Bishop obeys govt order to remove Catholic school teaching on sinfulness of homosexual acts
The Catholic Diocese of Whitehorse has obeyed an order by the Yukon government to remove Church teaching on the sinfulness of homosexuality from its policy on pastoral care for same-sex attracted students in its publicly-funded Catholic schools. Critics have pointed out that even in the title of the new policy, the ‘truth’ has been removed.
The original policy contested by the government was called 'Living with Hope, Ministering by Love, Teaching in Truth.' The new policy title reads: ‘One Heart: Ministering by Love.’
The original policy, published in the spring of 2012, sparked opposition from media, homosexual activists, and some citizens in the town of 20,000 last spring because it expounded the Catechism’s teaching that homosexual acts are “gravely depraved” and the homosexual inclination is “objectively disordered.”
The controversy culminated in then-Minister of Education Scott Kent sending a letter to Whitehorse Bishop Gary Gordon in which he effectively told the bishop that Church teaching on homosexuality was barred from publicly-funded Catholic schools because it violates the equality provisions of Yukon law.
Bishop Gordon, who also serves as the diocese’s religious education director, agreed to draft a new policy, which he released in July.
The new draft is facing criticism from faithful Catholics, because, while it stresses forcefully the Church’s teaching that homosexual persons should be treated with respect, it is completely silent about the immorality of homosexual activity.
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Bishop Gary Gordon is portrayed as “obeying” the government with his One Heart alternative to Yukon Education’s scandalous “Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity” policy. At the same time he is denounced by parents who regard the alternative as a manifesto of hatred. All while the Yukon government continues to pressure him to conform to its secular policy.
ResponderEliminarReading the criticisms being heaped on Bishop Gary Gordon from all sides, Jesus’s words in Matthew 11:17 come to mind: “John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’”
At a time when faithful Catholics, Christians and people of good will should rally around Bishop Gordon and support him in his stance against a pro-gay juggernaut from government, media and even some parents, he is attacked for producing a document that, rather than being a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal, was framed in charity.
It calls all students to chastity, pointing out that the Church’s teaching on homosexuality is a development and extension of its teaching on human sexuality. It places the topic of homosexuality “within the broader context of the meaning and purpose of human sexuality and points all students toward chastity.”
One Heart was not intended as a pastoral document on same-sex attraction. For that it quotes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church and references the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (1986), and the Catholic Bishops of Canada pastoral letter “A Guide for Pastoral Ministry to Young People with Same Sex Attraction.”
Bishop Gordon has said, “the teaching of the faith is a shield not a sword,” designed to protect our young people and to provide guidance. It is intended to offer a Catholic alternative to the gay-straight alliances being pushed on Yukon schools and channeling youth into unquestioningly accepting revolving around a sexual orientation rather than chastity.
Fair criticism is one thing. But a bishop who has steadfastly refused to allow secular dogma in Catholic schools, has produced a policy consistent with Catholic teaching, has been flayed for two years by government, media, and parents, hardly deserves to be accused of “caving in” and “obeying the government.”