David Berger, an expert on St Thomas Aquinas and former publisher of a Catholic magazine, has called for Rome to own up to the gay priests in its midst and alter its attitudes and teaching on homosexuality.
“It must be acknowledged that a large number of Catholic clerics and trainee priests in Europe and the United States are homosexually-inclined,” Mr Berger told Der Spiegel magazine.
“The worst homophobia in the Catholic Church comes from homophile priests, who are desperately fighting their own sexuality,” he said. “Obviously, those who follow their urges are repudiated more fiercely when one is so painfully repressing that disposition oneself.”
…Mr Berger “came out” in April after the Bishop of Essen, Franz-Josef Overbeck, described homosexuality as perverse and a sin during an appearance on a television chat show.
As a gay man in a long-term relationship, he said he had suffered for years under the homophobic atmosphere in the church.
Read complete article:
'A Large Proportion of Catholic Clerics and Trainee Priests Are Homosexual'
November 22, 2010 – Spiegel International
David Berger, 42, was Professor of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. The theologian published and edited Theologisches (Theological Issues), a conservative Catholic monthly magazine in Germany from 2003 until this year, and had contacts with various arch-conservative groups within the Catholic Church. He resigned from all his offices after outing himself as a gay man in April 2010. He is now a high school teacher and has written a book about his experiences in the Catholic Church in Germany. "Der heilige Schein. Als schwuler Theologe in der katholischen Kirche" (The Holy Appearance: A Gay Theologian in the Catholic Church), was recently published by Germany's Ullstein Verlag. It has not been published in English.
Read complete interview:
Pope OKs Condoms
in Some Cases, Such as Prostitutes Avoiding HIV
by David Gibson,
November 20, 2010 – Politics Daily
In the book, the pope also confirms that gay men, even if chaste, cannot be priests and says they should not reveal their sexual orientation if they have already been ordained…
Regarding the presence of gays in the priesthood, a topic of much debate, the pope takes an unusually hard line, saying homosexuals cannot be ordained even if they are chaste because gay men do not sacrifice marriage as straight men do. "And the persons who are affected" with homosexuality, he says, "must at least try not to express this inclination actively, in order to remain true to the intrinsic mission of their office."
Read complete report:
Pontifical Academy of Sciences ...had direct discussions with John Paul but” – not with Benedict XVI … refuses to discuss controversial topics such as contraception… November 5, 2010 – FoxNews.com
Homophobia Is Killing Our Youth
by Jason Mannino
April 17, 2009 - Huffington Post
Gay Marriage & Galileo:
Pope described as …"so averse to anything intellectual that everyone has to play dense and ignorant to gain his favor"
The Trial of Galileo - by Douglas O. Linder (2002)
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY (UMKC) SCHOOL OF LAW
Dehumanization – “The Lucifer Effect”
by Philip Zimbardo (2007)
The Lucifer Effect:
Understanding
How Good People Turn
Evil
By Philip Zimbardo - Stanford University
“Rather than providing a religious analysis, however, I offer a psychological account of how ordinary people sometimes turn evil and commit unspeakable acts.” http://www.lucifereffect.com/index.html
Dehumanization
At the core of evil is the process of dehumanization by which certain other people or collectives of them, are depicted as less than human, as non comparable in humanity or personal dignity to those who do the labeling. Prejudice employs negative stereotypes in images or verbally abusive terms to demean and degrade the objects of its narrow view of superiority over these allegedly inferior persons. Discrimination involves the actions taken against those others based on the beliefs and emotions generated by prejudiced perspectives.
Dehumanization is one of the central processes in the transformation of ordinary, normal people into indifferent or even wanton perpetrators of evil. Dehumanization is like a “cortical cataract” that clouds one’s thinking and fosters the perception that other people are less than human. It makes some people come to see those others as enemies deserving of torment, torture, and even annihilation.
In this section, we will examine three forms that dehumanization has taken: Nazi Comic Books against the Jews; Faces of the Enemy—world-wide propaganda images of the “enemy,” and “trophy photos” of American citizens posing with African Americans who had been lynched or burned alive—and then portrayed in post cards mailed to family and friends.
Nazi Comic Books
Hitler’s “final solution” of genocide of all European Jews began by shaping the beliefs of school children through the reading of assigned texts in which Jews are portrayed in a series of increasingly negative scenarios. At the end of these lessons in civics or geography, we see the “reasonable” discriminatory actions that Germans should take toward Jews…
Read complete report:
The Power of Norms and Groups on Individuals:
Parallels Between the Stanford Prison Experiment
and
Milgram’s Obedience Research
By Philip Zimbardo - Stanford University
Whenever I enter an office-building elevator, I automatically turn and face front, do not make eye contact with other passengers, stop talking or speak only in hush tones to a companion. Are these my personal preferences or idiosyncrasies? Hardly, since most people in most elevators behave similarly. Those actions tell you little about me but a lot about the unspoken rules of public elevators. Why do we do it? Unlike signs forbidding us to smoke or advising us what to do in case of a fire, nothing in any elevator says we should act in these strange ways. Our behavior is under the control of unwritten social rules, implicit norms, which govern appropriate elevator demeanor.
We can test if such situational rules are in silent force by violating them and seeing what our own and others' reactions will be. The reactions will be either of distress or laughter at the apparent violation of these unwritten expectations. One of the most popular scenarios in the long history of Alan Funt's ingenious Candid Camera programs is "Face The Rear." An elevator is rigged so that after an unsuspecting person enters, four Candid Camera staff enter, and one by one they all face the rear. The doors close and then reopen; now revealing that the passenger had conformed and is now also facing the rear. Doors close and reopen, and everyone is facing sideways, and then face the other way. We laugh that these people are manipulated like puppets on invisible strings, but this scenario makes us aware of the number of situations in which we mindlessly follow the dictates of group norms and situational forces.
