catholics - what do you think when the Church hierarchy say something really homophobic etc

[time4tea]

I'm a practising Catholic - and a sincere believer in Jesus' message of compassion for others (80s liberation theology I suppose). But although I have a lot of respect for my amazing parish priest, who has so many good things to say about life and faith, and enjoy going to mass, I find it harder and harder to deal reconcile this with some of the Church's teaching about contraception, HIV/AIDS prevention, abortion, and homsexuality. Plus of course, a lot of the cover-ups over sexual abuses against children by priests...

how do you deal with this? it is "their" church and they make the rules. I keep wanting to just leave or disassociate myself from the whole thing but in my profoundest heart, I love attending mass, and see so many other things that are a source for good. But the reality is that the stuff I am concerned about is what is really pushed on in terms of public messages from the Vatican.

is anyone else concerned about this sort of thing...?

i'm a catholic, i go to church every sunday, my dc all go to catholic schools..i don't agree everything...

but god will forgive me.

If this isn't preaching homophobia, then I don;t know what is.

Spidermama, you mustn't take what the press say as gospel. This reading of what Benedict said has been much disputed, and here on Mumsnet too. It's a gross oversimiplification.

The Holy Father is often represented awry in the UK press, which after all has a looong tradition of bashing the papists. He's not homophobic. Nor are most Catholics, thogh of course there are some, and they all need to head for confession now.

But there's a lot of grey between total acceptance of any kind of sexual behaviour wiht a somehwat uncaring shrug, and 'homophobia'.

JaneLumley I am a journalist myself.

By "sheep" I mean people who have an urge to belong but don't scrutinise or think things through - so no-one on this thread is a sheep!

If you don't mind me saying so, you're coming across as more of a Moore (my Catholic friends think he's a hero so I hope you won't be insulted!)

If I had converted, I would be a Moore too, which is why I'm better off atheist!

Spidermama, but surely that must make you more rather than less trusting? All the journalists I know don't have two good words to say for the papers they write for. In particular they are often savage about the tendency of the press to love you one week and hate you the next and to have established hate figures...

Am still keen to hear a quotation that's actually homophobic from the original speech.

that eminem fellow was rather homophobic

ergo i hate all rap music.

Spidermama - if you really want to know the Catholic church's views on sexuality you should read the catechism and not The Times You must know as a journalist that the medie take a sensationalist angle on things whenever possible.

Quote from Spidermamas link above:
'The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are'. It also teaches that all other sexual acts outside of marriage are sinful.

In his speech that is ALL the Pope was saying - in this instance he was concentrating on homosexual acts and the media have just seized on that.

Lingle I do understand what you say about 'sheep', but I think the definition of them has changed somewhat. In our grandparent's day and before they may have been people who didn't have the luxury of an education and were never taught to question, just to follow rules.
The sheep of today still don't bother to think things out, but they don't follow the rules either (in my opinion!!) and live life in the way they choose never minding the consequences.

Personally, I think the old type of sheep made society a better place than the new kind...

Also, Lingle I do not mind being called a Moore... but I have never burned anyone at the stake (yet!)

Sorry I am really terrible for adding post after post... but Lingle I have to add that do you think our mind's are really great enough to think EVERYTHING out? Mine isn't! That's why to some extent I think I need to trust a belief system that thousands of great minds have contributed to over the centuries.

I am really annoyed with Catholics saying that people are swayed too much by what is said about Catholicism, and it isn't really like that. This is really touching a nerve because my mum said something about this recently, about the Catholic faith being about the love of god contrary to what "the others" would have you believe for their own nefarious reasons.

I was brought up Catholic by Catholic parents and went to all Catholic schools and I know what it was like (for me). I was not abused or unloved but I felt horrible and guilty and worried all the time. I still do. I worry about not being practising and I worry about the fact that I can't because (for me) the fact that I disagree so fundamentally with some aspects of the church makes it impossible for me to join in, because they are all about maintaining a conservative oppressive status quo that I believe is wrong.

when I was a child I would lie awake worrying about hell night after night and had no one to talk to about it because I knew the answer would be "if you are worrying you must have something to worry about, sinner". I was so sad and lonely and now I find it very hard to react to negative situations with anything other than panic and self blame. I need to be a strong force for good in the world, a shoulder to cry on, a protector of those who need it, but I am full of self doubt and feel a gibbering wreck a lot of the time. I think a lot of my problems (poor mental health and a general feebleness and lack of confidence) can be directly attributed to Catholicism and I am one of the lucky ones.

so I am sick of hearing about how all the bad stuff is made up by "Them". I was there.

