Response to Benedict: Dutch Gay Catholics De-Baptize Themselves

Thousands of Dutch Catholics are researching how they can leave the church in protest at its opposition to gay marriage, according to the creator of a website aimed at helping them find the information.

Tom Roes, whose website allows people to download the documents needed to leave the church, said traffic on ontdopen.nl - "de-baptise.nl" - had soared from about 10 visits a day to more than 10,000 after Pope Benedict's latest denunciation of gay marriage this month.

"Of course it's not possible to be 'de-baptized' because a baptism is an event, but this way people can unsubscribe or de-register themselves as Catholics," Roes told Reuters.

He said he did not know how many visitors to the site actually go ahead and leave the church.

- more at Huffington Post

Related articles

• Deja Vù: Benedict's Escalating War on Marriage
• Catholic, CoE Bishops Diverge in Response to Gay Marriage Proposals. 
• Poll: Gay Marriage Gaining Support, Especially Among Catholics
• Dutch Website Helping Catholics "De-Baptize" Themselves Has Soaring Hits After Benedict's Christmas Vendetta vs. the Gays (bilgrimage.blogspot.com)
• More Christmas Statements about Marriage Equality from Catholic Hierarchy: Ten Reflection Points (bilgrimage.blogspot.com)

Pope Benedict, on "Homosexuals".

When I wrote earlier about Benedict and gay priests, I was responding to some commentary by Andrew Brown, without access to the complete book from which he was quoting. Now that I have my own copy, I have found that my post inappropriately combined two independent responses by the pope to two different questions by his interviewer: one question on homosexuality, and one on gay priests.
I now revisit my original post to disentangle them into the two separate issues that they are, and expand on my original thoughts.
(The complete question and answer I reproduce at the end of this post. Later, I will revisit the section specifically on gay priests).

On homosexuality, Seewald's question referred to the Catechism statement on "compassion, respect and sensitivity", and its counterpart on "grave depravity" and "intrinsically disordered". Seewald asked if these statements were contradictory.

I responded yesterday to Brown's extracts from the pope's response, noting in particular his complete misrepresentation of evolution as ordered to heterosexuality, and his entirely mistaken belief that "deep-seated homosexual inclinations" are a trial. I will say no more on these. Instead, I want to pick up on some other themes, identified in the French Jonathan & David press release:

Proclaiming himself the interpreter of God, he claims that homosexuality "is opposed to the essence of what God originally intended," without knowing whether it is innate or acquired (p. 200). If by any chance, homosexuality was innate, how could God create some of his creatures in a condition so contrary to his will?

Indeed. It's time for Benedict and his advisors to leave their theological ivory towers and enter the real world of human experience.

Catholic Priorities and the English Church

At Bilgrimage,  Bill Lindsay has a depressing (but accurate) assessment of the ten "essential articles of creed", as espoused by card-carrying Catholics. ("Who Knew? What Reading Newman Did Not Prepare Me for When I Became Catholic")

In summary, these are concerned with a staunch defence of the Church, the Pope and the Vatican against all criticism; an obsession with sexual teaching, and in particular its stress on heterosexual intercourse which is open to conception; attempts by political engagement to force this view of sexuality into law; the inherent superiority of the male over the female in all Church decision taking and eucharistic celebration; and a complete disregard for the  rest of Church teaching, especially that on the importance of social justice and inclusion of all.

“Out of the Shadows, Into the Light”:Blessed John Henry Newman, Soho "Gay" Masses

Last Sunday I went up to London for one of the regular LGBT – oriented “Soho Masses”. Earlier in the day, Pope Benedict had conducted the beatification service for Cardinal John Henry Newman. Cardinal Newman is now officially Blessed John Henry – and so the liturgy for used our Mass was, quite appropriately, the newly minted liturgy for his festal day.
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