Social norms are expectations shared by the members of a group about appropriate ways to behave in given situations. Norms are the potential "pressure" in situations that: help to define the nature of social reality; form the foundation upon which people base their interaction; and provide a common referent for members' self-evaluation. By means of these mechanisms, norms increase feelings of personal and group identity…
Faces of The Enemy
What does it take for the citizens of one society to hate the citizens of another society to the degree that they want to segregate them, torment them, even to kill them? It requires a ‘hostile imagination,’ a psychological construction embedded deeply in their minds by propaganda that transforms those others into “The Enemy.” That image is a soldier’s most powerful motive, one that loads his rifle with ammunition of hate and fear. That image of a dreaded enemy threatening one’s personal well-being and the society’s national security emboldens mothers and fathers to send sons to war, and empowers governments to rearrange priorities to turn ploughshares into swords of destruction.
View Slides:
Read complete report:
Dehumanization – “The Lucifer Effect” by Philip Zimbardo (2007) | BENEDICT XVI & BISHOPS - Child Sexual Abuse COVER-UPS & Implicit Child Abuse of LGBT Children
Lessons from the Stanford Prison Experiment
By Sylvia Clute,
October 3, 2010 - OpEdNews
Many years after the Stanford Prison Experiment (see Punitive Justice Distilled: the Stanford Prison Experiment), Philip Zimbardo wrote a book called The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. In it, he considered the larger ramifications of the 1970s college project that was designed to differentiate between what people bring into a prison environment from what the prison environment brings out in the people who are there.
As he considered the larger perspective, he attributed the descent into depravity of the normal, emotionally healthy college students who participated in the experiment to the cultivation of an ecology of dehumanization. (Zimbardo, 223) The most important lesson learned was that when good people do terrible things, it is the outgrowth of systems that provide the necessary institutional support, authority, and resources for such acts to be perpetrated.
The torture and inhumane treatment perpetrated by otherwise normal American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq war is an example cited by Zimbardo of how an ecology of dehumanization turns good people into monsters. Another is the slaughter of more than five hundred Vietnamese women, children, and elderly men by American soldiers at My Lai during the Vietnam War. He cites many others. Zimbardo posits a question which, he notes, is rarely asked:
"Who or what made it happen that way?" Who had the power to design the behavioral setting and to maintain its operation in particular ways? Therefore, who should be held responsible for its consequences and outcomes? Who gets the credit for successes, and who is blamed for failures? (Zimbardo, 226)
…Zimbardo points out that it is not always easy to pinpoint the culprits. An ecology of dehumanization is often cloaked in ideology that justifies the conduct as necessary to attain an ultimate goal. The ideology permits those up and down the chain of command to present destructive conduct as a highly valuable moral imperative, and many become involved in its implementation. As the ideology becomes widely accepted and opposition is silenced, the procedures are condoned, justified as reasonable and appropriate. (226.)
Read complete report:
POWER OF SOCIAL NORMS
Sexual orientation is not the only continuum that makes up the complexity of human sexuality, there are others. However, allowing the powerful effects of social norms that are ignorant about human sexuality to continue out of fear only perpetuates the harm to generation after generation. The powerful strength of social norms to influence a person or a whole group of people should not be underestimated, as demonstrated by this video clip from Allen Funt's "Candid Camera." Social norms can be so powerful that they can get entire groups of people to agree to go against truth and logic. This video clip is quite humorous. But it is not humorous the kind of serious harm caused to very young children and the life threatening situations even death to many others that is promulgated and perpetuated through the ignorance and fear of social norms not based on truth and facts regarding complexity of human sexuality. Read more
THREATS, SILENCE, HARM AND DISPOSAL of Catholic Personnel Supportive of LGBT Adults and Children - Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s Directives To Hierarchy
[Unsubstantiated] --- RELIGIOUS BELIEFS that gay and lesbian relationships are SINFUL or INFERIOR to heterosexual relationships
HARM gays and lesbians.
Judge Vaughn Walker Ruling
California Prop 8. August 4, 2010
On Prop 8, it's the evidence, stupid
By Lisa Bloom
CNN.com
and related links:
Catholic school paper deletes student editorials on Catholic DVD, gay teens
November 16, 2010 - Minnesota Public Radio
St. Louis Park, Minn. — A student newspaper at a suburban Catholic school has sparked a debate over free speech by criticizing a Catholic DVD and defending gay teens. The DVD denouncing same-sex marriage was sent by Minnesota's Catholic bishops to parishioners prior to the Nov. 2 election.
The student newspaper of Benilde-St. Margaret's in St. Louis Park deleted two student editorials over the weekend and shut off the online comments.
The Knight Errant student newspaper published a news story last Thursday about the bishops' "Preserving Marriage in Minnesota" DVD.
But it was the two editorials that accompanied it -- and the online comments they inspired -- that created the uproar. One staff editorial challenged the bishops' arguments against same-sex marriage and called the DVD "unsubstantiated."
Senior Bernardo Vigil helped write the piece.
"We did expect a little bit of a pushback from that, which there was. A lot of the comments were 'this shouldn't have been published, this is a Catholic school,'" Vigil said.
But the op-ed that touched off the cyberstorm was editor Sean Simonson's piece, "Life as a gay teenager."
