Ave!

[Nihil Obstat]

I was reading this thread much earlier in the day.

Welcome to Phatmass. I'm not going to add to the debate going on here, because there are far more learned people already saying their peace.

Don't let the reaction drive you away from Phatmass. This is a truly unique and wonderful place, and it would do anyone good to stay and continue talking to people. I don't think a single person here would want you to leave.
So please don't.
(Just don't be surprised if/when you get an "I Don't Rep Pope" tag. They made them for you.)

[Servus_Mariae]

[quote]Having done all I can to educate my conscience in this matter. After prayer, study, speaking with priests and totally abandoning myself to the will of God I STILL cannot accept the Church's teachings what must I obey:

The Church or my conscience?


Holy Mother Church says I must obey my conscience, what about you[/quote]

Once more brother, welcome to phatmass!

If I may try to answer your question...

Yes...you should follow your conscience...but I am going to break your rule. I see that your pursuit of truth is very thorough. However, I notice you mention that you have studied. What was your method? What was your conclusion?

...and I want to tell you...I am a Catholic seminarian and find your fairly harsh assumptions about the leaders of the Church to be unfair and disrespectful. Celibacy is God's gift to me to live in preparation of the kingdom and my sacrifice for the Church my bride because I lover her...please don't cheapen that. Further, our vocation demands an intimate knowledge of God. Intimate. God is love itself. We dedicate ourselves to love Himself whole and entire without reserve...we do not lord over others with our celibacy and rank. We know love and are entirely his. The teaching on homosexuality and sexual ethics are not men making decisions about things they don't understand. Sexuality is indelibly linked to love and intimacy. We know love and intimacy too, please do not disregard that. In striving to lead the faithful in love, bishops and priests serve the teaching of the truth and do so by acting in accordance with their conscience.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' post='1844029' date='Apr 22 2009, 09:10 PM']I was reading this thread much earlier in the day.

Welcome to Phatmass. I'm not going to add to the debate going on here, because there are far more learned people already saying their peace.

Don't let the reaction drive you away from Phatmass. This is a truly unique and wonderful place, and it would do anyone good to stay and continue talking to people. I don't think a single person here would want you to leave.
So please don't.
(Just don't be surprised if/when you get an "I Don't Rep Pope" tag. They made them for you.)[/quote]
To elaborate a little bit further, I would vouch for most, almost all members of Phatmass when it comes to being all around trustworthy people. A good number of them also know far more about the Faith than you may realize at first glace. The depth of their knowledge is truly astounding; please don't dismiss what they say.

Edited April 23, 2009 by Nihil Obstat

[HisChildForever]

It boils down to this. You cannot be a practicing Catholic and a practicing homosexual. The Church is explicitly clear on this subject.

[Ash Wednesday]

Welcome to phatmass.

I'm late in this, just wondering if you or anyone has heard of John Heard, he is a Australian Catholic with SSA and has a blog, and completely faithful to the Church.

[url="http://johnheard.blogspot.com/"]http://johnheard.blogspot.com/[/url]

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Ash Wednesday' post='1844088' date='Apr 22 2009, 10:03 PM']Welcome to phatmass.

I'm late in this, just wondering if you or anyone has heard of John Heard, he is a Australian Catholic with SSA and has a blog, and completely faithful to the Church.

[url="http://johnheard.blogspot.com/"]http://johnheard.blogspot.com/[/url][/quote]
We need more really public figures like this. Faithful Catholics who struggle with SSA in the way God asks of them.

[Jaime]

[quote name='AdAltareDei' post='1843891' date='Apr 22 2009, 08:34 PM']I have been asked a lot of questions, now I have a question for you guys


The Catechism states

"1782 Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. "He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters."53 "

That is what I have done. I am acting in accordance with my conscience.

Now some of you have been saying its not a properly formed conscience. Why? Because it disagree's with the Church. Now this argument really empties the idea of conscience of any substance.
We must not be forced to act against our conscience?
We must conform our conscience to the Church?
To conform my conscience to the Church would be "acti(ing) contrary to his (my) conscience".

I have tried, believe me. But I cannot. Reason and logic simply will not let me accept the Church's teachings.

