University of Portland Students Claim Right to Redefine Catholic Church Teachings on Homosexuality
“they believe they can redefine Catholicism to fit their political agenda”
The University of Portland is a Catholic school, so these are presumably Catholic students. You knew this move was coming, didn’t you?
The College Fix reports:
Catholic university students claim right to redefine teaching on homosexuality
Students at the University of Portland have said they can define what the Catholic Church teaches on homosexuality. This reveals an erroneous understanding of what the truth is.
The battle of words has lasted over a month now and began with a January 27 opinion piece from a handful of students who accused the University of Portland of not respecting the “LGBTQ+ community.”
A response piece in mid-February from Benedict Mary Bartsch, a 2018 alumnus who is now in the Dominican religious order, sparked an avalanche of criticism.
“It is mistaken to believe that authentic Catholicism and the LGBTQ+ community are compatible,” Bartsch wrote.
“It certainly is the case that a form of ‘Cafeteria Catholicism,’ which claims the name Catholic and yet dissents from fundamental and unchangeable teachings of the Church that have been taught since its foundation, can be a worthy bedfellow of the LGBTQ+ community,” he wrote.
“But if we are talking about true Catholicism, then the two are further away from each other than the two poles of the Earth,” he wrote.
He correctly explains that marriage is between one man and one woman, the only two sexes that exist.
There is a difference I’d add, between respect for someone who struggles with homosexual inclinations or gender dysphoria and someone who actively promotes same-sex unions or “sex change” operations or “gender affirming care.”
But for, sadly, many students at the University of Portland, they believe they can redefine Catholicism to fit their political agenda.
“Catholicism and the Bible, as has been discussed in many of my theology classes at this University, is up to interpretation,” the editor-in-chief Austin De Dios explained in an editorial.
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Comments
I think you conflated 2 different articles in your excerpt?
no, you quoted the college fix article correctly, but in the bit you quoted here, it looks like the last paragraph is also part of the anti-lqbt**** article, but it is on the pro side. Either way, it is confusing.
Last I checked, the Pope was in charge of defining Church teachings. Not students, and definitely not non-catholic students.
Nope, Jesus is in charge. The pope doesn’t have the authority to change His teaching. Especially not on the verge of Lent, which begins at Vespers for Pure Monday in Byzantine Catholic tradition.
Using the same logic as these homosexual theologians, I could determine that it is morally OK to rob a bank,
The analysis is absolutely the same!
There are other religions, or no religion at all. It isn’t their job to change the church, but to change churches.
It sounds more like they just want to raise some hell, pun intended.
With the freedom of choice God has given us, any of us can make up our own mind about any subject. But the message from God found in the bible remains unchanged. We all sin. Please help us all God.
“they believe they can redefine Catholicism to fit their political agenda”
So did the Barallots. How did that work out for them?
EIC Austin De Dios claims that Catholicism and the Bible are “up to interpretation” while (a) noting that he is an agnostic and (b) saying that “the progressive Catholicism I am referencing, in my eyes, is a completely different entity altogether” from traditional Catholicism.
So which is it? Is this church (of which he claims no part) wholly different from the traditional Catholic church, in which case it’s possible that these new interpretations aren’t Catholic in any reasonable, traditional sense? Or are these different interpretations both truly Catholic, in which case “progressive” catholicism [sic] is not “a completely different entity altogether”?
He believes he is on the right side of history, and he seems to be willing to engage with us wrongthinkers on that basis. He says, “The truth cannot set us free if we can’t face it. We will never make change by ignoring the problem, or silencing it.” I have some sympathy for his position, having held similar beliefs a few decades ago. I hope he does someday discover the truth — not merely by _not ignoring_ the “problem”, or by _not silencing_ it, but by engaging with it in a way that helps him realize that the wrongthink he objects to actually holds the truth and freedom he (sincerely, I hope) seeks.
The really progressive catholics are called protestants.
As for these kids, what they are more interested in is tapping into the established resources of the traditional catholic church. That is way more productive than starting and building up the church that you want from the ground. So in essence, they are just thinly veiled socialists who are trying to gain control over, or at a minimum dip into, the wealth that has been accumulated by others before them.
Another reason that they don’t start their own religion is that they likely have nothing to offer. Their existence is based on the rejection of something else. This is a great opportunity for them to become the next Martin Luther, except that none of them have the drive or the stones to see it through.