Thursday, December 07, 2006

twisted pair

And not in the network cabling terminology.
 
A Canadian Bishop has done his duty as a shepherd and of course is now being taken to task by the media. via Bettnet.
 
See if you can follow the twisted logic from a twisted situation after they "married" they took placed an announcement and photo in the paper.  Archbishop Terrence Prendergast did his duty and instructed their pastor and them of their situation and that they were restricted from receiving communion.

"Your state of life — after having celebrated a same-sex civil marriage and spoken about it publicly on radio and television — has established your relationship as a public scandal," the archbishop wrote to them in a letter dated Aug. 18.

"This disciplinary measure is to remind you of the objective seriousness of your present state and to invite you to renounce it and to return to living according to Christ’s injunction to ‘sin no more.’ "

The paper of course gives them ample free room to twist in the wind as they explain their case.

A Roman Catholic couple say they’re being driven from the church over the archbishop’s opposition to their same-sex union....

When the notice appeared, the couple’s priest at Stella Maris in Meteghan told them that Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, head of the Halifax archdiocese and administrator of the Yarmouth diocese, which includes Meteghan, had directed that they could no longer receive communion or assume any leadership position in the church. That meant Mr. Poirier could no longer serve as a director of the choir at Stella Maris.

....Mr. Poirier and Mr. Murphy subsequently joined Beacon United Church in Yarmouth, where they felt more welcome.

....But the men maintain they’re Roman Catholic and still attend a service at Stella Maris once in a while.

Not that this would be the back-breaking straw, but going to another church and not attending Mass on Sunday would mean they aren't really Roman Catholic.  Although most readers will have already gathered that.

"For seven years, we’ve been accepted by the people of the community and the people that go to church," he said. "There hasn’t been a problem."  The archbishop is denying them something that’s integral to their faith because renouncing their way of life is out of the question, Mr. Murphy said. "We were born this way," he said. "God has created us this way and the way that we live is blessed by God."

In reality, that should read

The archbishop has shown them they are denying something that’s integral to their faith because they put their 'way of life' ahead of their faith.  We were born to love, honor and serve God. God has created us this way and the way that we live is should be in line with the teachings of Christ.

And that "we've been accepted" part would be further proof the Archbishop was right in saying.

"Fellow believers, seeing this and the nonchalance of Catholics, would be led astray and weakened in their faith," he said.

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