Yesterday I posted a blog on Father Timothy Radcliffe’s profound little book on the Stations of the Cross. I was somewhat taken-a-back when a link was posted of which this is the content.
“ROME, May 19, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) — Pope Francis has appointed radically liberal, pro-homosexual Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe as a consultor for the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
The Holy Father made the appointment on Saturday, according to Vatican Radio.Father Radcliffe, an Englishman, author and speaker, was Master of the Dominican order from 1992 to 2001, and is an outspoken proponent of homosexuality.
“We must accompany [gay people] as they discern what this means, letting our images be stretched open,” he said in a 2006 religious education lecture in Los Angeles. “This means watching ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ reading gay novels, living with our gay friends and listening with them as they listen to the Lord.” ( Father Timothy.)
Not being a Roman Catholic or in touch with Vatican news sources I was unaware of this appointment by Pope Francis. I’m not shocked or upset. I have seen the film Brokeback Mountain and read a few gay novels, “Maurice,” a novel by E. M. Forster is one that comes to mind. It’s a tale of same-sex love in early 20th-century England, it follows Maurice Hall from his schooldays, through university and beyond. I’ve read most of E. M. Forster’s books. A Passage to India is possibly his best and most popular.
Pope Francis must have good reason for making this appointment. He is painfully aware of the human condition. The review of his book “The Name of God is Mercy by the Telegraph Newspaper is very favourable and the Telegraph doesn’t spare any punches.
“Francis offers the most vivid glimpse yet of his thinking on the struggles facing the Church in the 21st Century (Sunday Telegraph)
I had already encountered the following two quotes by Pope Francis and therefore his appointment of Fr Timothy is a logical outcome.
“I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.”(Little Book of Wisdom)
If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge? We shouldn’t marginalise people for this. They must be integrated into society. The last I heard on the BBC News coverage.
Whatever one feels about the “gay dimension” it’s of little use going at it with a sledge hammer.
We need to Listen to what gay men and women are saying. This is where Pope Francis excels. He is a wonderful listener and hears the pain that may mask itself in Gay Pride Marches and other outrageous manifestations of gay life.
Together with the Jews, Adolf Hitler sent homosexuals, gypsies and the mentally ill to the Gas Chambers.
I don’t suppose many posters on this forum will agree with me, but on reading through yesterday’s comments I felt it necessary to make some kind of response.
Icon of Loving Tenderness.
For anyone who has lost heir mother at an early age, this icon has much significance. Cradled in the arms of the Mother of God we can survive almost anything, and that inludes death.
Harrowing of Hell.
I’ve added these two icons in retrospect after all the comments and my own witness.
All Along the Watchtower 
Just as homosexuality was criminalized in the past and remains so in some countries to this day, so is public drunkeness and the use of hardcore narcotics. I would suppose that if a priest runs into an alcoholic that is destroying his life and all of those around him or a hardcore drug addict that does the same, the priest would send the alcoholic to the AA or similar facility and the drug addict to an addiction clinic. You would not hear from the mouths of drunken or addicted priests words to the effect that they cannot be helped unless we decriminalize public drunkeness and the use of heroin or crack cocaine. You do the hard thing; you confront them about their state and you offer them another life and the help that is necessary to overcome the addiction.
Likewise you will not see drunkard pride parades or heroin addict parades that are trying to politicize their addictions and lifestyles. When a drunk or an addict are ready for conversion to the faith and a new life the Church has always been there for them just as it has always been there for homosexual persons who are serious about their faith and ammending their lives. A priest should know of these organizations and if there isn’t one nearby then more hands on pastoring should be done by the priest. For we should remember that “all things are possible for those who believe” and more importantly still, “all things are possible for God.” So there is no problem so large that God cannot fix nor so ingrained into the psyche that God cannot give the grace necessary to overcome the malady.
