by Fr. Marty Kurylowicz - Revised on July 17, 2009
Important note: I mean no disrespect to Pope Benedict XVI or the hierarchy, the one and only concern is the safety and well-being of children. Kids are being hurt!!!
The Achilles’ heel is the fact the sexual orientation begins very early in life either just before birth or shortly after and it remains resistant to change throughout a person’s lifetime. Like with Galileo the documentation is overwhelmingly supportive of this fact. This one fact alone totally destroys the very foundation of the Vatican’s teachings on homosexuality. Because an infant’s preference of attachment to another human being and that infant “acting on that preference” cannot be thought of as “intrinsically evil,” “intrinsically disordered,” or are such actions to be “condemned.” Nor is it even humanly possible to think that for the rest of that infant’s life, he, she is never to be held, to be embraced or to fall in love and to be one with another human being, ever! Nor to be told in some way, which is beyond all human comprehension, for life to “sublimate one’s sexuality,” which is a great risk to the psychological well-being of anyone. See related articles
Sexual orientation is less about sex and more about love …
“An illustration of the process of the Vatican's Achilles' heel of the teachings of homosexual orientation that renders them null and void.”
From the movie "Stars Wars “A New Hope” the Empire’s indestructible Battle Station (the Vatican's teaching on sexual orientation) has one small weakness. Its’ defenses are designed around a direct large-scale assault (adults) but not for a small one-man fighter (children), which was not considered to be a threat. The weakness is a target area only 2 meters wide and only a precise direct hit will start a chain reaction that will destroy Battle Station. The one-man fighter is this one fact, a small piece of truth that sexual orientation is set very early in a person life, long before for the Vatican's arbitrary set "age of reason" and it remains resistant to change. With the promulgation of the erroneous teachings of the Vatican regarding homosexual orientation – Kids are being hurt!!! View video clip 152,684
The Vatican never considered children to be a threat, as proven by their failure to protect children for decades regarding the global sexual abuse cases. Now again, the Vatican, Benedict XVI and the hierarchy have failed to take in the well-being of children regarding their teachings of sexual orientation and gender identity.
President Obama is wise to say he is conflicted by Christian teachings regarding LGBT issues and other aspects, (because he is not alone) before he meets with Benedict XVI. President Obama and Mrs. Obama will be meeting with the authoritative leader of the Roman Catholic Church, not the authoritarian leader. This means that Benedict XVI should be able to explain in great detail all the documentary evidence regarding human sexuality, which is backed by leaders in the field. Benedict XVI should be able to supply President Obama and Mrs. Obama with detailed facts that make sense about human sexuality. The Obamas are intelligent people, both are respected lawyers who have shown great compassion for all human beings, particularly children. The Obamas, as major world leaders will be most interested in all that Benedict XVI has to offer on human sexuality. Benedict XVI is to mirror the example of Christ who is the great teacher, not the great dictator. LGBT issues will not be addressed, because this a diplomatic visit of good will, out of respect and nothing more. However, the Obamas will be a "breath of fresh air" as they grace the Vatican with their visit. They will bring a sense of "new life," human warmth and profound respect to the Vatican during their time with Benedict XVI.
Christ is protective of children and gave stern warnings to see that children are not harmed. Even if, the Vatican, Benedict XVI and the hierarchy pay no heed to Christ's warnings to protect children many world leaders have and have taken great risks to do so. Thank you in the name of Christ. After Benedict XVI's chilling Christmas message 2008…
I think in truth on a much deeper level I was frightened, really frightened, to hear Pope Benedict XVI’s Christmas remarks against homosexuals and transgendered human beings and even more frightened by the silence from the larger global community of human beings. What is so frightening is, even if there is agreement that one person does not matter or is not important, in truth then no one matters. Read more AUSCHWITZ
However, I was so surprised that slowly but firmly many world leaders came forth, as well as, major medical and mental health professional associations and organizations to express their objections to Benedict XVI’s statements related to human sexuality.
