Tolerance and love, Catholic style

I’ve always had issues with the Catholic Church. Its actions continually speak more eloquently than anything I could say. For example, did you hear about the children who were kicked out of Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic school in Boulder, Colorado, last week because their parents are lesbian?

I’m still aghast over this. What difference does it make if the parents are lesbian? Do you punish the children for the perceived sins of the parents?

The parish priest defended his decision as protecting the children and parents “from the necessary conflict that their relationship would bring to a clear-seeing and committed Catholic community.”

“It is not about punishing the child for the sins of his or her parents,” he wrote. [Oh, really?] “It is simply that the lesbian couple is saying that their relationship is a good one that should be accepted by everyone; and the Church cannot agree to that.” [They aren’t just trying to get a good education for their kids?]

How narrow-minded. How judgmental. How appalling that this man and his church would punish the children because he thinks he knows the mind and intent of the parents.

The parents chose the school because both of them were raised in the Catholic faith and attended Catholic schools. Their children were baptized in and attend Sacred Heart church. Understandably shocked and hurt, they remain in seclusion but released a statement yesterday that said, in part:

“There are divorced parents, children of parents born out of wedlock, non-Catholics and non-practicing Catholics. Their eligibility has not been questioned. There seems to be a subjective rating system of which sins are more unacceptable.”

“Perhaps our biggest objection to the school’s decision is that we think that it is wrong to punish a child for who the child’s parents are. We do not think this reflects what Jesus would have done.”

Those parents live in one of the most liberal, tolerant, open-minded cities in the country and still they face crap like this? From a church — a church! — that can’t even solve its own problems with homosexuality, pedophilia, and the sexual abuse of children?  How dare a church run by celibate priests presume to know, judge or teach others about sex, love, marriage, and intimate personal relationships!

The hypocrisy of it all makes me sick.

8 thoughts on “Tolerance and love, Catholic style

  1. Hypocracy is believing one thing and doing another. The Church believes that homosexuality is wrong, and that a marriage is between a man and a woman. This comes from the word of the Lord, not from a celibate priest. If the parents (I use that word advisedly) were really Catholic, they would know what the Church teaches and obey it. The Church teaches that it’s ok to have same-sex attraction, but it’s not ok to act on it. Obviously that’s the major malfunction here. Also, they’re teaching their children that living a gay lifestyle is ok. According to their religion, it’s not.
    Divorce is not a sin in the Catholic Church, remarriage without a prior annulment is. Children who are born out of wedlock, the question is, are the parents married now? By this decision, the church is not punishing the children. There are plenty of places for the children to attend school.
    For your information, the church is solving it’s problems, most of which were caused by the attitudes in the world affecting those who are chosen to not be of the world. How dare the world try and dictate to God what they think sex, love, marriage, and intimate personal relationships should be. We serve God, not the other way around.
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    How dare the Catholic Church, or any other, presume to know the mind of God.

    1. Because the Catholic Church was instituted by God in Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit. Because we know the Bible for what it is…the Word of God.
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      I see. The Catholic Church is unique and infallible — just like all the other churches in the world.

  2. pied type, the handle of your life is not broke. you took the handles off yourself. If you lost your handle, ask for it back.

  3. Hi, just dropping by to say some things. I’m a Catholic myself, but I’m totally shocked to know that Catholics outside my country (an Asian) are very hard. It’s not that there is no rules for Catholics here, but it’s not that they’ll do something that harsh, either. So I think, even as a religious group, Catholics are also different in different parts of world.
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    I certainly hope this is true. The kind of narrow-minded, judgmental intolerance displayed in Boulder should not be visited on the world.

    1. What do you have to say about the act of trying to drive a wedge into the church and make it accept lesbian relationships as normal?? Other than you think they should be, of course. It’s narrow minded and judgemental to point your finger at the church and say that they’re narrow-minded and judgemental. 🙂
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      This church baptized and accepted those children. Seems to me a double standard to allow them in church but not in school. And nobody is asking the church to accept the lesbian parents. It’s being asked to accept and educate the children (who had no say in who their parents are).

      1. If the Church did baptize them, then the individual priest did so against the rules of the church, which is not an unusual thing. There are priests that don’t do what’s required, but that’s not the children’s fault. Can you know for sure they were baptized? Usually, when a request for baptism comes, the priest talks to the parents to find out if they are practicing Catholics and if not, requires them to be before allowing their child to be baptized.

        When a parent enrolls a student in a private school, the parent is required to live by certain rules of the school. In this case, it’s the basic tenents of Catholicism. The point is to have the parents help raise the children Catholic. Some schools take non-Catholic kids for financial reasons, but this is less the case in a grammar school.

        Your statement about the kids having no say in who their parents are or how they act is very true. It’s a shame for a child to have a drug addict mother, or an abusive father, or a transsexual one. All the more reason for parents not to act like that. Even better, homosexual parents shouldn’t be having children. It’s the Church’s perrogative to keep the faith whole and intact.
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        I linked the parents’ statement in the post. They explain in detail about their own Catholicism, their children’s baptisms, and their children’s enrollment at the school.

... and that's my two cents