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The Freethinker

Former Irish President attacks ‘evil’ Catholic Church

Last updated on: July 1, 2020 at 4:48 pm   by Barry Duke

Former Irish President attacks ‘evil’ Catholic Church 2020-07-01T16:48:32+02:00 Barry Duke

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IN a podcast interview ahead of last weekend’s Pride celebrations in Ireland, Mary McAleese, above, who served two terms as the country’s President, accused the RCC of being ‘ignorant’ in matters regarding homosexuality.

The church describes homosexual acts as intrinsically evil. I would regard the Church’s teaching as disorderly and intrinsically evil. Why is it intrinsically evil? Because it conduces to homophobia.

Suggesting the Church’s stance empowers bullies McAleese, 67, added:

Look at the language that is used – ‘the homosexuality is disordered’. Who wants to believe that their God-given nature is disordered? That homosexual acts, how they express their love in a loving relationship, for example… that that is regarded as intrinsically evil. I don’t think so.

And that by its nature… that language of evil and disordered trickles down into the thinking and it empowers the homophobe, it empowers the homophobic bully. It gives him or her permission to be homophobic and I think the church has got to answer that.

McAleese was also critical of the Vatican and Pope Francis, who many see as a more progressive and open-minded Pope than his predecessors, but added some bishops and cardinals across Europe have begun a more positive conversation around the approach of the church to the LGBT community.

Certain bishops, particularly in Germany and certain cardinals have been champions in this regard, and I think I see in them the green shoots of a future open debate, but let me go back to Francis.

A lot of people will say ‘Oh wasn’t it wonderful when he said who am I to judge’. Well I was not at all impressed by that, I was angered by it because he does judge. He is the supreme judge of the Church. He is the legislator, he is the judge. If there is something wrong with the law, the only way it can be changed in the Church is if he changes it.

He is the person who presides over the law that uses these awful phrases ‘intrinisically evil, intrinsically disordered’, he presides over that. He cannot have it both ways but there is a long tradition in the church of having it both ways.

Meanwhile, over at LifeSiteNews a self-loathing “ex-gay” bigot is having conniptions over the fact that a New Jersey priest, Fr Alexander Santora, recently linked the death of George Floyd and the protests it ignited to ongoing discrimination within the Church against LGBT-identifying Catholics.

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LSN‘s Doug Mainwaring, above, thundered:

The priest seeks nothing less than the normalization of homosexual and trangender identity and relationships.

Image via New Ways Ministry

Santora, right, said at an LGBT Pride mass:

In the 1960s under the leadership of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., blacks led the march for freedom and equality. We let go of any racist tendencies. So too with LGBT rights and concerns.

We jettison the old prejudice and celebrate pride in our LGBT community because we then become better people and better Catholics.

He added:

Gay discrimination lives in the Catholic church.

In exhorting  LSN readers  to lodge protests with Santora’s church – the Church of Our Lady of Grace in 
Hoboken – and the Archdiocese of Newark, the pathetic Mainwaring reiterated:

The Catholic Church holds that same-sex attraction is disordered and that homosexual acts are sinful. Church teaching states that ‘homosexual persons are called to chastity’ (CCC 2359), which is also what its teaching says about all people, since sexual relations are reserved for marriage, which is between a man and woman (CCC 2360).

• If you wish to report any typos/incorrect info in this piece, please email me at [email protected]

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