Winnipeg’s Archbishop needs a lesson in manners. The Catholic banned gay former hostage James Loney from appearing at a social justice conference this weekend.
Loney had been set to speak on faith and forgiveness, but anti-gay Campaign Life Coalition convinced Archbishop James Weisgerber to rescind the invitation, despite the fact that Loney had been on a Christian peace keeping mission in Iraq before being held hostage for four months.
A message posted on Life Site, a website started by anti-abortion group Campaign Life Coalition, calls Loney an “unrepentant, active homosexual” and says Catholics have complained to the Winnipeg Archdiocese about the choice of speakers at the conference.
Loney said the cancellation reminds him of when he was held hostage by insurgents in Iraq.
“When I was in captivity I had to keep my sexual identity a secret from my captors,” he said, adding he could have been killed if his captors knew he was gay.
Could the Catholic Church really be like anti-gay Iraqi kidnappers? We’ll let CLC spokeswoman Maria Slykerman answer that: “It is on the record that he is a homosexual. If it would have been private there would be no issue. But he publicized it.”
Rt. Rev. Dr. RES
+James Weisbarger was elected and ordained bishop in conservative Manitoba by John Paul II. There is no doubt that the archbishop has fully supported Ratzinger both as cardinal inquisitor and as the new pope. Weisbarger was fiercely opposed to the Marriage Act as were all Roman Catholic hierarchs – some with the most vile paedophile scandals stretching back half a century.
Nothing, absolutely nothing that the Chiesa Catolica Romana in Canada does or says surprises me. Their “sin” is one of commission, while we Anglicans are guilty of the sin of omission, doing no harm, and officially doing no good.
It is to the United Church of Canada, the largest Protestant denomination in the country, and with a large following in that province, who has stood firm with MCC and the other liberal religious bodies to support and pass the Marriage Act.
Qjersey
The arrogance of the Catholic leadership never ceases to amaze me.
Disinvite the peace activist because he is openly gay…but let the clergy who blow teenage boys who the hierachy know about attend…because the public doesn’t know.
Rt. Rev. Dr. RES
Their most grievous acts, to which I can attest, is when their gay and lesbian children make courageous decisions to come out and seek acceptance as they marry their life partners. There are also the adolescent children in crisis because the Roman Church has told them observant and faithful that their children should be loved back to the Church since they are “objectively disordered” and that their conjugal love is nonexistent where sexual expression within that bond is concerned.
I for one am confident that the English Reformation was worthwhile, while it was the Continental Reformation that eventually gave the United Church of Canada the theology to stand in support of marriage equality and other rights with the caveat of the Church.