Joseph Carmel Chetcuti, North Carlton, Victoria, Australia
The Church's attitude to gays
Joe Borg's admission (The Sunday Times, March 21) that a number of "Church people" have often discriminated against (and also persecuted) gays is interesting.
I wonder whether his misrepresentation of my study of homosexual life in Malta and his assessment of it as not academic (it has 22 pages of footnotes) is yet another example of discrimination by a "Church person" against a gay scholar. Or his claim that I described St George Preca as having a repressed sexuality when in fact I wrote that he was fiercely misogynist, that kind of misogyny that can find its source in repressed sexuality?
Or the impression created by him and others that I branded St Paul a homosexual when it was John Shelby Spong, emeritus Episcopalian bishop of Newark (USA), who so described him? Or his allegation that I equated homosexuality with paedophilia, which I deny?
Fr Borg nowhere states that the book describes St Preca as an exemplary priest who refused honours, disdained popularity and turned down photo opportunities. Or that I praised his work as an evangelist and a pioneer in Catholic catechesis. That St Preca was a misogynist is well known; no attempt to rewrite history will change that.
Fr Borg chastises me for having a negative attitude towards the Church. What cheek! What about the Church's negative attitude towards gays and lesbians?
How sensitive is the Church's description of our sexuality as "a grave depravity" and of homosexual acts as "intrinsically disordered" and of our 'inclination' as "objectively disordered"? And I wonder why Fr Borg is so negative of Queer Mediterranean Memories? Is there anything good in the book?
The gay movement does not need a Catholic priest to tell it what is good for it. Gays and lesbians form a heterogenous community. We take up various positions on a range of subjects. We agree to disagree because we are mature.
Not unlike the bishop of Rome, that of Gozo seems to be preoccupied with homosexuals and homosexuality. He no doubt has his reasons.
The good bishop has accused me of having a malicious agenda which includes discrediting the Church. I am sure the good bishop has many gifts. I was not aware he was able to read into the minds of people.
With all due respect, the discrediting of the Church is being undertaken by those inside the Church who abuse minors entrusted to their care and by those ordinaries who repeatedly conceal, or are party to these abuses.
I am heartened by the bishop's assurance that he will act if he becomes aware of abusive priests within his diocese. Does this action include the reporting of such abusers to the police? Will he and the archbishop tell us what has happened to those priests who have been charged with various offences against minors?
The bishop's allegation that I am throwing mud at the Pope's white frock is indeed hilarious. What an interesting choice of words; but how apt.
I accept that the book may throw doubt on the professions of the priesthood and the religious life and may help explain why some young men and women may seek to enter them. I also appreciate that the good bishop will not agree that a link exists between the rise of the gay and lesbian movement and the dearth of 'vocations' to the priesthood and the religious life.
As an activist homosexual I have a right not only to set out what I think but also to explain why the Church is so antagonistic towards gays. What has upset the bishop is that what I submit is all too obvious.
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Joe Xuereb
Mar 31st 2010, 11:02
@ Meli, do you have to make it so obvious that, in your rage, you failed to understand a word of what I have to say?
Joseph Meli
Mar 30th 2010, 20:56
@JOE XUEREB: The main point to my reply was just because Mr. Chetcuti stated about the Church this statement "What cheek! What about the Church's negative attitude towards gays and lesbians?" and from the reports extracts that I quoted clearly indicated what sort of help and assistance the Church is always ready to help.
In fact the Pope's report clearly stated in its' document that “No one should give moral justification to their act, but they should be given a helping hand to over come these condition's Sacred..Scripture they are condemned as a serious depravity and even presented as the sad consequence of rejecting God. In fact the report also clearly stated "“they can be treated with understanding and in the hope to overcome their difficulties.” Therefore, what or how Mr. Chetcuti
accused that the Church is "antagonistic towards gays,'" is quite wrong and was misleading readers against the Church.
Joe Xuereb
Mar 30th 2010, 00:53
2) The whole spectrum of human sexuality generally referred to as the Human Condition. Terrifying. Inescapable. Affects us all. If you haven't noticed that is. It is one of the demons, if not THE demon, that we ALL struggle with all our lives. Everybody. Everybody needs to understand their drives and seek help of necessary. Most don't. They just sugar their pill by any number of addictions. Get it?! I can not put it simpler than this.