To play into the hands of the impenitent and treat their disease as simply another way of life is to deny the foundations of the Christian Faith and the Scriptures themselves. In fact, to a large extent, the problems themselves become worse when we become enablers and indifferent to sinful lifestyles than if we would confront the issue for the unhealthy addiction that it is. The organization Courage does work, and thus it is routinely attacked by the Gay Elitist Left that wants parity between homosexuality and heterosexuality. That is their mission and that is what this society and our churches have been caving into one after another. Where is the same treatment being tauted for fornicators living with mistresses, alcoholics and and addicts? Are they less important and less at fault than the active homosexual?
When you get caught up in a particularly dangerous lifestyle it is not helpful to engage with people who wish to extol the virtues of their malady or wear their sex or drug addiction as a badge of honor. When and if they want to escape their lifestyle, help is available in the Church . . . by prayer and belief and in practice by groups who understand well the problems that these people face.
Everybody on the face of this earth has their own demons and crosses to fight and to bear. Most of us fight them in the silence of the Confessional and perhaps with close friends or family. We do not ‘come out of the closet’ with an agenda to make our own demons go away by giving them legal or political rights.
The Pope seems to think that the Church is not already bruised, hurting or dirty, which is what it has been for 2000 years. But to make it now into a Church that is complicit and takes sides witht he political agendas of those with severe spiritual demons as well as psychological ones is foolish at best and diabolical at the worst.
There are alot of people who are marginalized in society and usually for good reason; because it is better for the society and culture to do so. I don’t want my children growing up seeing homosexuality, drunkeness and drug addiction as being normal; nay, special and deserving of wide press coverage and unprecedented demands. If that is what being pastoral is to these priests like Radcliffe, then we are saving the tumor in order to kill the patient. Sin damages our children and ultimately all of our society. So morality is something that the Church should teach and hold to with firmness as you won’t find it anywhere else. Secular society will go any direction that it is led as long the lawmakers can get elected and count on these disparate groups for their votes. They are simply a constituency. In the Church we need to look to saving souls not stroking behaviors which might cost someone their soul.
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Scoop,
Perhaps you ought to take up your argument with Pope Francis. After all he is the leader of your church. .
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What do you think I’m doing in my writings here along with every other traditional Catholic on the planet?
This article expresses the depth of the hurt that this papacy is causing and what is at stake.
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2017/02/de-mattei-when-public-correction-of.html
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Is the Pope really reprehensible in his attitude? We’re not living in the middle ages.
Maybe those who are hurt need to ask themselves why they are so hurt. Its nothing to the hurt that the gay community has received in the past. At last a Pope has the courage to speak up and support a section of society who have been wounded and persecuted.by the Church.
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So a Pope who does not defend the Faith as received is to be revered? The papacy, in fact, the priesthood, is not simply another job or political entity trying to win the world’s favor by giving bread and circuses to the unbelieving whilst, I might add, fomenting the most horrid ad hominem attacks upon those who are believers. This is not courage Malcolm, this is arrogance and ego.
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One of Pope Francis’ favourite saints is St. Joseph. We could join in prayer to this great saint that he might intercede in this matter for the good of all.
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I use Mary and Joseph and Peter and Paul myself as the intercessors for the Pope and for Holy Mother Church.
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Fifty+ years ago when news reached our school that Vatican Council II was being proposed, our teacher advised us that there had been a schism in the Church after every previous Council. Pope Paul VI observed in later years that the smoke of Satan had entered the Church. We who are old can see the damage inflicted on the Church and society in general over the past fifty years, “Non Servium!” is the response most commonly given by those of whom nobility of thought and selfless action would have been expected in times past. Pope Paul forewarned about this rot also in his encyclical “Humanae Vitae ” . There used be much talk about communal sins back in the day but we actually go to the Judgement Seat one at a time. We cannot pass our own failures to take responsibility for ourselves onto others. God knows us through and through. He cannot be fooled. He loves us but has no favourites – He loves each of us equally. He is Just and Fair but also Merciful, else no one could stand before Him.
