www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Here we go again!

Acutally, I have something to say to John or anyone else who thinks there are bigger issues at hand.

My mother decided after many years of marriage to divorce my Father and live an actively homosexual lifestyle. It destroyed our family and I was left, 16 years old to pick up my shattered faith in God.

Thankfully, I was able to hand over my life to God and get back on track. I am tired of hearing about how people who are living an immoral lifestyle and fluanting it, destroying the morality of this country are "not that big a deal."

I beg to differ.

John,

I can't speak for others, but if I put on an angry face, it is definitely not towards individual's choices to sin--we ALL sin, and I could care less what each person does in their lives, but that some would take that sin and mock Jesus with it.

When you dress up in costumes and mock God and people's sensibilities, and make a spectacle of yourself, you are going to get people angry! Didn't Madonna (who is not gay) do that a few times herself? You should have heard how angry some of my teenage students were at her at the time--for mocking moral sensibilities by her graphic 'in your face' book 'Sex', for mocking Christianity by using sex as an analogy to spirituality, like in her song 'Like a Prayer', by mocking the crucifix, etc.....I felt angry at her at those times too, but for the record, I think that she is a beautiful and talented woman and entertainer, otherwise, and I still enjoy alot of her music.

All these people CRAVE attention when they mock religion, whether they are homosexual like these costumed men, or heterosexuals like Madonna, and attention is *exactly* what they are getting themselves. In parenting we call it 'negative attention'...

I have not felt or ever felt any real hatred towards gay individuals here, (I just don't have it in me to 'hate' anyone) but I do feel great anger and disgust towards their behavior which mocks the Catholic Church and towards their negative antics. I believe what I have felt here, in our posters, is called 'righteous indignation'. Let's be careful about using and attributing the emotion of 'hatred' to times that one feels righteous indignation...I don't think that Jesus felt 'hatred' towards the money changers who mocked His Father's temple.

God bless you.

In Christ our Lord,
Alice

To keep this on topic:

I think Alexandr's response was to the public display of offense to the Liturgy, to God, and to the Eucharist that this picture indicates. Whether one's orientation enters, the point is that no one has the right to so publicly show disrespect for the Holy Mysteries that we Christians have been commanded to guard.

The question goes to Who we are encountering in this sacred action; what it is all about; and the eternal consequences of the whole. The same could be said for things described in the book "Our Hope" by Father Dmitri Dutko when communism held the Russian Orthodox Church in a stranglehold. Whether we have young people coming into church and leaning against the iconostas or people provoking others with profanity during the Divine Liturgy it is all the same. It should make us upset because ultimately this is the most important encounter man can have with his Creator in the life-saving action of Christ re-presented each time the Liturgy is served.

The childish way in which these people have come in costume to make a political statement is blasphemous, regardless of their preferences in lifestyle. Lifestyle itself is a whole other area for discussion. But the Liturgy is sacred--something we seem to have a lost a sense of in the past 50 years in the West.

In Christ,

BOB

With all due respect, John and Ryan, this is a big issue and a big deal. And I don't think it's generally being driven by visceral hatred of homosexuals.

Homosexual activists have actively and even aggressively for several decades sought to have their sexual conduct legitimized in the eyes of religion and general society, and are even in the process of seeking to have the very nature and understanding of the family overturned. That's quite far-reaching and it is serious. I do not say that because I dislike homosexuals, or I want something to fill up my time with, or I'm trying to divert attention from other subjects and problems. I'm saying it because I genuinely believe it is true.

A valid point is that homosexual activists are not the only ones fraying our culture. A few years ago, when I was doing volunteer newswriting for the Minnesota Family Council's newspaper, I took the trouble to interview a lesbian activist who at one point mentioned that she didn't understand why homosexuals were being accused of destroying the family because it seemed to her that heterosexuals had already done a pretty good job in that department.

Yes, she has a point.

But the homosexual activism we are seeing will only further corrode our society. It is a big deal.

Many of the other issues being raised from war to poverty to the death penalty to global warming, lend themselves to a licit variety of prudential approaches as to how to deal with them. They are not absolutist issues, so as important as they are, I do not believe a principled Christian witness can assign to them the same importance as when a threat is posed to an absolutist issue, such as homosexuality.

It is a Christian duty to speak out against and give witness to the normative fundamentals of natural law rights and morals, things that all people, regardless of religious or sectarian differences, are called to, things, to borrow a recent phrase, we cannot not know.

And, clearly, the Roman Latin Catholic church has not done a stellar job in combatting this matter.

Best to all,
Robster

The central issue is not the sin of homosexuality. We are all sinners.

The central issue here IS the mocking of God.

And God will not be mocked.

Alexandr

Some Christians just can't stay off the topic of homosexuality, but have you ever asked yourself the reasons why ? I'll give you one example in particular. A friend of mine who is a practicing Catholic is a financhial analyst for a large bank in Downtown Chicago. Every June the hallway directly oposite her office has a large poster announcing Gay Pride Week. She's told me that she has a thousand other things on her mind, yet every time she looks up from her desk she has to be reminded of GAY PRIDE, and their are several of these posters, and they're up for the entire month of June.

Maybe people would find alot more enjoyable topics to discuss if it weren't for television, movies, newspapers, magazines, politicians, educators, etc hammering on us to accept a lifestyle that is an abomination before God Allmighty.