Secondly, in the catechism it states a properly formed conscience

"1785 In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path,54 we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord's Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church.55 "

It's not like I have completely ignored the Church. I have done all this. I have put my faith in God, prayed, examined myself "before the Lords cross" (literally, before the Lord during my weekly holy hour) and I have studied and understand the authoritative teachings of the Church.

My conscience is as properly formed as it can be on the issue. And I still cannot give my assent to the Churchs position.


NOW MY QUESTION IS (after too much typing )

Having done all I can to educate my conscience in this matter. After prayer, study, speaking with priests and totally abandoning myself to the will of God I STILL cannot accept the Church's teachings what must I obey:

The Church or my conscience?


Holy Mother Church says I must obey my conscience, what about you?



PS. If you're going to reply to this, please don't avoid the question. Don't give me another spiel about "forming a good conscience", I have already shown you that I have done all that the Catechisms requires me to do. The Catechism doesn't state that a properly formed conscience will never question the Church, so you shouldn't either.
Thankyou [/quote]

Actually you haven't Jake. And truth be told, most of us who are on this phorum don't have a properly formed conscience either. The reality of it is, a person cannot judge for themselves if they have a properly formed conscience. Its like if a person came up to me and said "I'm a saint" I'm sleeping easy with the certainty that I did not meet a saint that day.

A properly formed conscience takes years. And not to be rude but the chances that an 18 year old child has a properly formed conscience is albeit not impossible, pretty dang close.

And I've shown how you've been taught in error in my last post. (Which you may have missed) But by misquoting church teachings, you've shown that someone taught you wrong.

And where you are also wrong is in the thinking that Church teaching on homosexual behavior will change. Because it won't.

And the argument of "God created me this way" while arguably is flawed. Even if we accept your premise. Let me give you an example of your logic.

You say "God created me to feel this way about other men. Why would he not want me to love in the way that feels natural to me?"

ok how about this

"God created me to love chocolate and be a diabetic. Why wouldn't he want me to enjoy it?"

"God created me with the correct genes to become an alcoholic. Why wouldn't he want me to have a beer?"

My point is that being "created" in a certain way does not mean we have a right to do stuff.

I hope you go back and find my first post. But if you aren't properly taught, it is impossible to have a properly formed conscience. And I'd say that to anyone who was in error.

[Archaeology cat]

[quote name='AdAltareDei' post='1843391' date='Apr 22 2009, 10:45 AM']I LOVE writing. I have a livejournal. Its [url="http://jakeee_b.livejournal.com"]http://jakeee_b.livejournal.com[/url] if anyone is interested.
I like reading, especially Oscar Wilde.[/quote]
I'll have to look at your writing when I get a chance. My husband likes to write in his free time (not that he has much of that right now, with working on his PhD). And Oscar Wilde, eh? I think the only thing I've read by him is [i]The Picture of Dorian Grey[/i], which I loved. I need to go to the library as I've finished the books I had. I'm an avid reader, too, and especially love Shakespeare.

[quote name='AdAltareDei' post='1843407' date='Apr 22 2009, 02:15 PM']As to the biblical condemnations of homosexuality I would point out that it needs to be interpreted in its historical context. Back then homosexuality didn't mean two adults in a consentual, loving relationship. It meant orgies, drunkness, rape and pedophilia.[/quote]
Sometimes that was the case, but in the Roman Empire that was not always the case. Pederasty was more prevalent in ancient Greece, but condemned under the Roman Republic (though many emperors did engage in pederasty as well, I think). [url="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/suet-nero.html"]Suetonius writes that Nero married a man[/url], though it is unknown if this is factual or not (St Paul's Epistle to the Romans was written under the reign of Nero, BTW). [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elagabalus#Sex.2Fgender_controversy"]Marcus Aurelius Antoninus also married a man[/url]. Hadrian was in a relationship with [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinous"]Antinous[/url], and made the entire Empire mourn when he died. I honestly don't know how common such relationships were among the common people (been a while since I've studied Roman history and archaeology, and most of my study was focused more on the emperors than on the common people), but these emperors do show that there were consensual homosexual relationships, though of course the orgies happened as well.