Read / listen complete report:
400,000 Anti-gay marriage DVDs - $1 million Nienstedt - Minnesota October 29, 2010 - RELIGION & ETHICS PBS – video (NP)
“Priest banned from writing"
It Is Okay To Be Irish – But Just Don’t Act On It!?! –
– by Patsy Mcgarry,
November 13, 2010 – The Irish Times
GAY YOUTH CATHOLIC SILENCING | The student newspaper editorial Benilde-St. Margaret's doesn't want you to see - By David Brauer, November 15, 2010 – MinnPost.com
UNIDENTIFIED - Internalized Homophobia
Devastating, and Horrific Consequences On Innocent Children
PERPETUATING GENERATIONS HATRED & VIOLENCE ---
Vatican’s MALE PROSTITUTES | “Pope Benedict endorses condom use — for male prostitutes only” By The Associated Press, November 20, 2010 – Raw Story
Pope Benedict XVI says in a new book that condoms can be justified for male prostitutes seeking to stop the spread of HIV, a stunning comment for a church criticized for its opposition to condoms and for a pontiff who has blamed them for making the AIDS crisis worse. Read more:
MALE PROSTITUTES | Pope: Condoms to stop AIDS may be OK in some cases – November 29, 2010 - msnbc.com
Vatican Asking For Male Prostitutes
“Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.”
Though you drive Nature out with a pitchfork, she will still find her way back.
The Vatican was today rocked by a sex scandal reaching into Pope Benedict's household after a chorister was sacked for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for a papal gentleman-in-waiting.
Angelo Balducci, a Gentleman of His Holiness, was caught by police on a wiretap allegedly negotiating with Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, a 29-year-old Vatican chorister, over the specific physical details of men he wanted brought to him. Transcripts in the possession of the Guardian suggest that numerous men may have been procured for Balducci, at least one of whom was studying for the priesthood.
The explosive claims about Balducci's private life have caused grave embarrassment to the Vatican, which has yet to publicly comment on the affair.
While Catholicism does not condemn homosexuality outright, its teaching is that homosexual acts "are intrinsically disordered". The Catechism of the Catholic church states unequivocally: "Under no circumstances can they be approved."
Balducci was arrested on 10 February, suspected of involvement in widespread corruption. A senior Italian government official, he is alleged to have to steered public works contracts towards favoured bidders. He has not been charged.
Read complete article - by John Hooper – quardian.co.uk
Related links:
Gay Prostitution Probe Rocks Vatican - 2 Officials At Center Of Investigation In What Officials Call An 'Organized' Male Prostitution Ring – CBS NEWS
Vatican chorister hired escorts for papal attendant: Report - Montreal Gazette
Pope embarrassed by Vatican gay sex scandal - By GayNZ.com
The Church and Gays: Can't Decide Whether to ""Love" 'Em" or Leave 'Em?" - By Jodi Jacobson, Editor, RH Reality Check
“Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.”
Though you drive Nature out with a pitchfork, she will still find her way back. MW
White-Hot 'Outrage'
Over The Capitol Hill Closet
May 9, 2009
National Public Radio (NPR)
The Psychology of the Closeted
Individual and Coming Out
In contemporary gay culture, to hide one sexual identity is referred to as either “closeted” or “in the closet.” Revealing oneself as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) is called “coming out.” 16 Paradigm • Fall 2007
by Jack Drescher, M.D.
Many LGB individuals report developmental histories with difficulty acknowledging their homosexuality, either to themselves or to others. This is because, starting in childhood, LGB individuals are often subjected to antihomosexual attitudes, not only from strangers, but also from their own families and communities (Drescher, Stein and Byne, 2005). The childhood need to hide may persist into adulthood, leading many LGB individuals to conceal important aspects of themselves.
There are a range of homosexual identities that describe an individual’s awareness and acceptance of same-sex attractions. Closeted individuals cannot acknowledge homoerotic feelings, attractions and fantasies to themselves. They cannot or will not integrate homosexuality into their public personae and these feelings must be dissociated out of conscious awareness.
If and when same-sex feelings and attractions are no longer completely dissociated, an individual becomes homosexually self-aware. Such individuals may acknowledge some aspect of their homosexuality to themselves. However, accepting the feelings is not a pre-determined outcome. A religious, homosexually self-aware woman may choose to remain celibate rather than integrate her religious and sexual identities…
Sullivan’s (1956) theories of dissociation elaborate how a sexual identity can be separated from the rest of one’s persona. For example, selective inattention is a common, nonpathological process, akin to tuning out the background noise on a busy street. In more intense dissociative mechanisms, double lives are lived yet not acknowledged. One sees clinical presentations of closeted gay people lying somewhere between selective inattention, most commonly seen in the case of homosexually self-aware patients thinking about “the possibility” that they might be gay, to more severe dissociation –in which any hint of same-sex feelings resides out of conscious awareness. More severe forms of dissociation are commonly observed in homosexually selfaware married men who cannot permit themselves the thought of coming out (Drescher, 2006).
To hide significant aspects of the self, or vigilantly separate from each other, can be painful. Constant hiding creates difficulties in accurately assessing other people’s perceptions of oneself as well as recognizing one’s own strengths. Dissociation’s impact on self-esteem can also make it difficult to feel one’s actual accomplishments as reflections of one’s own abilities. Transparency, invisibility, losing one’s voice, being an outsider, etc. are some of the terms used to describe the subjective experience of dissociative detachment (Drescher, 1998).
Read complete research:
Jack Drescher, MD, is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City.
Dr. Drescher is a leader in his profession. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and served as a Consultant to APA’s Committee on Public Affairs. He is a member of the DSM-5 Workgroup on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders. He is a past Chair (2000-2006) of APA’s Committee on GLB Issues and a Past President of APA’s New York County Branch. He is currently the Co-Editor of AppleSource, the newsletter of the NYC DB of the APA. He is President-Elect of the Group for Advancement of Psychiatry, and a Past Trustee of both the Accreditation Council for Psychoanalytic Education and the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry. He is a member of numerous distinguished psychiatric, medical and scientific organizations, including The American College of Psychiatrists and the New York Academy of Medicine.