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Indeed so Annie.
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The tragic and twisted characters who made ‘gay’ normal http://josephsciambra.com/the-tragic-and-twisted-characters-who-made-gay-normaland-one-was-a-catholic-priest/
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Yes, I am certainly aware that the movement both in psychology, Dignity and political marches for special rights were all homosexuals themselves. Funny how we vet politicians to make sure that they don’t manipulate laws because they have vested interests in the outcome. But in this case nobody is concerned to look into it.
We could add a few of our Bishops who enabled this culture as well. Rembert Weakland admitted in his biography that he had a lover most of his adult life. We all knew but nobody would acknowledge (a bunch of others as well but I will not calumniate them as they are dead and never admitted their orientation). It is a subculture that is like a cancer and nobody yet as been able to root them out or perhaps it is so deep that most are in the know and culpable of misdeeds for not blowing the whistle which usually resulted int he persecution of the whistle blower rather than the perpetrator. It is like homosexual mafia. God have mercy on their souls and send us someone who will end this cancer within the Church.
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I’d add. and society.
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Indeed so NEO . . . though we can’t turn society unless we a grip on the Church first.
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Indeed. As Andrew Breitbart said, more generally, “Politics is downstream from culture”. And the churches should be leaders, not followers.b or as C. is wont to say, “Politics is a second order activity.”
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I simply don’t know, Malcolm. I agree with this, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge? We shouldn’t marginalise people for this. They must be integrated into society.”
But it seems to me that searching for the Lord would imply that they search for the discernment to live as the Lord directs. None of us can necessarily change what we are, although the Lord certainly can, especially if we ask Him to.
So I remain of two minds:
Yes, the church must be out in the dirt, the mud, and the blood, of the world, doing the work of the Lord, and that is what I make of the Pope’s statement above.
But, Jesus and the father’s of the Faith established the rules long ago, some things have changed, yes, like the status of women, but always in line with the teachings of Jesus. Many of the issues we debate now, SSM is an example, do not fit with the teachings as delivered, to my mind, at least.
So perhaps, what we should be doing is to be out there, yes, of course, but we should be teaching that this is not natural, and that with the Lord’s help, there is hope for them to live in the Lord. We have examples, even in this area of people who have come to the conclusion, that while they can not change who they are, but what they can do is go and sin no more. That doesn’t mean that we have the right to throw them away, but it does mean that at some point they have to come to His teachings. It is, in the final reckoning, up to them.
Tough area, Malcolm, and I admire you for taking it on. By the way, the only Forster work I’ve read was A Passage to India, that I liked. But then I rarely read novels anymore.
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Neo,
As is usual with you, your compassion shines through your comment. To be honest I am in two minds myself about it all. I just don’t know but at least I’m willing to listen.
The film about Alan Turing and the cruel and merciless treatment he received has had a profound affect on many people. You probably know his story.
Alan Turing worked at the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park – the forerunner of GCHQ – where he devised the techniques which cracked the German Enigma code. Without him its doubtful if we would have won the war.
He is widely seen as the father of computer science and artificial intelligence and is credited with helping to shorten the course of the war.
Turing was born in 1912 in a nursing home in Paddington, London,
“Science was “an extra-curricular passion”, which led him to become an undergraduate at King’s College, Cambridge – and it was here that homosexuality became a definitive part of his identity,”one of his biographers has said.
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I don’t know if I would consider Alan Turings treatment as ‘merciless’ when, at the time, his treatment was simply the enforcement of English law. Once the law was changed then you can speak of illegal and merciless treatment. If you want to brand the laws of the land at the time as merciless that would make much more sense.
But legalizing abortion or homosexual activity does not change the moral imperatives for a Christian. Human law is always imperfect but the Laws of God are Perfect and Just. I am willing to leave the judging of individual souls to Christ but then I am not willing to leave my own soul to being judged by Christ for not attempting to publicly defend the teachings of Christ and to persuade secular society that whether we have legalized something or not is no measure as to whether we should do something or not do it.