Since, the beginning of 2009, many world leaders made appointments of openly gay people to high political offices, USA, France, Belgium, Iceland, others and some gay people in high offices acknowledged their sexual orientation, Spain. The Obamas have been supportive even through these historical hard economic times more than any other presidential administration. A significant gesture was the invitation of LGBT youths to work at the White House. For years the Episcopal Church has led the way, as well as, many other Christians churches regarding the love and acceptance that Christ has for all LGBT people, as well as, many of other faiths. The Episcopalians continue their struggles starting this week "Marching to Anaheim" with Rev. Susan Russell leading the way along with many others. We pray the best for them because their successes will be for us all. Then for us in the USA, this year President Obama begins by dedicating June 2009 to Gay Pride, another unprecedented event made by a USA President. Throughout many of the Gay Pride Parades in the USA and globally major political leaders, and major entertainment celebrities have joined in. The Obamas held a reception at the White House at the end of June 2009 for many of our LGBT leaders and LGBT Veterans commemorating Stonewall’s 40th Anniversary. These people I am eternally indebted to for my “coming out” alive. Then the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown, and his wife, Sarah, host a private reception for the London’s Gay Pride leaders, at 10 Dowling Street. Stunned and left speechless by this overwhelming outpouring of world leaders’ support, acknowledgment and respect for many of our LGBT leaders and workers. Then as if coming out of a surreal experience, realizing that it is truly the “Sarah Brown” with a beaming smile, leading London’s Gay Pride Parade 2009. Wow!!! Can this really be happening!?! What a remarkable women! Her quiet reserve demeanor takes public attention off her rich example of humanitarian work that seems endless. Thank you Sarah Brown, and to all our world leaders for the risks you took for all LGBT people, their parents, families and friends, but most especially for very young children all around the world. You will not be forgotten by millions of people, people who you will never meet. Those of us who are of the Christian persuasion, we know that Christ promised heaven to those who cared for those who the world wrongly considers to be the least among people. For me the terrible fright I felt at Christmas 2008 by Benedict XVI chilling words against homosexuals and transgender persons and the silence of the global world melted away, quite unexpectedly, by this outpouring of human empathy.
We have a ways to go yet for civil rights for LGBT people, the safety and well-being for all LGBT children and people, Marriage Equality, but at least we seem to be moving in the right direction. Hope burns brighter thanks to the endless efforts of our LGBT leaders and organizers globally, who are managing to get world leaders to be publicly supportive for LGBT civil rights. J.K. Rowling describes this kind of renewing human empathy, so well in her Harvard Commencement Address, June 5, 2008. J.K. Rowling speaks of her early days, in her 20’s working at Amnesty International in London. She begins by telling us first of the importance of "imagination."
…Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
...I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them… I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.
Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments…
I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.
And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.
Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.
Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.
And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.
Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.
Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.
Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.
And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.
I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.
