thing to do was to forget
about assigning blame and rebuild fire-ravaged Chicago. Such is true also
with AIDS.
 Dr. Alan Cantwell: Continues to question AIDS-origin theories |
I cannot imagine anyone who might benefit in any way from this argument
except for the Trial Lawyers Association, which would be only too thrilled
to assign blame, bring a gigantic class-action lawsuit, and walk off with
the lion's share of a multibillion-dollar settlement. Those of us with AIDS
would get a check for a few hundred or a few thousand dollars, and we'd
still have AIDS. What does that solve? |
I am especially annoyed to see this questionable argument advanced by an
M.D. When I have a medical problem, I want my doctor to address the
problem -- NOT to pound me with rhetoric about who is to blame for the cause
of the problem. Especially when there is often no way to assign
responsibility, and furthermore no point in doing so. Arguing over exactly
why the barn burned down, after the barn is a heap of smoking rubble, is
beyond pointless -- it's absurd.
I can only hope that Dr. Cantwell is spending more time helping people with
AIDS than he is advancing a questionable and pointless argument about the
genesis of the epidemic!
Sincerely,
Teddy Snyder
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Pen Points