Read more:
"Angels In America"
(2003)
Playwright Tony Kushner adapts his political epic about the AIDS crisis during the mid-eighties, around a group of separate but connected individuals.
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is a play in two parts by American playwright Tony Kushner. It has been made into both a television miniseries and an opera by Peter Eötvös…
As the seven-hour play progresses, Prior is visited by ghosts and an angel who proclaim him to be a prophet; Joe finds himself struggling to reconcile his religion with his sexuality; Louis struggles with his guilt about leaving Prior and begins a relationship with Joe; Harper's mental health deteriorates as she realizes that Joe is gay; Joe's mother, Hannah, moves to New York to attempt to look after Harper and meets Prior after a failed attempt by Prior to confront Hannah's son; Harper begins to separate from Joe whom she has depended upon and find strength she was unaware of; and Roy finds himself in the hospital, reduced to the companionship of the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg and his nurse, Belize, a former drag queen and Prior's best friend, who meanwhile has to deal with Louis's constant demands for updates on Prior's health.
Read more:
I'm His Child
Zella Jackson Price
Memorable quotes “Angels in America”
Joe Pitt: Stop it! Stop it! I'm warning you! Does it make any difference that I might be one thing deep within? No matter how wrong or ugly that thing is so long as I have fought with everything I have to kill it? What do you want from me? What do you want from me Harper, more than that? For God's sake, there's nothing left. I'm a shell. There's nothing left to kill. As long as my behaviour is what I know it has to be, decent, correct that alone in the eyes of God.
Joe Pitt: All I will say is that I'm a very good man who has worked very hard to become good and you wanna destroy that. You wanna destroy me but I am not gonna let you do that.
Hating Gays:
An Overview of Scientific Studies
by Gregory M. Herek
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)
…It frequently is assumed that feelings of personal threat result in strong negative attitudes toward homosexuality, whereas lack of threat leads to neutral or positive attitudes. This perspective often is associated with the term homophobia, and it derives from a psychodynamic view that prejudiced attitudes serve to reduce tension aroused by unconscious conflicts.
Attitudes are likely to serve a defensive function when an individual perceives some analogy between homosexual persons and her or his own unconscious conflicts. Subsequently, that person responds to gay men and lesbians as a way of externalizing inner conflicts and thereby reducing the anxiety associated with them. The conflicts specific to antihomosexual prejudice presumably involve a person's gender identity, sexual object choice, or both. For example, unconscious conflicts about one's own sexuality or gender identity might be attributed to lesbians and gay men through a process of projection. Such a strategy permits people to externalize the conflicts and to reject their own unacceptable urges by rejecting lesbians and gay men (who symbolize those urges) without consciously recognizing the urges as their own. Since contact with homosexual persons threatens to make conscious those thoughts that have been repressed, it inevitably arouses anxiety in defensive individuals. Consequently, defensive attitudes are likely to be negative… - International Day Against Homophobia
Read complete article:
Neurotic, hysterical, schizophrenic:
the psychology of Hitler
By Charles Bremner,
April 3, 2005 – Times Online
ADOLF HITLER was a narcissistic bully in thrall to a dominant father and with a neurosis about women, according to a newly disclosed psychological analysis drawn up for US intelligence during the Second World War. Photo
Based on the theories and language of the time, the 1943 evaluation by Dr Henry Murray, director of the Harvard Psychological Clinic, accurately forecast Hitler’s suicide in his bunker in 1945.
Drawing from an array of wartime sources, Murray’s 240-page typewritten report depicted Hitler as a feminine boy who was obsequious towards superiors and displayed homosexual tendencies. His sense of grievance over his own humiliation led to his cruelty and policy of mass slaughter.
The profile was commissioned by General “Wild Bill” Donovan, head of the Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA. One of only 30 copies was found recently by Cornell University in its Nuremberg Trials archive and put on its law school internet site.
Read more:
Hate Crime Bill vs Attacks
But No Facts -> Fear And Ignorance
Of The Blind Leading The Blind
October 27, 2009 – Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
The bible in fact does not condemn Galileo or homosexuality, which science reveals that are normal elements of nature and human sexuality.
People for whatever reason seem to be using the bible to hide from their own personal sexual issues. This is a sacrilege! It is a total disrespect for the bible to be used to hide and harm innocent people, most especially children. These people do not check out the facts about the bible and science on homosexuality, because in truth they do not want to know the truth. Even in discourse with people who believe that homosexuality is evil because they say the bible states it to be, as with Galileo, they are not interested in a discussion, they do not want to hear the truth. They only want to discredit the truth, in every conceivable way, by whatever means available to them. They are likely doing what they have been doing all their lives regarding their personal fears about the truth of their sexuality. There is nothing to be gain to be in discourse with such people. In fact, they should be avoided, because they are harmful. Because no matter what they say or how violently they say it, it will not cause the sun to revolve around the earth or for homosexuality to be evil. Photo
ATTACKS and absolutely NO FACTS
from the
BIBLE or SCIENCE
It is a waste of time for you and for them, besides being seriously harmed by their "unchecked meanest" towards others. If and when they do their homework and truly study both the bible and the science regarding homosexuality and human sexuality then there could be a productive discourse. Otherwise, there are no discussions with them; only continuous personal attacks on the person who opposes them that are fierce, cruel and hurtful. Likely, in the way they treat themselves, which may have started when they were treated in such fashion, in their past.