What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy. Read complete address (video) of J.K. Rowling - HARVARD MAGAZINE 41,552
The one and only concern is for the well being of children. The movie “Prayers for Bobby” 2009 (video) was too unbearable to watch in its entirety for me, though our situations were different the experience of the confusion, isolation, and depression were in many ways too similar. It was quite difficult to re-experience even a little bit of those painful feelings long forgotten. And the thought to allow any child to go through that kind of needless pain and suffering goes against everything we know God to be. 111,862
Victims of abuse become the Aggressors
Doing to others what was done to them as children
Benedict XVI (Cardinal Ratzinger) was around 10 years old living in Germany, when Hitler came to power and immediately began his attacks against homosexuals. As a child, Benedict XVI witnessed and would have been traumatized by this inhuman attack against homosexuals being quickly and quietly disposed of by Hitler’s men. This would have made Benedict XVI, as a child, a victim of violent abuse living through this massive form of inhuman treatment of other human beings. As well as, a victim of an inhuman form of neglect abuse, because no one tried to stop this inhumanity from happening. From psychology it is known that the victims of child abuse, as adults are likely to become the aggressor committing the exact same crimes against others that were committed against them as children. Benedict XVI seems to have recreated the same horror of Hitler’s extermination of homosexuals. As Cardinal Ratzinger, Benedict XVI’s investigations beginning in the late 1970’s were constant and extensive, an endless obsession tracking down those who were speaking the truth about homosexuality. Benedict XVI's period of his inhuman inquisition lasted well over some 30 years and is still ongoing. All Benedict XVI’s tactics were done behind closed doors silencing these people, similar to Hitler’s tactics of disposing of human beings. Anne Frank: The Whole Story 2001 Captured 83,486 - 87,676
Think of how many millions of children and adults would have lived healthier more productive lives and others not being killed, prevented others from taking their own lives and others from being physically abused, if Benedict XVI did not prevented the truth about homosexuality from being made known. The only difference from Hitler and Benedict XVI form of violence against humanity was that Hitler’s was an explicit form of violence and Benedict XVI’s was implicit form of violence against humanity, which is even more sadistic and inhuman. The cardinals, bishops and Vatican staffers under the authority, first of Cardinal Ratzinger, then later as Benedict XVI resemble the Gestapo the official secret police of Nazi Germany under Hitler’s dictatorship. After Hitler’s death, at the end of WWII all these people who carried out his atrocities were arrested, others hunted down and all were convicted of war crimes. They were not excused by making the statement “I was only following orders.” This will also not work for the many people in the Church either, the many who go to church every Sunday. They will be held responsible for their silence and apathy, which is a form of collusion that is evil, because by it “Kids are being hurt!!!”
Human goodness at its’ best is brighter than all the stars in the heavens and more beautiful than all the sunrises and sunsets put together. The power of human love is beyond any known force on earth, to heal, give life, restore hope becoming a part of something greater than one’s self. This kind of human goodness is needed because “Kids being are being hurt.” A tough movie but some great scenes caring about and working with kids - Kindergarten Cop 9476 - 9242
Divert Contributions - Making A Difference for Children
Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. Matthew 21: 43
"Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering." Luke 11: 52
The quickest way to see results regarding the Vatican, Benedict XVI, the cardinals and bishops is to withhold all contributions, until immediate changes are made. That open discussions are held by the Vatican of the best and the brightest theologians and scientists and professional researchers and practitioners regarding human sexuality. Withhold all contributions except of course, for institutions specifically for children, the elderly and the sick. It would also be a great time to insist on transparency in all accounting, a word quite foreign to the Vatican, Benedict XVI, the cardinals and bishops. Do not settle for anything less, we are talking about protecting children, regrettably another concept quite foreign to the Vatican, Benedict XVI, the cardinals and bishops.
However, this does not mean that we keep the money we would have given in contributions, because we as Christians are responsible to care for the poor and those in need. And today, with our economy that is terrible globally there are a lot of people in need, losing their homes, having no food or health care, etc. There are plenty of people in need of our help even in our families and neighborhoods. Also, on the Thalamus Center there are listed on the left hand side of this blog a number of organizations for children that need our support. The Family Acceptance Project - Dr. Caitlin Ryan of San Francisco State University is a research project about LGBT children growing up. They can most definitely use our donations and it would be putting our money where it could do the most good. There are a number of organizations like PFLAG and Fortunate Families that can use our donations. There are numerous Religious LGBT groups who are also listed on the left side of this blog like Dignity and Integrity and many other denominations and of various religions. Also, there are local LGBT Community Centers who are always in need of donations and most all work with LGBT youths.
It is sad that the only time the Vatican, Benedict XVI, the cardinals and bishops will move is when money is involved. Only after numerous victims of sexual abuse started class action lawsuits did the Vatican moved, most regrettable they did not move out of concern for the children.
by Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
Revised on July 17, 2009
Important note: I mean no disrespect to Pope Benedict XVI or the hierarchy, the one and only concern is the safety and well-being of children.Kids are being hurt!!!
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