From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste
MONDAY, JULY 30, 2013
One of our News Dispatch readers writes: “Father Beste homosexuality is a very sensitive and controversial issue. I read your homily on seventeenth Sunday in ordinary time you gave at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Siaya Township. Pope Francis also commented on it saying that homosexuals can and should be accepted into the Catholic Church, what is your take on this”?
Pope Francis had been asked by journalists on Monday as he returned from a triumphant weeklong visit to Brazil whether homosexuals should be discriminated against. He did not only say they should not be discriminated but also that he had no power to judge or condemn them.
He was quoted to have said: “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” The pope’s comments were made during an 80-minute press conference with reporters on his flight back to Rome, his first meeting with press since he was named pontiff in March.
This was from the first reading on seventeenth Sunday in ordinary time Year C taken from Gn 18:20-32 .The reading talks of the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah as so great and grave. Verses 22-33 record Abraham pleading with the Lord to have mercy on Sodom and Gomorrah because Abraham’s nephew, Lot, and his family lived in Sodom. But God is so angry with the sin that He must destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.
In Kenya the Daily Nation on Monday on its cartoon captured the reading portraying that sleeping with cows, chicken, or dogs is worse than homosexuality. It was referring to incidences in Kenya where some people have been caught having sex with cows, chicken and dogs.
My understanding is that pope Francis wants to pass a message that homosexuals should not be discriminated. The second message here is that all of us are sinners so it would be a big mistake to condemn the gay communities.
As Emeritus Pope Benedict in his General Audience, 19 October 2005 said in Psalm 130[129] during his evening prayer – Sunday of week fourth, “Lord if you were to mark our guilt who would survive”?-it means that all of us are sinners and we must work towards getting away from it and not to condemn.
This text is used over and over at funerals, the text is first and foremost a hymn to divine mercy and to the reconciliation between the sinner and the Lord, a God who is just but always prepared to show himself “a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity, continuing his kindness for a thousand generations, and forgiving wickedness and crime and sin” (Ex 34: 6-7).
In John 8: 7 when the Pharisees kept on questioning Jesus, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone. This they said, tempting him that they might have to accuse him.
But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said to them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
Christ neither found fault with the law, nor excused the prisoner’s guilt; nor did he countenance the pretended zeal of the Pharisees. Those are self-condemned who judge others, and yet do the same thing.
Against the background that Pope Francis defended gays from discrimination. “The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well. It says they should not be marginalized because of this [orientation] but that they must be integrated into society,” he said.
“The problem is not having this orientation,” he added. “We must be brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worse problem.”
Francis had spent the previous week in Brazil participating in activities marking World Youth Day. His final mass Sunday — an open-air event on Copacabana Beach — was estimated to have drawn as many as 3 million people, The Times reported.
Pope Francis, in some of the most compassionate words from any pontiff on gays, said they should not be judged or marginalized and should be integrated into society, but he reaffirmed Church teaching that homosexual acts are a sin.
In a broad-ranging 80-minute conversation with journalists on the plane bringing him back from a week-long visit to Brazil, Francis also said the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on women priests was definitive, although he would like them to have more leadership roles in administration and pastoral activities.
The Church teaches that it cannot ordain women because Jesus willingly chose only men as his apostles. Advocates of a female priesthood say he was acting according to the customs of his times.
On the question whether homosexuals should be denied the holy Eucharist, it brings us yet to another questions as to under what circumstances can a Catholic priest deny someone the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist?
It can be denied under the following circumstances: 1. The Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist cannot be administered to members of other religions, and 2. The Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist cannot be administered to those who voluntarily continue to live in grave sin. The church considers homosexuals to be living in grave sin therefore should not receive communion.
This reference is found in Canon Law # 844 §§1 to 5: Canon 844 §1 Catholic ministers may lawfully administer the sacraments only to catholic members of Christ’s faithful, who equally may lawfully receive them only from catholic ministers, except as provided in §§2, 3 and 4 of this canon and in canon 861 §2.
Canon 844 §2 Whenever necessity requires or a genuine spiritual advantage commends it, and provided the danger of error or indifferentism is avoided, Christ’s faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a catholic minister, may lawfully receive the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist and anointing of the sick from non-catholic ministers in whose Churches these sacraments are valid.
Canon 844 §3 Catholic ministers may lawfully administer the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist and anointing of the sick to members of the eastern Churches not in full communion with the catholic Church, if they spontaneously ask for them and are properly disposed.
The same applies to members of other Churches which the Apostolic See judges to be in the same position as the aforesaid eastern Churches so far as the sacraments are concerned.
Canon 844 §4 If there is a danger of death or if, in the judgment of the diocesan Bishop or of the Episcopal Conference, there is some other grave and pressing need, catholic ministers may lawfully administer these same sacraments to other Christians not in full communion with the catholic Church, who cannot approach a minister of their own community and who spontaneously ask for them, provided that they demonstrate the catholic faith in respect of these sacraments and are properly disposed.