Even Jesus advised leaving them because, as he said, "they are the blind leading the blind" Matthew 15:14. And it is these people who are worried that their freedom of speech will be curtailed, by the new additions to the Hate-Crime Bill. It is only their ability to remain in darkness that is being curtailed, which is greatly more fearful to them, than their concerns about their freedom of speech. They have attacks but absolutely no facts, all motivated by fear and a self-imposed ignorance of the facts. This is the same for Benedict XVI and his hierarchy you never hear any stated facts regarding human sexuality. None!!! They offer absolutely "no" discussion or classes on the topic of human sexuality. None!!! They offer no detailed documentation regarding human sexuality from the bible or science. None!!! Because they know only too well that it would not be approved by scripture scholars or by any scientific studies. Where is the truth, not to mention the LOVE?
Their attacks are likely meant to be distractions to stay off the issue, because any attempts to keep them on the issue are met with fiercer and even more vicious attacks, but no facts, like an obsession. They seem to be like a child throwing a hysterical tantrum, however, unlike a child, they are able to cause serious harm to innocent people. It is this violence that the Hate-Crime Bill is designed to protect people from.
It is the intensity of their forcefulness to attack others without any substantiated facts to support their position that draws public attention to question their sexuality. It is like so many public figures who so forcefully have spoken out against homosexuality and then are found in "public restrooms" engaging in homosexual acts. Today, not only are more people "coming out" of the "closet" but there is an enormous ever growing number of Allies supporting LGBT people and their civil rights. It is the continuous education on human sexuality that keeps this number growing strong. However, it is also becoming more noticeable when someone protest too much against homosexuals with the absence of factual data to support the protesting that catches peoples attention and causes people to wonder, why? What causes this person to protest so strongly, because no valid facts are given?
What should be top priority is the life harm that is caused to children, who grow up LGBT and sadly it is not even considered of any importance. The Bible is about Love the purest form of Love known. The Bible is not about permission to hate, to remain blind or to harm people, especially very young children.
Posted: October 27, 2009
Related links:
Pontifical Academy of Sciences ...had direct discussions with John Paul but” – not with Benedict XVI … refuses to discuss controversial topics such as contraception… November 5, 2010 – FoxNews.com
Gay Marriage & Galileo:
Pope described as …"so averse to anything intellectual that everyone has to play dense and ignorant to gain his favor"
The Trial of Galileo - by Douglas O. Linder (2002)
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY (UMKC) SCHOOL OF LAW
GAY YOUTH SUICIDE | BENEDICT XVI & BISHOPS Child Sexual Abuse Cover-ups – Negligence Protecting (1) Children & (2) LGBT Children | Family of Rutgers suicide victim lends name to bill – November 19, 2010 – CNN
Professor's view: Witch hunt
for gay priests off base
when target
should be child abusers
By: Iver Bogen,
University of Minnesota Duluth - Duluth News Tribune
Pope Benedict XVI in August 2005 ordered an investigation of America’s 229 Catholic seminaries in order to eliminate gay seminarians. The week of Sept. 27, Vatican investigators began the “witch-hunt” at the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis. The question posed to the students: “Are you, or have you ever been, a homosexual?”
The investigation was reminiscent of the house arrest of Galileo in his home near Florence from 1633 until his death in 1642 for espousing the Copernican heliocentric view of the universe. The church does not suffer “heretical” thinking well and is extremely slow in altering its doctrines to be consistent with scientific progress as well as changes in cultural mores regarding acceptable human behaviors… photo
… It is my belief the Catholic Church’s focus on gay priests is merely a strategy for affixing blame and is consistent with its historical antipathy toward homosexuality and same-sex behaviors. However, research in the area of child sexual abuse suggests that pedophilic intrusions occur preponderantly with heterosexual males rather than gay men. It is not one’s orientation that is predictive of pedophilia. According to Dr. Nathaniel McConaghy, “The man who offends against prepubertal or immediately postpubertal boys is typically not sexually interested in older men or women.”
Being immature psycho-sexually, these men find themselves responding sexually to other males who also are immature. One’s orientation is not predictive of pedophilia. Read complete article - By: Iver Bogen, University of Minnesota Duluth - Duluth News Tribune
Gay Marriage - WITCH HUNTS ->The Crucible (1996) -> McCarthyism 1940’s -1950’s, -> Benedict XVI 2005
"Impending rules on gay priests create Catholic divide"
by Charles Honey – October 8, 2005
The Grand Rapids Press
When the Rev. Martin Kurylowicz came out to his Sparta parish eight years ago, he said he had struggled for years with his homosexuality.
The Catholic priest says the struggle would be made harder for many others if the Vatican issues new rules that reportedly would ban gays from becoming priests…
…"I sizzled when I read it," said Kurylowicz, 55. "It's very hurtful, is what it is. In this day and age, there's no reason for it. It sends a message that there's something wrong with gays."
Kurylowicz said he spoke out then to raise awareness of violence against gays and teach others homosexuality is not a choice but an inborn trait. Church leaders still don't understand that and contribute to gays' poor self-esteem, he said…
…"Kids as young as 4 or 5 know they're different," said Kurylowicz, a psychotherapist… "They grow up with this pervasive guilt, which sabotages their growth and motivation." The result is thousands of dollars in therapy to accept their natural orientation, he said, adding, "Does the Vatican want to take that on, like the tobacco industry had to take on for the damage it caused consumers? "…
Read complete article:
by Charles Honey - Religion Editor
The Grand Rapids Press – Archives
Why Bother About Homosexuals?
