Thursday, April 5, 2012

Cardinal Schonborn Overrules Priest, Allows Partnered Homosexual on Parish Council


From Matt Abbott:
From CatholicCulture.org:

    Overruling one of his parish priests, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna has permitted a homosexual in a registered domestic partnership to serve on a parish council. Father Gerhard Swierzek, the parish priest of a small parish in the archdiocese, had refused to allow Florian Stangl, 26, to serve on the council.... Cardinal Schönborn said that he had initially intended to uphold the priest's decisionbut then, he said, 'I ask myself in these situations: How did Jesus act? He first saw the human being.' Calling his decision 'a decision for human beings,' the cardinal recounted that he invited Stangl and his partner to lunch and understood 'why the community had given him the most votes, because he is really impressive.'
I asked Father Richard Perozich, a priest of the Diocese of San Diego, to comment on the above story.

Father responded, "Unfortunately, this action [on the part of Cardinal Schönborn] will validate homosexual behavior for that local church against Christ's teachings."

He added:

"Catholics who are in a sexual relationship outside of marriage ... scandalize the faithful and lead them away from Jesus. Repentance, [in this case] turning away from homosexual behavior first in a public way since a domestic partnership has been established, is the first step. Conversion to Jesus by decrying old behavior and public promise of chastity is the second step. Repairing the damage through life-long counsel to others with homosexual attraction to live chastely is the third step..."

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