I have, as most of us have, worked on irradicating moral sins that were legal and some that were illegal. But tackling them head on in the privacy of our own spiritual life is not to create a society that scandalizes the faith publicly. In such a case, I would expect to be condemned to my face as was Peter by Paul and I certainly would expect that the leaders of the Christian Faith would be united to speak about the dire consequence to the human the soul which is caused by the commission of these sins. Nobody needs to be put in jail for moral sin unless it is mirrored in the secular law; such as murder and theft etc. So we need not figuratively to throw stones unless we are throwing them at a public attempt to normalize and to rend immoral behaviors as now being good and as moral as any other.
Love of neighbor does not come first but gains its value in the love of God which is first. The love of God places demands on people and we [the Church] should not be afraid to tell the world, even when it is not in season, what God has taught about certain behaviors. If they do not listen then we can treat them as the heathen and the publican . . . which is to make sure that we separate ourselves from them and decline to celebrate their disordered lifestyle with them. Outside of that I am not suggesting that we beat them or stone them. But I will show my disgust with public scandal and try to keep my children or grandchildren from their contagion even if it means that with new hate speech laws, I end up in prison. Wrong is wrong even if the whole world thinks its right.
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If everyone believed in God then maybe your post has some justification. We’re living in a secular world and no amount of pious indignation and disgust is going to have much effect.
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So you have left the battlefield of spiritual warfare? Your answer sounds vaguely familiar to the political argument that we might as well give out condoms to our children because they will have sex anyway. They gave up on teaching morality to lessen the physical effects that might prove harmful to our temporary life on earth.
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This article, perhaps, far from being medeival, is a good answer to your comment.
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Good article Scoop. It ends with this: “My friends, it is time to wake up and realize that we are in a war, and things don’t look very bright for the home team right now. Recall that Saint Bernard preached that, “God chastises the good when they do not fight against evil.” In his mercy, Our Lord gives us Lent to make us fit for the battle we must fight to our very last breath.”
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I can’t say I’m completely familiar with it, but I have read some on it. Given that homosexuality was illegal at the time (I think that wrong in civil law, but given the mores of the time, understandable) it is hard to see how it is not a security breach for him. But it always seemed to me that he was simply persecuted well beyond reason, far more than actual spies were, in fact.
For the rest, well thanks. I do believe we all are called to be compassionate.
I wonder if some of this doesn’t have to do with church leaders being confused. The Pope, yes, but also the current Archbishop, and many others, with what their mission actually is. My understanding is that the mission is to lead people to God. A secondary (at best) mission is to alleviate problems in society. That’s fine in its place, it’s a good work, but it is not the mission, which is to follow the crucified and risen Christ. Seems to me many are trying to serve two (or more) masters, and as usual failing in all areas. And the real problem with that is that in doing so, many souls are lost, well perhaps, I’m no expert, nor is God whispering in my ear, as far as I know, anyway.
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A diamond thrown in the dirt is still a diamond. Jesus cast into prison is still Jesus, “when I was imprisoned you came and visited with Me”.
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we worry about gender and identity, but yet pass by the wounded on the road. For me there are many modern leprosies that we need to listen and respond to with grace, copassion and love.
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Amen to that pvcann.
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Have we grown so lax that the ‘wounded’ can no longer present themselves to the Church’s emergency room; the Confessional? Can they not find a priest to speak to anymore? These are rhetorical questions that too often these days renders an answer of no. There are many cases where the priests now tell the wounded that they are fine just as they are and need do nothing. If you’re lucky enough to find a good spiritual director in your parish hold on to him like a tick on a hound dog.
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Scoop
You and I may see certain homosexual practices as sinful or disordered, but that isn’t how a gay man or woman sees it. I find the whole business of sodomy etc, difficult to comprehend.