Homophobia and Sexual Politics in
Nazi Germany (2002)
by Geoffrey J. Giles
Why should the Nazis bother about homosexuals? After all, some of the most loyal supporters of the Nazi movement were homosexual, and Hitler refused to condemn the sexual preference of Ernst Röhm, even after it featured prominently in the opposition’s campaign against the Nazis in 1931. Tolerance for homosexuals had increased in Germany during the first three decades of the twentieth century to the extent that an open gay culture flourished in cities such as Berlin in the 1920s, and parliament seemed well on the way to abolishing §175, the clause of the penal code dealing with homosexual offenses.2 So why bother about them? First, because Nazi opposition to this emancipation sought to appeal to the conservative backlash that the Nazis wished to co-opt.
BENEDICT XVI & BISHOPS - Child Sexual Abuse COVER-UPS
“What the Pope Knew”
Gary Tuchman,
September 25, 2010,
CNN & CNN International
(Investigative documentary)
video
Read more/related links:
Priest says he was pressurised into taking blame for pope
– by PADDY AGNEW, DEREK SCALLY and PATSY McGARRY
4/19/10
Priest says he was bullied into taking fall for Pope in abuse scandal
- The Local – 4/18/10
Germany’s News In English – read more
Ratzinger & Vatican
“They did as much as they had at each point in time given the public outcry, and no more.”
Katrin Bennhold – 4/27/10
The New York Times – read more
“…the church must … end its campaign to block the weak and the vulnerable from receiving help to deal with the consequences of criminal sexual abuse.”
By Lawrence Lessig – 4/26/10
The New York Times – read more
Hurricane Katrina - Nancy Pelosi - Washington, DC – 2005
& Accountability
Benedict XVI Child Sexual Abuse
Who Can Mock This Church?
By Nicholas D. Kristof
May 1, 2010
The New York Times
Roman Catholic - hierarchy child sexual abuse
“cover-ups”
ordered by Benedict XVI
to avoid public outrage & criminal charges
- falsely accused gay priests - WATERGATE?
No “Checks and Balances”
A major problem with the hierarchical structure of the Roman Catholic Church is that there are no “checks and balances.” When the necessary “checks and balances” are not in place to protect any organization, it leaves “not making waves” the rule that governs the hierarchy and opens the way to many devastating mistakes harmful to everyone and allows corruption to grow.
The following statements are harsh statements, but unfortunately they are heavily documented. (1) Benedict XVI and his hierarchy failed to protect children from child sexual abuse for decades. (2) They mistreated and intimidated the victims and their families who came to report the child sexual abuse, in order to cover up publicity of any child sexual abuse. (3) They failed to protect children by repeatedly reassigning the child sexual abusers to assignments where children would be present. (4) When the hierarchy’s criminal negligence failing to protect children became public, globally, in 2002 they shifted the blame wrongfully onto gay priests.
Read complete report:
Child Protection Service of the Archdiocese of Dublin http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PB09000504
(5) By falsely, against known research to the contrary, blaming gay priests they implicated the entire LGBT community and how they are fighting against Marriage Equality. When the scientific facts known for decades about human sexuality have been discounted with no substantiated facts given to explain why, it causes many questions whether Benedict XVI and the hierarchy’s fight against Marriage Equality is more a fight to maintained the cover-up of the hierarchy’s criminal negligence failing to protect children? Benedict XVI and his hierarchy need to clearly offer substantiated reasons why they are against Marriage Equality. This statement needs to be spelled out in great detail and follow Pope John Paul II’s test of truth of not separating science and religion. (6) Benedict XVI and the hierarchy’s continuous public propaganda against homosexuality encourages public intolerance towards LGBTQ&I adults and children. They continue to do this even though this summer 2 major Christian denominations approved LGBT singled and partnered people for all forms of ordained ministries. (7) Benedict XVI and the hierarchy’s continuous promulgation of the Vatican’s unsubstantiated antigay teachings that are harmful to children in their early childhood psychological developmental years, harm that is crippling throughout their lives. They have continued this even after the beginning of the year, 2009, the Family Acceptance Project research studies had shown the negative effects caused to youths, when their sexual orientation is not accepted, having health problems, suicidal ideation, etc. They ignore all the major medical, psychiatric, psychological and social workers national and international professional associations regarding their findings regarding human sexuality and sexual orientation. WHEN DO WE START PROTECTING CHILDREN?!?!
Written by Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
July 2010
President of the United States
United States Congress
United States Supreme Court
50 United States Governors
Dear -- --------,
My name is Fr. Marty Kurylowicz, a Roman Catholic priest from the Diocese of Grand Rapids Michigan ordained June 16, 1979.
In March 1997, after attending a National Symposium of the New Ways Ministry that was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I learned that children as young as 4 and 5 years of age know that they are different. This feeling "different" is only identified in their adult years as being gay. However, the harmful influence of antigay social and religious norms -- in particular, for Catholics, the Vatican’s unsubstantiated antigay teachings -- are severe and last throughout a child’s lifetime. The harmful effects are not isolated only to these children who grow up to be gay, but also affect their families, siblings, friends and anyone whom they might consider special in their lives. They are a prescribed societal sentence of implicit isolation, which place at risk of suicide so many innocent adolescents and young adults. They stifle an enormous amount of human potential in the world that otherwise could be put to use for finding cures for diseases, offering better ways of maintaining peace among people and improving the quality of life for everyone in the world.