Canon 844 §5 In respect of the cases dealt with in §§2, 3 and 4, the diocesan Bishop or the Episcopal Conference is not to issue general norms except after consultation with the competent authority, at least at the local level, of the non-catholic Church or community concerned.
This reference is found in Canon Law # Canon Law # 915. Canon 915 Those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to holy communion.
In the First Letter to the Corinthians, it states: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworhty manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.
Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.” [1 Cor. 11:27-9]
Catholics who live in grave sin, such as in common-law relationship, practicing homosexuals, those who have not been to Church, nor received the Sacraments for over a year, etc… are unworthy of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ because they are not in a state of grace.
But this does not mean they should be discriminated simply because they are homosexuals. They are still in image and likeness of God and through His mercy they can be saved.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
Facebook-omolo beste
Twitter-@8000accomole
Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ UN Disarmament Conference, 2002
Gn 18:20-32 http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/genesis/18:20
General Audience, 19 October 2005
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2005/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20051019_en.html
From: Ouko joachim omolo
Date: Thu, Aug 1, 2013 at 1:47 AM
Subject: News Dispatch
CARDINAL DOLAN DEFENDS POPE ON GAY RIGHTS’ REMARKS
From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste
WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2013
Following Pope Francis’ comments about gays one of our readers writes: “Father Beste I am a bit confused- Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Archbishop of New York says Pope Francis was right to say that gays should not be discriminated against.
He says they should not be discriminated because the church teaches to treat everyone — including gays — with dignity, even if they do not approve of the relationships they have.
This is contrary to our Cardinal John Njue who last month criticized US President Barack Obama for his stance on the matter of gay rights that they should not be discriminated against. Who is speaking the truth?”
Speaking at the start of his Africa tour in Senegal last month Cardinal Njue was against Obama’s call for African countries to respect the rights of its gay people. Obama said his basic view is that regardless of race, regardless of religion, regardless of gender, regardless of sexual orientation, when it comes to the law, people should be treated equally.
In a swift rejoinder, Njue reacted angrily by telling Obama not to lecturer Africans on the matter. “Let him (Obama) forget, forget and forget. I don’t think God was making a mistake when he created Adam and Eve and told them what to do,” he said packed church at Consolata Shrine.
Njue went on to say: “We must be proud of who we are. Those who have already ruined their society cannot come here to teach us on what we should do,” he added acerbically.
Contrary to cardinal Njue’s sentiments, Cardinal Dolan has defended Pope Francis by saying that “we should not forget there’s another element to God’s teaching, namely that we treat everybody with dignity and respect, that we don’t judge their heart, that we love and respect them,” he told TODAY’s Matt Lauer.
On Monday, Pope Francis surprised church observers with his comments about homosexuality during a news conference. “If a person is gay, and looks for the Lord and had goodwill, who am I to judge them?” he said.
Dolan said the pontiff’s comments didn’t surprise him, but everyone’s reaction did.
“This is no way could this be interpreted as a change in church doctrine or the church’s faith and morals. It is a change in tone,” he said.
“It’s been a pretty clear teaching of the church based on the words of Jesus that we can’t judge people; we can judge actions,” he said.
But he emphasized that those actions — specifically, sexual relationships between gay people — are still considered immoral in the eyes of the Catholic Church.
“Homosexual people deserve love respect and dignity, while homosexual acts are immoral,” Dolan said.
“The church’s teaching, which is based on the Bible and God’s revelation, is that sexual love is reserved only between a man and woman in the life-long, life-giving relationship of marriage and any relations outside of that, hetero or homo, would be less than God’s intention,” he said. “That hasn’t changed.”
Pope Francis said he was responding to the clear wishes of the College of Cardinals when he set up commissions to study the Vatican bank, Vatican financial and administrative procedures and the reform of the Roman Curia.
The pope also said he knows people have spoken about some kind of “gay lobby” at the Vatican protecting certain priests by threatening to blackmail others. The pope said the “lobbying” is what is worrisome.
Pope Francis held his first news conference July 28, shortly after the Alitalia flight taking him back to Rome departed from Rio de Janeiro. He answered questions from 21 journalists over a period of 80 minutes. The questions were not submitted in advance and no topics were ruled out of bounds.
Addressing the issue of the gay lobby, Pope Francis said it was important to “distinguish between a person who is gay and someone who makes a gay lobby,” he said. “A gay lobby isn’t good.”
The suggestion that a gay mafia exists within the Curia has been a major news item in Italy and has generated stories round the world. The reactions have been diverse — and have reinforced the stereotypes of the major news outlets.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
Facebook-omolo beste
Twitter-@8000accomole
Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ UN Disarmament Conference, 2002