I think that the reason that many of us are outraged is not because these men are homosexuals, as Alexandr, Bob, Alice, and others have put it. It is because the Divine Liturgy (or Mass) is the highest and most profound activity on earth. As important as works of mercy, love of neighbor, etc. are, they are not as important as the Liturgy. In heaven, there will be no works of mercy, no political and social battles, no quality family time, no academic study. Heaven is one eternal Liturgy celebrated within the Being of God. Of course, if our hearts are not pure, then our offering of the Liturgy will not be pure. A faithless and loveless Liturgy is no Liturgy. But the Liturgy is what the Church is all about. The Liturgy is why the Church exists and why we exist. Worship of God is our purpose in life. This is why the corruption of the Liturgy is the worst evil to plague the modern Church. One might even argue that it is the largest reason for the rampant apathy of mainstream believers. And the toleration of such corruption is a good sign of where the Church's heart is at. We should put up with one another's sins. We should not judge individuals because we are sinners too. We should tolerate our enemies even, praying for them, and blessing them. But we cannot tolerate sacriledge because it is blasphemy and it is a profaning of the very reason of our existence. Without the Liturgy, there is no Church.

Joe

Joe

That is what offends me most. If they were given a blessing instead of the Host, I would not be upset. The Eucharist (is there a different word used in the East?) is a grace that binds us to Christ and to each other through Him. With sacrilege, even though graces are not brought to those people receiving the Host, it is as though they are giving Christ the finger.

Terry

For their own sakes they should not receive the Eucharist.

Remember St. Paul's warnings.

Also, as others have suggested, these things are for shock value. They remind me of the metal heads in high school who used to draw pentagrams on their notebooks for the same reason.

I also agree with Alexandr, God will not be mocked!

Okay.. i'll say it again... it is not a mass. BBC did the EXACT same thing last year - the televised a "blessing" in which the lay people (who happen to be gay) read the readings of the day.. that's it. BBC put it on the air and called it a "gay mass" but it was not a mass because there was no eucharist.

Dear John,

After reviewing this thread, I need to say that I think that this is unfair...these are merely a fraction of the things that matter to the posters of this forum in the *religious* realm of an internet forum, not in the *'whole person'* realm of the real world...there is so much to care about in life, and so many causes to despair about, and we don't all have to always discuss, care, and despair about the same things...For instance, I don't like politics as much as some posters here, so I just don't go to those threads alot, but I try not to deny others the desire they have to discuss these matters.

Your blanket statment essentially belittles those of us Eastern Christians who feed the poor, give to charities, raise young families in this crazy world, try to have integrity in our workplaces, support our priests, run our parishes, volunteer, console and pray for others, take care of elderly parents, our spouses, and who at the same time, if one remembers all our prayer requests, often battle illnesses, family, personal and financial problems.

I really am disappointed.

Your Orthodox friend,
Alice

I going to make a few observations that may or may not be popular with any of the sides posting on this thread. I would have responded earlier, but I am just completing a 12+ hour day and I have few more of those types of days upcoming over the next week.

Yes, it does seems that some of the posters here are homophobically-obsessed. All one has to do is look at the number of posts and the types of comments made not only in this thread but in several other threads in the Town Hall section. Some of the attitudes posted are within the bounds of the Christian faith no matter what church we are talking about.

What is not inline with the faith, Catholic or Orthodox is hatred. We are taught to hate the sin by our faith, not the sinner. We are all sinners plagued by a variety of sins, maybe not like that which seems to be the obsession of some. We have to remember our Lord, Jesus Christ sat down at the table with sinners, but that is not to say he condoned their sin, but by his humility was actually leading them towards their salvation as in the case of Zaccheus.

The church is plagued by many issues, some that can be under our immediate control and some that requires the actions of others to control. By our constantly drawing attention to the short-comings of some and their sin, we are in a way encouraging more outrageous behavior. In other words we encourage that which we loathe so that the focus is on the other and not on our own salvation.

Should we condone the sin? NO! Be we should be constantly striving for their conversion that can help us overcome all sin and gives us salvation in our Lord, Jesus Christ. I remember a para-liturgical hymn that is sung by some Carpatho-Russians, the words quoting scripture, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.� John 13:34-35. I bring this to mind only because we have enough hatred in this world now. All we have to do is open a newspaper or turn on the news to see it. Conversion starts within yourself. Then we can start converting others.

I feel sad when I see items such as posted in the initial post. Yet, it means that we need to work harder among ourselves so that things like this will be less evident. Some posts here have not helped in building the faith of others, but in ways have helped shatter it.

Let's let this obsession so to speak be put aside and our focus be put on building our faith and our churches respectively. By doing so we will be building the Kingdom of God not only for ourselves but for generations to come.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+
Administrator

Thank you, Father Anthony. You said what I tried to say earlier much, much better than my poor attempt.

Tim

I really don't blame him, I had (and still do)a lot of respect for Orthodox Christians, many come to our parish to visit. When I started looking up religious stuff online and first encountered internet Orthodox I thought to myself "Oh boy, Orthodox! We have so much in common we are going to be such good friends!" SURPRISE I was wrong. On the flip side I know some Orthodox have encountered rad-trad Tridentine schismatics and had developed a rather sour opinion of Catholics.

If my only contact with other Eastern Orthodox/Eastern Catholic Christians was online I would stay far far away too. But John, this internet pan-Church cold war is not real life (I think a lot of us, including myself can be WAY too belligerent). Every Orthodox Christian I have ever met in real life have wonderful and extremely kind. The things that people here use as an excuse to rip on each other NEVER happen in real life, these issues are never brought up.

I think we need to heed Fr. Anthony's wisdom filled post and love each other and treat each others religious affiliation with respect instead of thinking of covert ways to snidely attack other peoples Churches. I'll start first.