An Idaho priest, Father W. Thomas Faucher, has written an op-ed in the Idaho Statesman newspaper, publicly dissenting from the Church’s teaching on, what else, homosexuality.
Specifically, he charaterizes a proposed constitutional amendment to prevent the creation of the legal fiction known as “same-sex marriage” as “an anti-gay movement.” He also says that “recent Vatican statements and writings have shown a very strong anti-gay attitude from top church officials.” He says that the Legislature is not allowed to legislate morality, and that contrary to what the Church teaches, gay marriage would actually strengthen marriage and family life.
Perhaps the only true statement in Faucher’s whole column is this one: “But I have not always been particularly wise ...” I won’t disagree with him there.
A Bettnet reader wrote a letter to Faucher’s bishop, Bishop Michael Driscoll, alerting him to the op-ed and informing him of the scandal to the faith that he has caused. Driscoll’s response was to forward the letter to Faucher and make no response directly, thereby implicitly endorsing Faucher’s heterodoxy. Faucher’s response was more of the same inanities.
The readers asks whether he should forward the correspondence on to the apostolic nuncio in Washington, DC, Archbishop Pietro Sambi. Not only do I think he should do so, I think he has a duty to do so. Canon law gives all the faithful the right to appeal to their pastors when they see evil creeping into the Church. And if the local bishop does nothing, then he can and should “take it up the line.”
Technorati Tags: bishops, Catholic, dissent, doctrine, heterodoxy, homosexuality, marriage
Fr. Faucher and his bishop ought to read the following—-Its Unmanly at——
http://www.losangelesmission.com/ed/articles/2001/1101cz2.htm
Fathers Faucher, Gravel, Schexnayder et. al. may be deemed brave, enlightened and progressive in the secular world, but what will this gain them in the end?
Jesus was so popular that He was crucified…the apostles and early Church members were so popular that they faced persecution.
I suppose the above mentioned priests may claim they are being oppressed by the Church, but one that sad claim will not hold when we all know there is true human oppression (poverty, hunger, war, enslavement, etc.) in the world.
I apologize for not finishing my reason for the post about the article It’s unmanly.
The reason is that I really believe it is time to drop the whole terminology “gay”. It is all about homosexuality. As the article clearly shows: there is no such person as “a gay person” etc.
It is the same mistake when anti-abortion was changed to “pro-life”. This was a mistake. It was simply bowing to “politically Correctness” and it circumvented the reality of MURDER.
Asking if one is pro-life is like asking if one is pro-oxygen. After all, without oxygen we do not have life. So, naturally any reasonable person is pro-oxygen, since no one wants to deny oneself of life.
Father Funnybunny says “the Legislature is not allowed to legislate morality”.
I love this cliche. It is possibly the stupidest thing anyone could say about government. If the law is not about morality what is it? Just a bunch of pointless rule. Laws against murder, rape, fraud etc are legislating morality.
A law requiring all men named John to wear red on Tuedsays would be an example of legislating something that is not based on morality.
Michael, great point. Yes it is stupid, especially for a Roman Catholic priest top make.
Fr. Faucher lacks a great deal of logic in his thinking.
Another hugh mistake he made is to declare that—
“There are strong opinions about the morality of homosexuality. (My own church views homosexual activity as immoral.)”
His Church does not view homosexual activity as only immoral. The Chief Teacher, the Vicar of Christ declares that homosexuality is an intrinsic grave offense against the natural law and God’s Law. To dissent against this teaching is a grevious sin. And to hold onto this dissenting view in a stubborn manner makes one a “heretic”.
This priest should be immediately removed from ministry. In our diocese, proudly, mu Bishop did just that the a pastor who also had the same stance as Fr. Faucher.
Please do not let up on the pressure on Bishop Michael. He needs to know that Idaho priests are being noticed and viewed in a negative light. We have a number of very good priests here, but we also have a few who take liberties with the liturgy, allow liturgical dancers, have no kneelers, and openly dispute teachings on homosexuality.
Pray for us!
I agree we should not use the term gay or even homosexual (sexuality is mutable).. I think MWSSA (men with same sex attraction) is better..