I'm truly sorry that you've had such a bad experience vezzie, but if you disagree so fundamentally with the church why does it bother you what it believes is right or wrong?

I really would not say that you are ''one of the lucky ones'' - my Catholic faith has helped me through many difficult times in my life and never given me the problems you mention - in fact as times it has been my one source of consolation. So I would say that I'm a bit luckier than you!

Also, Jesus does not tell us that if you are worrying ''You must have something to worry about - sinner''. He said that we shouldn't worry (can't remember the exact scripture quotation) because of something like ' God feeds and clothes the birds in the sky who do not worry and you are a million times more precious to him than they are.''

I have also been catholic all my life and just cannot agree with your comments that the church is ''all about maintaining a conservative oppressive status quo'' - can you be more specific?

I didn't mean to offend you, mersmam, or any other catholics. I like what you have written in this thread as I respect people who make an effort to know and understand what they church they espouse believes in.

I don't think the church is all about maintaining a conservative status quo - in fact the opposite, I think practising christians are a vital force for good in the world and often a source of much needed radicalism. However, I think some aspects of the catholic church are, and they relate to things that are very important to me. For instance the complete absence of women in the hierarchy of the church. Also the recent pronouncement about "gender theory".

These things bother me because, for whatever reason, I cannot belong to the church because I do not agree with them. I understand that some people think it is alright to muddle through and not get too "pedantic" about these things, but for me this is not possible: partly because for me if I were a practising catholic, a huge part of this would be being able to articulate the spiritual aspects of big family events (christenings, marriages, etc) within this tradition, and it is precisely where family roles and sexual morality are concerned that I am most uneasy with catholic teaching.

I know (now) Jesus would not say "sinner". but the teachings of Jesus was mediated to me through Catholicism which (in that time and place and by those individuals) had a very strong emphasis on making people feel guilty and the very strong implication that if you feel bad you deserve it and probably deserve to feel worse. I say I was one of the lucky ones because I was not abused.

You didn't offend me vezzie - I like to hear other people's views and reasons behind them, as it is a good test for me to see if I really believe what I think I do... does not make much sense I know!
I must say that the role of women in the church has never bothered me (although I do think Mary was pretty important??) so I cannot empathise with your predicament in that respect. I do believe that male and female are diffent and have different character traits (my son is definitely different to my daughters!) but I think some women may have some masculine traits and some men may have feminine ones - it doesn't affect my faith though!
It's a shame you had such bad teachers because to me you sound like you'd be a great catholic if you wanted to be!

Vezzie am sorry you had a such a bad experience too. I can relate partly to what you say and often joke with other Catholics about the whole "Ctholic guilt" thing, although I think that feeling of feeling guilty even though you haven't done anything and fear of getting in trouble is as much to do with being a child - I think children spend a lot of time worried about getting into troublewith figures of auhority.

I think its true to say that the church has had to change and also children have more rights generally now and are more confident in challenging authority than we all we as children.

My DCs Catholic primary school is nowhere near as authortarian as my primary school was (my primary was secular and a lot stricter than my secondary Convent school.At my primary the boys regularly got caned for example. My Convent school was much kinder/more compassionate than my secular primary)

I think there are a lot of lapsed Catholics out there who and poor experiences at Catholic schools, but there are also lots of adults who had bad experiences at secular schools.

Catholic schools have changed, as has the whol education system., and indeed wider society

Not many years since a child at our local Catholic school was told by the priest that his Mum would be going to hell because she was not baptised.

(You might ask what an evangelical mother was doing sending her son to a Catholic school, but she wanted him to have a Christian upbringing and there are no evangelical schools around here).