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Of course that is true and why it is incumbent upon the Christian community to right their wrong thinking by teaching the Truth.
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Absolutely
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Well done Malcolm. This is a really interesting issue that is dominating a lot of the media discussions around the Church and crowding out the real message we should be getting out – that Jesus loves us and has died for all of our sins. I want to talk to people about the love of Jesus and love everyone as He commanded. Perhaps we can pray on that and see what God tells us about this issue, I did and was given a clear answer that has changed my views.
I’m not going to even try to get into the theological arguments on this. But if anyone is interested there are Christians who feel an attraction to the same sex who are making really interesting arguments about how to live a Godly life in that knowledge and their ideas can also inform the theology of those of us who are heterosexual. Check out http://www.livingout.org/
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Have you come across Joseph Sciamba? http://josephsciambra.com/jesus-loves-gay-men/
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Good article, Annie, and consistent with what I have seen. It’s also why I believe why we must reach out to them, not cast them away.
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If you read further parts of his blog, he escaped the lifestyle by the grace of God and is clear-eyed at how gauche boys are recruited by suave older men to their detriment.
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I will, and I sensed from that article a good part of that. He strikes me as very clear-eyed.
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http://josephsciambra.com/
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https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/two-minute-clip-homosexuality-every-christian-should-watch?utm_content=buffer2dc14&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Worth watching on this topic
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Thanks for this, Rob. All things are possible with God.
Christ did have a bride [the Church] and described Himself as Bridegroom and it is a continent marriage. Other than that, God bless this gentleman for saying what needs to be said. Do the bishops really believe in the Good News or not?
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Yes, it was worth it. Thanks.
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Hi Rob, That’s a great post and extraordinarily illuminating.
I resonate very much with what Sam Allberry says here.
“It has been a few years now since I first started telling close Christian friends that I battle with homosexual feelings. It was a lengthy process and in some ways quite emotionally exhausting. But it was one of the best things I have ever done. The very act of sharing something so personal with someone else is a great trust, and in virtually every case it strengthened and deepened the friendship. Close friends have became even closer. I also found that people felt more able to open up to me about personal things in their own lives, on the basis that I had been so open with them. Some wonderful times of fellowship have resulted.”
I would add to that this quotation from the same post.
“Those for whom marriage is not a realistic prospect need to be affirmed in their calling to singleness. Our fellowships need to uphold and honor singleness as a gift and take care not unwittingly to denigrate it. Singles should not be thought or spoken of as loose ends that need tying up. Nor should we think that every single person is single because he’s been too lazy to look for a marriage partner.”
I think of myself as a solitary and I prefer that term to single. Being a solitary really throws you on and into the mercy of Jesus who is the human face of God.
It was with much trepidation that I began this blog on Homosexuality, I named it STRUGGLE, because believe me I’ve struggled all my life with same sex attraction. I can echo much of the experience that Sam Allberry mentions in that little clip including the bullying at school. I was a boarder at a Cathedral School.
When I posted the blog on Stations I had no idea that Scoop would post a link about Fr Timothy Radcliffe and Pope Francis. Scoop’s comments was a golden opportunity to open up a discussion about homosexuality.
I purposely didn’t look at my blog “struggle” until late afternoon, 4 pm to be exact.
I was terrified as to what I might find. However my worst fears were not realized.
Naturally I feel a great identification with other men who like myself are attracted to the same sex. Its been my vocation to somehow show them that there is a better way. But you don’t do it by preaching at them. That only angers them. You’ve somehow got to show them the face of Jesus in one’s own life and witness. Faces are very important to me and we communicate through our facial expressions.
In my own battle with homosexuality it is the icon of Our Lady of Loving tenderness who has helped . I lost my mother when I was nine. Dad couldn’t cope with me as I was hyper active and so I was sent away to school where i was abused bullied and rejected. I survived.
