What in the world is happening?... The story of a gay couple's child being expelled/kicked out of a Denver Catholic School is another example of the church's hypocrisy...
Long story short (as I hate being too religiously opinionated):
Twenty-some years ago I got married (yes to a woman, and it was legal) for the second time in my life. I had two sons by my first wife, and she (the 2nd) had a daughter from her first marriage... Since we had both been married (the first time) in the (Catholic) church, we chose a more informal way to tie the knot the second time, as neither of us elected an annulment... Fast forward several years: Our children together are ready to enter school... Our local parish had a k-8 school attached to it and the Miami-Dade County Public School System was not the best in our area, so the logical conclusion was to enroll them in the Catholic School, as we had already agreed to raise them in our familiar faith...
We were informed by the Pastor of our parish, that "Even though you both are married outside the church" they would be happy to accept my son and daughter (and our money and required volunteering) into the school. He also suggested to both of us, seriously considering getting an annulment from our first marriages and renewing our vows in the church, in order to be recognized, and allowing us to receive the sacraments weekly...
We talked about it some, and then introduced the idea to our older children, incouraging their input... The unanimous response was: "Would this make us Bastards?" and yes, by then they all knew what the word actually meant... We "back-paddled" and never considered the idea again... Fast forward several more years... After my heart attack in February 2005 (also about the time I knew I could not continue living the lie of me being straight) the pope, John Paul II, released a statement about the priests, here in the US, that had be caught with their pants down (so to speak), saying that those priests would be forgiven, as they all knew what they had done was wrong, unlike those that had been married in the church, divorced and remarried outside the church, and the gays/lesbians that know that they are living in sin every day... WTF? The priests are good-to-go? and the GLBT and remarried straight folks will be damned? That was the last time I ever stepped foot into a Catholic Church (other than as a guest at someone's wedding)...
So much for short, sweet and un-opinionated... NO CHILD should ever be rejected for the opinions or lifestyle of their parents. A lesson I learned and am re-learning today...
Besides the story itself, I found this cool document:
Enlarge and read... It's good stuff!
Over and "Out" from a day off in Portsmouth, VA
4 comments:
WWJD.......no really what would he do. Nothing Roman Catholic I venture to guess.
First let me be clear, I'm an atheist. Have been since I was a teenager and even before then at the tender age of 8 I realized that it was all bovine effluent.
But I am a product of 12 years of Catholic schools for my elementary and high school years. I elected to attend a private non-religious university.
Those first 12 years occurred just after the Vatican II reforms. And it was in full force in both elementary and high school. E.g. plain clothes nuns and priests (The Christian Brothers of St. John the Baptist de La Salle tended to not change their uniform black suit with the white collar tab, or the black gown with dual white rectangular boards.)
But it was a fully liberalized theology too. If they'd have stayed that way they probably would have eventually accepted gay people, and not seen the decline in the priesthood they're seeing now.
I'm none the worse for it, in fact I understand the social justice thing very well.
But then Catholics got that evangelical nightmare John-Paul II. How I wish that assassin had cleaned his clock.
And I wish similar for Benedict XVI too, that he be deposed or forced to resign over this abuse scandal that is blooming in Europe right now.
If I had kids, they'd go to Catholic schools but they'd get a strong counter-dose of atheism at home.
I think the churches around here don't really give a crap if you're gay so long as your money is green and has little pictures of dead presidents on them. With the high school tuition rubbing against $12,000 a year you can understand their reluctance to refuse a student.
Hell, friend of mine is gay as a goose and teaches at a Catholic school.
I'm here via Bossy's link and thought I'd share a similar experience to yours with the catholic church.
I was raised Anglican and my husband Catholic. We went shopping around the faiths to decide which church to be married in. As we were being married in my hometown, my Anglican church won out. My mother in law encouraged us to go to her catholic church to "have our rings blessed". Upon hearing our decision to have the ceremony in the Anglican church, the Catholic priest strongly recommended we have a validity ceremony. That really upset me. Are they trying to say that our marriage isn't valid? We walked out of that church and needless to say, no validity ceremony took place.
Funny side note: the pope died on my wedding day. Literally at the same time I was walking down that beautiful Anglican aisle.
I came here via Bossy. I saw this story somewhere a couple weeks ago. I was mortified. Jesus hung out with lepers and whores but children of lesbians aren't good enough? What about not putting the sins of father on the children?
Post a Comment
Thanks for leaving your Comments, I love them all: