I found your article and comments about the Church responding to the spiritual needs of the LGBT community, to be both divisive, mean-spirited, cruel, condemning and totally distasteful and incorrect in its narrative form. What provides you with the audacity to judge and condemn other Catholic Christian men and women because YOU project that sexuality is the basis of LGBT relationships? You have assumed the role, with your blatant, derogatory comments, that only serve to destroy the life-giving love of Jesus Christ. I am personally insulted and ashamed of your hurtful and condemning comments.
You apparently look myopically at the nature of and gift of all of God's children. All are always welcome, as Jesus clearly reminds us in the Gospels, that we are the daughters and sons of the one, true God. I find your comments to be destructive, embarrassing and off-base about something you obviously know little about.
Perhaps in your next narrative, you may find it a helpful resource to first pray and acknowledge that among creation is the fact that WE, all of us, are among the Crown of Creation that only God can manifest through His creative love and power. We are not here on this earth to tear down and destroy God's precious creations. Life is challenging enough now a days and we certainly cannot benefit from malicious comments about God's creative love, from which ALL of us have come to be. Recognize the Giver of all good Gifts, God and perhaps in prayer you may bring your lack of understanding about the many good and generous women and men that make up our local LGBT communities.
It is quite clear that our Lord Jesus has commanded all of us to live, love and forgive as He so generously does throughout his difficult and challenging life of self-sacrifice for the good of ALL His glorious achievements and grace.
As a Franciscan, deeply rooted in prayer and apostolic ministry of our founding Saint Francis, the call to announce to the world the depth, width and challenge to love as Christ does by embracing the neglected, marginalized and outcasts in our society. We proudly follow the example of Christ and St. Francis of Assisi, as living examples of following the God-given grace lived out in our disposable society and making darn sure that no one is ever neglected or critically judged purely on judgements of those who may be different than us. Let it be said again, that we are to love God and the people He places in our lives, to extend a warm, inviting and welcoming place where people can feel safe, respected and deeply valued as instruments of God’s creative and generous love for all of His people.
I extend to you and others who may possibly share in your viewpoints, the invitation and opportunity to see the good in others and to withhold condemning and destructive comments about the greatness of God. God does not make mistakes... He continues to create life as He sees fit and not according to individual judgements, determinations and criteria pertaining to the beauty of all created life.
The Church is the one place where all people can come to praise God for His goodness without the fear of the person sitting behind him/her making critical and condemning comments about how any particular group in the Church that strives to become more familiar with the presence of God in all lives, even those we may not understand or personally accept.
God has been and always will be the one we stand before and I do believe that God will ask each one of us: how have you been a person of love and a person of forgiveness. It all comes down to the understanding and the love God we turn to for comfort and compassion and God is the last one we should be expressing such harmful and hateful sentiments pertaining to His creative goodness.
You shall remain in my daily prayer.
Fr. Joseph Quinn, OFM
______________________
From the Editor desk:
Dear Dr. Horvat,
When we have a Franciscan priest who praises a sin that is against nature and calls to Heaven for vengeance as an expression of “God’s creative love and power,” we have all the tenets of the Catholic Morals up-side-down. It is another sad manifestation of the great apostasy that, unfortunately, we are witnessing in the Church at least since Vatican II.
Fr. Quinn, who pretends to be a messenger of God’s love for all, is infuriated with your opposition to homosexuality, which is based upon exactly the same Morals that the Catholic Church always taught until the Council.
I believe that there is nothing to say in response to him since he completely rejects that the same God of love is also the God of justice Who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and expressed His rejection of all homosexuals (here and here ).
So, I turn to you, Dr. Horvat, to encourage you to continue on the same path you were following when you wrote those articles. The letter of Fr. Quinn shows that they are making a difference. It brings to my mind those words attributed to Don Quixote: “Ladran Sancho, es señal que cabalgamos.” (They bark, Sancho, it is a sign that we ride forward)
Brazilian Church Commission Defends Homos
Ms. Horvat,
I found your article and comments about the Church responding to the spiritual needs of the LGBT community, to be both divisive, mean-spirited, cruel, condemning and totally distasteful and incorrect in its narrative form. What provides you with the audacity to judge and condemn other Catholic Christian men and women because YOU project that sexuality is the basis of LGBT relationships? You have assumed the role, with your blatant, derogatory comments, that only serve to destroy the life-giving love of Jesus Christ. I am personally insulted and ashamed of your hurtful and condemning comments.
You apparently look myopically at the nature of and gift of all of God's children. All are always welcome, as Jesus clearly reminds us in the Gospels, that we are the daughters and sons of the one, true God. I find your comments to be destructive, embarrassing and off-base about something you obviously know little about.
Perhaps in your next narrative, you may find it a helpful resource to first pray and acknowledge that among creation is the fact that WE, all of us, are among the Crown of Creation that only God can manifest through His creative love and power. We are not here on this earth to tear down and destroy God's precious creations. Life is challenging enough now a days and we certainly cannot benefit from malicious comments about God's creative love, from which ALL of us have come to be. Recognize the Giver of all good Gifts, God and perhaps in prayer you may bring your lack of understanding about the many good and generous women and men that make up our local LGBT communities.
It is quite clear that our Lord Jesus has commanded all of us to live, love and forgive as He so generously does throughout his difficult and challenging life of self-sacrifice for the good of ALL His glorious achievements and grace.
As a Franciscan, deeply rooted in prayer and apostolic ministry of our founding Saint Francis, the call to announce to the world the depth, width and challenge to love as Christ does by embracing the neglected, marginalized and outcasts in our society. We proudly follow the example of Christ and St. Francis of Assisi, as living examples of following the God-given grace lived out in our disposable society and making darn sure that no one is ever neglected or critically judged purely on judgements of those who may be different than us. Let it be said again, that we are to love God and the people He places in our lives, to extend a warm, inviting and welcoming place where people can feel safe, respected and deeply valued as instruments of God’s creative and generous love for all of His people.
I extend to you and others who may possibly share in your viewpoints, the invitation and opportunity to see the good in others and to withhold condemning and destructive comments about the greatness of God. God does not make mistakes... He continues to create life as He sees fit and not according to individual judgements, determinations and criteria pertaining to the beauty of all created life.
The Church is the one place where all people can come to praise God for His goodness without the fear of the person sitting behind him/her making critical and condemning comments about how any particular group in the Church that strives to become more familiar with the presence of God in all lives, even those we may not understand or personally accept.
God has been and always will be the one we stand before and I do believe that God will ask each one of us: how have you been a person of love and a person of forgiveness. It all comes down to the understanding and the love God we turn to for comfort and compassion and God is the last one we should be expressing such harmful and hateful sentiments pertaining to His creative goodness.
You shall remain in my daily prayer.
Fr. Joseph Quinn, OFM
From the Editor desk:
Dear Dr. Horvat,
When we have a Franciscan priest who praises a sin that is against nature and calls to Heaven for vengeance as an expression of “God’s creative love and power,” we have all the tenets of the Catholic Morals up-side-down. It is another sad manifestation of the great apostasy that, unfortunately, we are witnessing in the Church at least since Vatican II.
Fr. Quinn, who pretends to be a messenger of God’s love for all, is infuriated with your opposition to homosexuality, which is based upon exactly the same Morals that the Catholic Church always taught until the Council.
I believe that there is nothing to say in response to him since he completely rejects that the same God of love is also the God of justice Who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and expressed His rejection of all homosexuals (here and here ).
So, I turn to you, Dr. Horvat, to encourage you to continue on the same path you were following when you wrote those articles. The letter of Fr. Quinn shows that they are making a difference. It brings to my mind those words attributed to Don Quixote: “Ladran Sancho, es señal que cabalgamos.” (They bark, Sancho, it is a sign that we ride forward)
In Jesu et Maria,
Atila S. Guimarães
____________________________________________________________________________
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