In that icon of Loving Tenderness I love the way in which Jesus cuddles up to his Mother.
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“Its been my vocation to somehow show them that there is a better way.” Good for you. True christian leadership is rare.
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Malcolm, a very great and very brave post, thank you for your trust in us.
What you call my compassion (as good a term as any) comes from experience, not mine, but close friends do share it. My views have changed since I was a young man, with a young man’s typical callousness. As I watched their struggles, I came to believe that while their actions may have been wrong, their intentions were not. Sadly, their churches rejected them, as mine would have, especially in those days, and so they became (some of them) heathens, and atheists. I was too young and uneducated then to help, but much is learned from experience. We simply must find a way to reach out to the lost sheep.
I don’t know, maybe church leadership is in the same boat, just not able to see their way, or perhaps articulate it properly, I still can’t. But I too have had friends become closer because of such admissions, although I have also had some run away, never to be heard from again. That was and is too sad for words to me, but I suppose they thought they had to. They risked much by confiding, and some lost greatly, as did I, when I lost their friendship.
And just a word to the commenters yesterday, to me this one one of the most adult, caring, and yes compassionate threads, ever, here. I’m very proud of us all, because it is hard to think, and care, when it’s much easier to simply condemn. Thank you all.
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I knew I could trust you all by your generous and caring posts.
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We try to be that way, but sometimes it goes pear shaped on us. I’m very pleased it didn’t this time. 🙂
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One of the best clips on the subject I’ve ever seen, thanks Rob.
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Malcolm, thank you for this defense of your position. I was wondering how Fr. Radcliffe’s book could be life changing for you without having reasons that you would be willing to voice. (I’m referring to the lack of your comments yesterday.)
Because of Pope Francis the Catholic Church is in schism. He believes that the mercy of Christ is sufficient without the need for repentance. He believes all will go to heaven, so why does it matter. Now, whether he is correct is a subject for another day. BUT, his view is not Christianity. The church that Jesus Christ founded, the Catholic Church, and all Christian churches until recent history have taught that homosexual acts are sinful, and that it is necessary to repent of our sins and change our lives. Our salvation depends on it.
And Malcolm, thanks for being open other viewpoints, and to Annie who has lead us to a homosexual man crying in the wilderness pleading for Christian leadership. http://josephsciambra.com/dead-friends-bishops-and-lifesitenews/
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Steve Brown,
in the post I typed before your’s I’ve come clean about the struggles with my own sexual orientation. I can’t go along with Father Timothy all the way. However Scoop’s initial comment was a God-send to open up a discussion that I’ve wanted to start for some time.
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And what a difference there was between the way Cardinal Terrence Cooke handled this issue pastorally and his successor to the Chicago Diocese. It is, in microcosm, what this article speaks of in a macro sense.
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Please do read the link that the author left at the bottom of the article: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html
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PS Steve I’ve saved that remarkable article – Dead Friends etc. Thank you for posting it.
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Re’ Tim Radcliffe’s book and how it was a life changing for me. It was nothing to do with my sexual orienation. I’d dealt with that yonks ago. It was the final chapter
“Without the Day of the Lord we cannot live.” He mentions Joseph Ratzinger whose book Introduction to Christianity has been a great stand by for me in dark days.
That chapter opened up for me an entire range of fresh possibilities. It also led me to read Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.Gilead is a remarkable noven and I’m reading it again at present.
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All round this has been a very encouraging thread and it has fulfilled my wildest hopes. God is Good. God is Great, above all God loves us even when we are sunk in sin. He struggles to pull us out of Hell. The Russian or Greek Orthodox Icon of the Harrowing of Hell – The Resurrection, is a powerful encouragement for all of us.
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Yes. By His Wounds we are healed. Thank you Malcolm for your witness.
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Thank you dear Annie.
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I’ve added two icons to the original post. The Mother of God of Loving Tenderness and the Harrowing of Hell.