Gay Marriage - “SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE” Does Not Give Churches Or Benedict XVI - The Freedom To Abuse Children or Adults. July 2010 - By Fr. Marty Kurylowicz http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/09/gay-marriage-separation-between-church.html
GAY YOUTH SUICIDE | BENEDICT XVI & BISHOPS Child Sexual Abuse Cover-ups – Negligence Protecting (1) Children & (2) LGBT Children | Family of Rutgers suicide victim lends name to bill – November 19, 2010 – CNN
Protecting Children from the Church's Abuse Of Power
by William F. McMurry
November 19, 2010 – The Huffington Post
The world continues to watch with genuine interest as the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church parades masks of contrition before the media, in an effort to convince the faithful that the Church has turned the corner on the clergy sexual abuse crisis. On Nov. 19, a gathering of Cardinals from every corner of the Church's influence will convene in Rome at the request of the Supreme Pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI. This meeting of Cardinals will include a discussion about the Vatican's response to sexually abusive priests…
This week, as the most powerful officials of the most politically influential religious organization in the world gather to discuss the Church's response to the priest sexual abuse scandal, the stark contrast between those with power and those with none could not be more profound. The Church continues to operate in complete secrecy, without any governmental oversight or accountability. This confluence reminds me of Lord Acton's most famous quote regarding the corruption inherent in power. Most readers will know this oft-quoted phrase, but few, if any, will know that Lord Acton was speaking of the Pope when he wrote the following in a letter to Mandell Creighton in 1887:
“I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did not wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.”
Until the governments of our world wrestle the power over children away from religious organizations operating in secrecy and without accountability, justice will remain an elusive butterfly.
Read complete report:
A cartoon
guide to sexual orientation
by Dr. Brian Mustanski,
January 26, 2009 – Psychology Today
A cartoon explains why some people are gay.
Ever since we published the first genetic scan for male sexual orientation, one of the most frequent questions I get asked is "why are people gay." While I have done my best to share information about the science of sexual orientation (this blog being one example), I am not an animator so I haven't explored cartoons as an option. Fortunately, I don't have to now because a cartoon recently posted on YouTube does a fairly good job. The video tries to take on two of what I like to call "the big three arguments against gay people." If you listen to enough anti-gay rhetoric you will find it usually comes down to at least one of the following statements, "I don't believe in it, its unnatural, it's a choice." Watch the video and then let me fill in some of the details from research on sexual orientation.
The video starts out with theories about parental influences on sexual orientation, like having a distant father or overbearing mother making a man gay. In fact, this was a theory put forward by some Psychologists and Psychiatrists. It was also used to explain why some people were schizophrenic. Eventually it was disproved in both cases. For example, in the 1970 researchers at the Kinsey Institute conducted a large survey and found no support for the idea that these kinds of parental influences made children gay (Bell, Weinberg, & Hammersmith, 1981). In the 28 years since that book was published there hasn't been any credible evidence showing that any kind of parental behavior changes the sexual orientation of their children.
Read complete report/ view video:
“KNOW YOURSELF”
JOHN PAUL II
ENCYCLICAL LETTER
FIDES ET RATIO
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
JOHN PAUL II
TO THE BISHOPS
OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
ON THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN FAITH AND REASON – September 15, 1998
Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8-9; 63:2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2).
INTRODUCTION
“KNOW YOURSELF”
1. In both East and West, we may trace a journey which has led humanity down the centuries to meet and engage truth more and more deeply. It is a journey which has unfolded—as it must—within the horizon of personal self-consciousness: the more human beings know reality and the world, the more they know themselves in their uniqueness, with the question of the meaning of things and of their very existence becoming ever more pressing. This is why all that is the object of our knowledge becomes a part of our life. The admonition Know yourself was carved on the temple portal at Delphi, as testimony to a basic truth to be adopted as a minimal norm by those who seek to set themselves apart from the rest of creation as “human beings”, that is as those who “know themselves”.
Moreover, a cursory glance at ancient history shows clearly how in different parts of the world, with their different cultures, there arise at the same time the fundamental questions which pervade human life: Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life? These are the questions which we find in the sacred writings of Israel, as also in the Veda and the Avesta; we find them in the writings of Confucius and Lao-Tze, and in the preaching of Tirthankara and Buddha; they appear in the poetry of Homer and in the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles, as they do in the philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle. They are questions which have their common source in the quest for meaning which has always compelled the human heart. In fact, the answer given to these questions decides the direction which people seek to give to their lives…
(29) “[Galileo] declared explicitly that the two truths, of faith and of science, can never contradict each other, 'Sacred Scripture and the natural world proceeding equally from the divine Word, the first as dictated by the Holy Spirit, the second as a very faithful executor of the commands of God', as he wrote in his letter to Father Benedetto Castelli on 21 December 1613. The Second Vatican Council says the same thing, even adopting similar language in its teaching: 'Methodical research, in all realms of knowledge, if it respects... moral norms, will never be genuinely opposed to faith: the reality of the world and of faith have their origin in the same God' (Gaudium et Spes, 36). Galileo sensed in his scientific research the presence of the Creator who, stirring in the depths of his spirit, stimulated him, anticipating and assisting his intuitions”: John Paul II, Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (10 November 1979): Insegnamenti, II, 2 (1979), 1111-1112.
Read complete Encyclical Letter:
Fides Et Ratio
Of The Supreme Pontiff
John Paul II http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html
“Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.
Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.”
Faith can never conflict with reason The 'Galileo case' teaches us that different branches of knowledge call for different methods, each of which brings out various aspects of reality. http://www.its.caltech.edu/~nmcenter/sci-cp/sci-9211.html
“There are no irreconcilable differences
between science and faith”
PopeJohn Paul II
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man. - William Shakespeare
Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. - Luke 6:40-42
Ricky Martin on Coming out and Coming Into His Own
- By Nekesa Mumbi Moody AP,
November 3, 2010 – ABC News
"What, am I gonna teach them how to lie?”
Ricky Martin
Ricky Martin reveals he ‘cried like a baby’ after coming out
– November 2, 2010 – PinkNews.co.uk
Ricky Martin has told Oprah Winfrey about the moment he decided to announce he was gay.
