AMEN TO THAT

The media and the Church:another letter to the editor from Hilton Head's "Island Packet."

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Catholic church on homosexuality

I shudder whenever the secular media attempts to report on the Catholic church. My worst fears were realized in reading your recent front-page article, “Hilton Head Catholic school rejects same-sex couple’s kids.”

It states, “For centuries the Catholic church has opposed homosexuality.” Actually, the Catholic church does not condemn homosexuality if homosexuality is understood to mean sexual attraction (inclination) to the same sex. The church does hold that homosexual acts are morally wrong. See St. Paul’s letter to the Romans.

It quotes Pope Francis as saying to a gay man, “God made you this way and loves you this way, and the pope loves you this way.” You apparently regard that statement as intended to usher in a new level of “tolerance” within the Catholic church.

However, even if the pope knew the “gay man” to be in a homosexual relationship, the quoted statement is fully consistent with traditional Catholic moral teaching, which has been characterized as holding “love the sinner and hate the sin.”

In another statement indicating lack of knowledge of the subject, you describe divorce as “another action the Catholic church has taken a strong stance against.” The Catholic church does not condemn civil divorce but refuses to recognize a second marriage as valid, unless the first marriage is found by the church to be invalid (annulled).

Why would the “mothers” want to place children where their “marriage” is not recognized and the thereby implied sexual activity is considered morally wrong? I wonder.

– George Loud

Hilton Head Island