Vatican document is wrong on homosexuals: God does not welcome them 'as they are'
David Martin | The Daily Knight
On March 15, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued a responsum ad dubium regarding the blessing of the unions of persons of the same sex. The document opens with the following question:
"Does the Church have the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex?"
The document initially answers in the negative, even saying later that “the blessing of homosexual unions cannot be considered licit,” yet it opens by saying that homosexuals should be incorporated into the Church to participate in its prayer life and liturgical functions with plans for the blessing of their unions.
"In some ecclesial contexts, plans and proposals for blessings of unions of persons of the same sex are being advanced,” the opening paragraph says. “Such projects are not infrequently motivated by a sincere desire to welcome and accompany homosexual persons, to whom are proposed paths of growth in faith, ‘so that those who manifest a homosexual orientation can receive the assistance they need to understand and fully carry out God's will in their lives’” (Amoris Laetitia 250).
So “plans” are “being advanced” to “welcome and accompany homosexual persons” so that their unions might receive “blessings?” The only “assistance” the Church can offer such persons is to advise them to go to confession so they can be absolved. The Church has a duty to remind homosexuals that God's mercy is only "to them that fear him" (Luke 1:50) and that their duty is to "fear God, and depart from evil." (Proverbs 3:7)
But instead, the document invites them onto the path of "listening to the word of God, prayer, participation in ecclesial liturgical actions” on the grounds that “God loves every person and the Church does the same, rejecting all unjust discrimination."
Is the CDF implying that barring LGBT people from the Church is a form of "unjust discrimination?" Is this not what the Church has done for centuries and has it not born excellent fruits? Letting homosexuals in the Church without repentance only sustains their shame and murders their souls, especially if they are allowed to receive Communion.
The Church Must ‘Welcome Homosexuals’
The document says, "The Christian community and its Pastors are called to welcome with respect and sensitivity persons with homosexual inclinations, and will know how to find the most appropriate ways, consistent with Church teaching, to proclaim to them the Gospel in its fullness” adding that the Church “accompanies them and shares their journey of Christian faith."
This is a scandal to the faithful since including homosexuals in the Church infects Christ’s Mystical Body with sodomite germs and conveys the idea that the Church now accepts homosexuality.
The only “appropriate ways” to “proclaim to them the Gospel” is by exhorting them to repent. The same would apply to rapists and thieves, who in God’s eyes are not as sinful as gays. LGBT people, even those who merely condone LGBT living are living out of grace, so a pastor may not bless and welcome their presence while simply refusing to bless their LGBT relationships.
That would be like blessing Hitler with outstretched arms while simply refusing to bless his murder of the Jews. Pastors must remind LGBT people that the Church may never “accompany them and share their journey” because their journey offends God and separates them from God.
The statement admits that God “does not and cannot bless sin,” but then it never classes homosexuality as a sin. What it does say is that “he [God] blesses sinful man, so that he may recognize that he is part of his plan of love.”
This is deceiving because anyone who partakes in homosexuality is not in a state of grace, and as such, is not part of God’s plan of love. His LGBT aspirations automatically place him outside the Church whereby he loses God’s blessing.
No Same-Sex Marriage
The document in essence is saying that while homosexual people can receive various blessings from the Church, they cannot ‘have the knot tied’ as in marriage. “Because they would constitute a certain imitation or analogue of the nuptial blessing invoked on the man and woman united in the sacrament of Matrimony, while in fact ‘there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family’" (Amoris Laetitia 251)
The gay community should have no problem with this, since they would never want to be associated with traditional family values.
Unconditional Blessing
The document closes by saying that “God Himself never ceases to bless each of His pilgrim children in this world” adding that “He in fact takes us as we are, but never leaves us as we are."
Unfortunately, God does not accept us as we are. For while he continually prompts man to turn from sin, he does not bless him in his sin, no more than he blessed Sodom and Gomorrah. "For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from the deceitful, and will withdraw himself from thoughts that are without understanding, and he shall not abide when iniquity cometh in." (Wisdom 1:5)
God rather presents sinful man with his Law and the option to either renounce his sin or perish. He warns, prompts, and calls him back, but he does not "take us as we are." He blesses only insofar as he gives man the option to repent, without which he indeed “leaves us as we are,” i.e. in hell eternally.
Hence the Church does not have the power to allow homosexuals to enter the Church unless their intention is to go to confession and reject LGBT with the acknowledgment that it offends God. Upon such a confession and only upon confession does God bless an LGBT oriented person so that he can abide in His friendship. For God accepts us “as we are” when what we are is what God created us to be, namely, the faithful sons and daughters of God. But to obstinate sinners [homosexuals] Christ will say, “I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity." (Matthew 7:23)
LGBT Condemned from the Beginning
Holy Writ makes it clear: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, because it is an abomination." (Leviticus 18:22) It was the sin of homosexuality that brought the fierce punishment of God upon Sodom and Gomorrah.
Has the CDF considered St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans wherein he criminalizes those men who "have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error?" According to the Apostle, "They who do such things are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them." (Romans 1: 27, 32)
The bottom line is that responsum ad dubium makes no mention that homosexuality is a grievous sin that eternally banishes one from God. The Church places homosexuality on par with murder, being one of the four sins “crying the heaven for vengeance,” yet we don’t see this reflected in the document.
Francis Endorses LGBT Unions
The document states that responsum ad dubium has received the approval of Pope Francis, but a key problem with this is that Francis and his Vatican continue to "bless" homosexuality by allowing homosexual bishops to operate at the highest levels of the Church and by allowing the notorious LGBT marketing firm Accenture to completely run the Vatican News Service. Not to mention that Pope Francis himself is openly pro-LGBT, so much so that he says that laws should be enacted to protect LGBT living and relationships. Pope Francis calls for homosexual civil unions, bashes Trump in new film
It appears that Francis' "approval" of the CDF statement is only a political gesture to tamp down conservative resistance to his LGBT political agenda. When he can chase the homosexuals out of Rome and profess in clear sound that homosexuality is a grave sin that eternally condemns man and when he can declare that homosexual unions may never be protected by the law, then we can believe that he refuses to bless homosexual unions.
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