Then There's The Catholic Church...

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Bishops Back Guidelines Urging Gay Celibacy
By NEELA
BANERJEE
Published: November 14, 2006

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 —The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops voted
overwhelmingly today to support initiatives based on traditional teachings that
call for gay and lesbian Catholics to remain celibate and for married Catholics to reject artificial contraception.

At a semi-annual meeting in Baltimore, the United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to adopt guidelines aimed at
clergy members and others who provide pastoral care to gay men and lesbians.

The guidelines welcome gay people, but they also affirm church
teachings that “homosexual inclinations” are inherently disordered. While having such inclinations is not sinful, gay sexual activity is, according to the core teachings. The guidelines, called “Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination,” passed by a vote of 194 to 37. They also speak out against same-sex marriage and adoptions by gay men and lesbians.

DignityUSA, an advocacy group for gay Catholics, said the new
guidelines would further alienate gay people from the church. Bishop Arthur J.
Serratelli of Paterson, N.J., chairman of the doctrine committee, which
developed the guidelines, acknowledged Monday that the committee did not consult
with gay men and lesbians on the document.

“It’s really disappointing,” Sam Sinnett, president of DignityUSA, said
of the new guidelines. “At some point, the bishops have to realize that they
speak in willful ignorance about what homosexuality is and about sexuality in
general. They have to decide if they are moral teachers or simply employees of
the Vatican.”

The bishops also adopted “Married Love and the Gift of Life,” which is
meant to explain church teachings about contraception for engaged and young
married couples.

The document, approved by a vote of 220 to 11, asserts that artificial
contraception introduces a “false note” into a marriage and has led to a decline in respect for life in society. Catholics use birth control to the same extent as other Americans; only 4 percent, according to the document, use natural family planning, the type of birth control backed by the church.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., said Monday that gay
Catholics who are not celibate and married Catholics who use artificial
contraception should not receive Holy Communion.
Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, which supports the use of artificial contraception, said the bishops’ policies on sexuality did not offer reliable
guidance for most Catholics.

“Heterosexual Catholics, married and unmarried, understand that the
responsible exercise of their sexuality includes the use of contraceptive
methods that the church forbids,” Ms. Kissling said in a statement. “Almost no
one is looking to the bishops for guidance on contraception, sexuality and law
making, and if the bishops continue making pronouncements such as those issued
this week in Baltimore, they will find themselves increasingly isolated.”

The emphases are mine. The prohibitions against birth control also crack me up. Considering this institution gave us the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Immaculate Conception, and the torture of Galileo Galilei, why am I not surprised?

Oh, yeah. Then there's the coverup of the priests-as-sexual-predators scandals. Can't forget that.