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Malcolm, thank you for sharing and clearing the fog off of the window. I suspected this but now we can move on and I can respect your life STRUGGLES all the more. God bless you and may you always cooperate with the grace that God has given to you.
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Scoop, I thought you would probably realize where I was going. I had to throw out many round about scenarios to ensure that I could trust you all. You all came out 100%. God bless you too Bro. After saying the morning office it was clear to me that I must come clean so to speak and be open.
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And I, especially, appreciate that Malcolm. I can now call you friend and brother without feeling that you are hiding from me. So I thank you for that and assure you of all my prayers in life’s struggles.
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Bless you for that Scoop. I was hiding from you, but only because by nature I’m a cautious person.
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I understand that Malcolm. I am as well except when it comes to defending the faith . . . or at least that is my hope.
You know . . . perseverance to the end and all of that? I pray for that grace.
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I was reflecting today on John Michael Talbot’s ‘Would You Crucify Him’ and I find it poignant because I think we do.
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in so many ways, but he always rises up again with his magnificent love.
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Another comes home…
http://www.ignitumtoday.com/2017/02/22/a-journey-home/
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Very moving story.
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Yes, he does, ultimate patience
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You guys are on the late show. Good brother Malcolm opened up about his sexuality back in the days of good brother Damiens fight club. It hasn’t changed my opinion of him. Good brother Malcolm is one of my oldest friends, and a card carrying member in good standing of my gay blog….
cherrybombcoutour.blogspot.com. That weasel of a sick little monkey peabrain Eccles used to be a member but dropped out.
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maybe a discussion on the lusts of the flesh is in order. Ive beed born again but it doesn’t stop me from looking at a pretty girl….(I try not to look with lust). Over the yrs I just tell myself how wonderful god is to have made such booty…oops, I mean beauty. Knowing the Lord does put breaks on what one will do. Ive had a married girl throw herself on me and I refused. If I was carnal, there would have been a good time had by all. I don’t steal. I do pick lemons off peoples trees. Even good brother paul said he struggled with the flesh. he couldn’t marry because he was on the go all the time. All these unsaved people in here need to find Jesus, then talk about their own struggles. Talking about them while they are still yet unsaved doesn’t matter. if they dropped dead rite now they would wake up in hell. The testimony of those who know the Lord is all that matters. It always amuses me how the cathol devotees dote on every word from a man that is on his way to hell. I can understand….being unsaved myself at one time. You see, that is how Jesus works….He understands us because He was born of a woman and lived as a human. He is a human. He is in heaven as we speak in his fleshly human body. he knows our plight.
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Malcolm, let me speak for us all. We thank you for your courage. From now on if we say dumb, stupid, or insensitive things please just say so, or walk away for a day or four. It’s OK not to discuss anything, it’s not OK for you to get upset and leave. We forbid you to leave!
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Yeah good brother Steve….we wouldn’t want anyone getting upset and leaving, would we?
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Steve Brown
I’ve learned with the grace of God not to take offence too easily. So I won’t leave. On former days the Telegraph Newspaper had a blog site. Matters used to get really hot on that forum. I used to post under the name artfulozzy. No doubt Bosco will remember. It was quite traumatic .
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Malcolm, I have been away for a few days, and came back and found this remarkable post. I think in it, and in your comments, you have done more good than many a ferocious argument; thank you for your Christian witness.
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Chalcedon,
Thank you for your comment. It was with a certain reserve that I posted “Struggles,”
because its a subject that is fraught with perils for the unwary.
However being “celibate,” and “solitary” I had no axe to grind. Although not on the sidelines as such but with decided views of right and wrong I could post from a strong position.
It was thanks to Scoop who gave me the opportunity to speak from an empathetic and compassionate angle that wouldn’t cause offence to anyone.
You’ll appreciate that as a pastor there are many subjects which require delicate handling.
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I do indeed, Malcolm. You may be familiar with the Rev Peter Ould who has also written movingly about this?
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