The Puerto Rican star posted a message on his website declaring himself to be a “fortunate gay man” but says he broke down in tears afterwards.
He said: “When I realised, okay, I just pressed send, whoo… I was alone.
“I was in my studio alone for a minute. My assistant walked in and I just started crying like a little baby. I started crying.”
The 38-year-old said he decided to be open about his sexuality to set a good example to his twin sons, Valentine and Matteo, two.
He said: “I couldn’t take it anymore, it was too painful.
“But I guess the most important thing is my children… When I was holding them in my arms I was like, ‘What, am I gonna teach them how to lie?’ Whoa, that is my blessing right there. Then, when I was holding my children I said, ‘Okay, it’s time to tell the world’.”
Read more:
Ricky Martin cried 'like a baby' after revealing his sexuality
– November 2, 2010
CNN.com
Pope Benedict to Beatify a
Gay Saint?
A Conservative Icon? Maybe Both
by David Gibson – September 18, 2010
Politics Daily
…"It is not good for a Pope to live 20 years," Newman once wrote of the long-lived Pius IX. "It is an anomaly and bears no good fruit; he becomes a god, has no one to contradict him, does not know facts, and does cruel things without meaning it."
Such frank talk about the failings of the hierarchy tended to make Newman a champion of liberal Catholics -- a courageous man who wrote about the "development of doctrine" in the church at a time when the Vatican was projecting an image of unceasing continuity. He also disagreed strongly with the church's adoption of the doctrine of papal infallibility, and famously wrote that if pressed, he would drink "to Conscience first and the Pope afterwards." Photo
…Complicating all the interpretations is the fact that Newman had an extraordinarily close relationship with another English Catholic, Father Ambrose St. John, who had died in 1875, leaving Newman bereft -- and giving today's gay Christians an icon of their own.
"I have ever thought no bereavement was equal to that of a husband's or a wife's, but I feel it difficult to believe that any can be greater, or any one's sorrow greater, than mine," Newman wrote at the time of his friend's death. "From the first he loved me with an intensity of love which was unaccountable." And elsewhere: "As far as this world was concerned I was his first and last."
Sexual orientation - Internalized Homophobia -
“Auschwitz – Benedict XVI - Christmas 2008 -A flashback far more severe than in Brokeback Mountain”
GAY TEENAGE SUICIDE - Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
Nothing in life is more precious than the intimate relationships we have with love ones. Healthy love relationships delight us give us confidence to take on challenges and support us in difficult times. Photo
Gay marriage -> Restoring
"Hope of Love"
To Children In Early Childhood -> Marriage Equality
March 23, 2010 – by Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
Marriage Equality, like Galileo, is the truth about the facts of growing up gay. Marriage Equality will not become a reality until people learn that its most vital purpose is that it restores the “hope of love” to children in early childhood – essential to their development and well-being for life. Without Marriage Equality we teach children how to hate love and how to be mean and indifferent to people as adults. With all due respect, without Marriage Equality we would teach them in much the same way as has been shown by Benedict XVI and the hierarchy, especially in their lack of care and protection of children for decades.
Galileo
Biblical quotes used to Condemn Galileo
Ecclesiastes 1:5 (New International Version)
5 The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.
Ecclesiastes 1:5 (New American Standard Bible)
5 Also, the sun rises and the sun sets; And hastening to its place it rises there again.
1 Chronicles 16:30 (New International Version)
30 Tremble before him, all the earth!
The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.
1 Chronicles 16:30 (New American Standard Bible)
30 Tremble before Him, all the earth; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved.
Psalm 93:1 (New International Version)
1 The LORD reigns, he is robed in majesty;
the LORD is robed in majesty
and is armed with strength. The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.
Psalm 93:1 (New American Standard Bible)
1 The LORD reigns, He is clothed with majesty; The LORD has clothed and girded Himself with strength; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved.
Psalm 96:10 (New International Version)
10 Say among the nations, "The LORD reigns."
The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved;
he will judge the peoples with equity.
Psalm 96:10 (New American Standard Bible)
10 Say among the nations, "The LORD reigns; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved; He will judge the peoples with equity."
Psalm 104:5 (New International Version)
5 He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.
Psalm 104:5 (New American Standard Bible)
5 He established the earth upon its foundations, So that it will not totter forever and ever.
Read more:
Protecting Children by education about Human Sexuality.
There is a scene in an old TV series called “All in the Family” where Edith Bunker is experiencing menopause and she does not know what is happening to her. Edith’s daughter Gloria is explaining to her the symptoms of menopause. Edith feels bad that her daughter has to tell her about menopause. Photo
Edith expresses her frustration and sadness about her lifetime lack of knowledge about human sexuality.
“When I was a young girl, I didn’t’ know what every young girl should know. Now, I‘m going to be an old lady, and I don’t know what every old lady should know.” Edith Bunker – video clip
“All in the Family - Edith’s problem (TV episode 1972 #2.15)”
Edith is not alone even today. Much of the opposition to same sex marriage is likely to a great degree related to feelings and confusion about many aspects of human sexuality exactly like Edith, on the part of millions of people, for women as well as for men, everyone. However, Ignorance about human sexuality is extremely harmful to children.
“Someday,
maybe, there will exist a well-informed, well considered and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of
all possible sins is the mutilation of a child’s spirit.”
…whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Photo
Matthew 18:6
Protect children and the entire world will be safe.
Important note: No disrespect meant to Pope Benedict XVI or the hierarchy, the one and only concern is the safety and well-being of children.
Kids Are Being Hurt!!!
Angels In America
[Official HBO Trailer]
I'm His Child
Zella Jackson Price
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