I feel very reluctant to do voluntary work in a Church where the Parish Priest has gone out openly against his homosexual Deacon saying "he should never applied to work in my Church"

[QuintessentiallyAnEmptyGrave]

I spoke to the other deacon about volounteering, with my background in the Church in London, they thought I was quite a catch, organizing events, had ideas how funds were raised and people brought through the doors through my work in the "meet and greet committee", etc.

But since our initial conversation, this whole issue has blown up. The other deacon is gay, and the parish priest is openly against homosexuality and has criticized the deacon for applying for work in Church.

I am personally very against this stance, and I am not sure I want to be associated with a Church that holds this outdated view.

Am I unreasonable?

no YANBU.
i'd do nothing for them.
and tell them why.

but maybe YABU
what did you expect?

oh this is a tricky one - as the views of a priest aren't always reflected in the general church family. We have 2 vicars in our town which are "anti-woman in church leadership" (not the same thing I know - but the feelings seem to run just as high). One of the churches the majority of the congregation agree with his stance and are never seen at united services in churches where there are woman priests. And if a female vicar was ever apointeed there would almost certainly leave the church.

The other church most of the congregation think he's (their vicar) rather mad and don't agree with his views and wouldn't give two hoots if they had a female vicar.

I would expect

a ) The parish priest to overcome his own difficulties with homosexuality and not gone out in the press and made an outcast of

1. an employee
2. a member of his church
3. a fellow man of God
4. another human being.

b) the parish priest to keep any such work related conflicts confined to work, and not involve the press.

b) Realize that as a priest he is alienating a great number of people and seem to have forgotten two important words:

LOVE
COMPASSION

But even more worrying, imagine this scenario:

The priest is running the "confirmation school" for all the teenagers due to be confirmed in the spring, and is confronted by a young person turning to his priest in confidence saying "Father, I have a problem, I think I may be gay??"

What will the Parish Priest respond?

Aren't most churches fundementally against homosexuality? Surely you knew this,

Im not saying its right, I find it very sad but all your years previously volunteering you must have known your church on a whole felt this way?

So who would you be working closely with? the parish priest?

I don't 'do' religion. Probably because I'm actually not in the slightest surprised that your priest has these opinions. Most of them do don't they? Or maybe that is just my experience.

I too, would not want to be associated with this man.

Maybe the Church held the view, but the vicar was presenting himself as a man of humility, that you could come to with any issue and not be shown the door, but receive pastoral care and attention.

I would be working with all of them, mostly the deacon I spoke with first. But I am not so sure I would want to be in this "atmosphere", if you see what I mean.

Actually, I see it is quite controversial, and I guess I expected more of the Lutheran church, where we have female bishops, and even a gay female bishop.

If is is causing me to ponder it in this way, I might as well stay out of it. For now.

But the "main" priest at the church is beaming ominously at me every morning, when we are dropping our kids of to preschool.... She is in the committee at the ppreschool, and I just had a cal if I wanted to join the committee. It is all too much.. The world is moving too fast.

It's a tricky one - do you feel you'd be working for/with the vicar, or working for the church as a whole? Personally, I'd have problems working for a person who had taken that stance, whatever his personal views about sexuality. But OTOH if the church generally is a "good" place, and his views are not typical of the congregation, then you could presumably work with them and show another view of the whole question by being tolerant of the deacon's sexuality.

eek, sounds complicated.
is there anyway, you could infiltrate with a view to educating the priest of the error of his ways.
sounds like hard work though.
go for it, if you can be bothered with the stress.

Justa.

1. No. It wouldnt. I would go in there with the attitude that I want to work to the best of this church and the community.

1. There might be. I have been offered an editorial role in the "Magazine of All the Churches", which is delivering news from all the parishes and interesting articles.

I would not see myself in the role of somebody going in to educate a priest in matters of homosexuality, love and compassion. ahem.

oh alright then

pmsl

thankfully justabout is here to give you proper advice.
can i bow out now?
i'm so useless, sorry.

you may bow out, but know this: you have been very usefull, you have given me muchos much-needed giggles!

next moment, I am going to turn around and say "how DARE you abandon me"

these ears are making me look stupid.

you mean your (invisible) virtual bunny ears, or are you referring to your actual ears??

lmao

gosh that tickled me.
can't stop giggling.

yes, these ears

well, I guess this thread is justabout right to sport your Play mate look.

The going to the press stuff makes it harder, afaiks, as everyone now knows his stance and may assume that anyone supporting him is supporting his views. It sounds a horrible thing to have done. The poor deacon.

Do your children go to this church?