If the main accusation directed at homosexuals is that being intrinsically disordered they do not procreate may I be allowed to point out that most of the time, anywhere, congress - what a word! - between a man and a woman does not have procreation as its final goal. And that is where Smith and Meli could redirect their pontifications. Scapegoating is too old-fashioned and transparent in these days of wide knowledge and up-frontship.
@Joe Borg. If upholding your religious end is so important - I have no reason to believe that Chetcuti is exaggeratedly indignant - why do you, in a Malta with a dwindling birth-rate, assert that Muslim leaders should build as many mosques as they deem necessary? http://www.timesofmalta.com/blogs/view/20090509/fr-joe-borg/should-there-be-more-mosques-in-malta
Joe Xuereb
Mar 30th 2010, 00:30
1) I well remember a RE class in my youth when the teacher, a priest, mentioned the manner in which babies are created and the agony, and the contortion on his face is still with me to this day. Disgust? Sin? Woman as representation of all this is sinful? Misogyny? It was all there.
Another time a Mr. Burgess, our English teacher, started to talk to us growing boys about 'the birds and the bees'. He cut himself short saying, 'I feel uncomfortable'. There were some pupils from outlaying villages, boys from good families, who were giving him peculiar looks of admonishment. Their 'piety' deprived me of my first sex lesson. Everybody's loss. I hope they're in heaven, or getting there.
@Meli, Smith. Homosexuals are perceived as non-procreative (which is not so - that is that out of the way). So it is easy to single them out as 'intrinsically disordered', given to evil ways, etc. And easy to feel, as a heterosexual person, as having been let off the hook. But wait! I have some bad news I'm afraid. Homosexuality is only one spectrum of the wider spectrum that is human sexuality.
cont./
Joseph Meli
Mar 28th 2010, 15:00
In..a..Church document..it..states that.......“a distinction is drawn, and it seems with some reason, between homosexuals whose tendency might..come from false..education, from lack of normal sexual development, from habit, from bad example, or from other similar causes, and is transitory or at least not incurable; and they are definitively such because of some kind of innate instinct or a pathological constitution judged to be incurable.” Yet, it explains “they can be treated with understanding and in the hope to overcome their difficulties.” So unless we consider these fact, one should study the dangers that this could pose to our faith and to society. Comments... Considerations..& Proposals during a..Pope..Audience..Pope John Paul II on 28 March, 2003
Pope's document states “No one should give moral justification to their act, but they should be given a helping hand to over come these condition's Sacred..Scripture they are condemned as a serious depravity and even presented as the sad consequence of rejecting God. That is why God left them to their filthy enjoyments and the practices with which they dishonor their own bodies since they given up Divine truth for a lie and have..worshiped and served creatures instead of the Creator, Who..is..blessed..forever.
John Smith
Mar 28th 2010, 12:43
We also all know that man is split within...himself. As a result, all of human life, whether individual or collective, shows itself to be a dramatic struggle between good..and..evil, between light and darkness and this attitude is getting widespread..coverage..locally too and Xarabank is the waiter that offers us this on their silver plate regarding the darkness..attitude of such type of..persons, but then we cannot pre-judge such persons but they are being..exposed.
Indeed, man (and women too) finds that by themselves they are not incapable of battling the assaults of evil successfully, so that everyone who feels as though they are bound by such chains need to be helped But are we helping them ? Would they like to be helped ? Such help is available in the Catholic Church, but are they accepting it ?
But then remember that the Lord Himself came to free and strengthen man, renewing him inwardly and casting out that “dark prince of this world” [John 12:31] who held him in the bondage of sin since "homosexuality acts" is known to be a...sin. [Second Vatican Council – Dogmatic Constitution of the Church: Chapter 1 No: 8 AAS 57]
John Smith
Mar 28th 2010, 12:42
“No one should give moral justification to their act, but they should be given a helping..hand to over come these condition's Sacred..Scripture they are condemned as a serious..depravity and even presented as the sad consequence of rejecting God.
Since man's freedom has been damaged by sin, only by the aid of God's..grace can he bring such a relationship with God into full...flower. So before the judgment seat of God each man must render an account of his own life, whether he has done good or evil..[Hebrew Chapter 13: verse 14]
Although the particular..inclination of the..homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself...must be seen as a objective disorder. Therefore one expects that special..concern and pastoral attention should be directed towards those who have this..condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally accepted option, but in fact it is not and we are in oblidged to..help them more than..ever.Section 3 Para 2 Letter to the Bishops from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger[PresentPOPE][1st October, 1986 & approved by Pope..John II]