WE should use our Catholic medical scientists to educate ourselves on this:
http://www.cathmed.org/publications/homosexuality.html
How do I get the email address of the Canadian Apostolic Nuncio? (re: the 19 Quebec priests)
Catholic-Hierarchy.org is an excellent resource for these types of questions:
http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dxxca.html
It includes mailing address, telephone, and fax. But no email, alas. I doubt he has one.
That’s almost as bad James Carville saying to wild applause at BC Monday night that Jesus was so concerned with homosexuality that he talked about zero times in the Gospel but social justice 8,000 times. (He also proclaimed he was a moral relativist and masturbates, also to wild applause. I wanted to puke.)
I wrote to Fr. Faucher directly. Haven’t heard back. I’ll write to his Bishop today.
A Blessed Lent to all!
Found this, while looking up Bishop Driscoll.
http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid:2971
Wonderful. With Church leadership like this, who needs Chick publications?
regarding decoder ring’s link…
perhaps the example of Father’s op-ed is another case of an apple falling near the tree that bore it.
What’s with the bishops we have here on the West coast? I am glad Bishop Vigneron of Oakland is not a homeboy from the Mahoney school. Our previous two bishops made some horrible and regretful decisions regarding priest involved in sexual abuse.
It all seems so connected…
Yeah, Bishop Driscoll has been in thick with a lot of the names on the west coast, including Bishop Todd Brown. However, the Boise Weekly is a poor source for information of this type. He certainly did wrong back when he was in Orange, but he also did precisely what administrators in public education, law enforcement, and health care did in the same time period when faced with such matters. I’m not condoning any of them, but the Boise Weekly is being selective in its treatment of the Bishop (as is most of the MSM).
We’ve had other situations that Bishop Driscoll has handled within the requirements of Canon Law and has been soundly beaten up on those as well. Chickens are certainly coming to roost here.
And to think just next door in eastern Oregon, we have Bishop Vasa.
Maybe it’s time to move to Baker.
“What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit
himself?”
< href=“http://theocoid.blogspot.com/2006/03/roll-over-mahoney.html”>Here’s what I’m doing about it.</a>
Doh! HTML code not enabled?
The best argument I have regarding homosexuality, is that many of the same heterosexual acts are also considered sin also.
Can I be graphic here? No little eyes please.
Acts such as oral or anal sex, are considered an act of sin because they devalue another human being’s sexuality. Their body is for the taking, or their body is a mere avenue to recieve pleasure in which the other person receives nothing but humilation.
If this is the case between heterosexuals, I’m just applying the same act regarding homosexuals. There is no gender orientation discrimination.
Gay marriage completely strips away that sexual intercourse is no longer the outward sign of the Sacrament. Then what is?
RenneA., physical homosexual relations also strips away the very reason, the very essence for God’s natural and moral law, that the natural sexual drive of male and female is to bring forth new life according to His purpose for which He created male and female.
True Blanchard, Some secularied women find it hard to accept that a woman is most likely to be in the mood when she is actually ovulating, when estrogen levels are at her highest. That some how sex and procreation shouldn’t have a connection.
This article and the previous one (about Wilton Gregory) are I think indicative of the turmoil we will suffer as the age of the baby boomers comes to an end. The 20th century was infected by the virus of “deified man” – a belief that man finally had the knowledge and tools to dispense with God. From Marx, via Freud, to Foucault we finally had the formula to unlock heaven here on earth. The sixties was just the point at which this virus reached its fever point, but it had infected all who saw themselves as the “enlightened”, the “elite”. The priests who emerged in those years were priests of a secular church preaching a secular gospel of secular redemption. Freud was a better guide to sex than St Paul, Marx a better guide to society than St Augustine, Che a better messiah than Christ himself. These men have worked their way through the heirarchy. They support each other and cover for each other. They form an old boy’s net that promotes its members. His Holiness himself is dependant on the advice of these same bishops when it comes to new appointments. But like asses they are barren, they have no issue. There are no vocations to the feminism and gay-right infected orders, no vocations to secularism riddled dioceses. The virus was ultimately self-distructing. We have reached the crisis point in the fever as the virus fights with every inch of its waning strength to overcome a body that is stronger than it. Hold the faith for the gates of hell shall not prevail, yet expect the pain to intensify as the last vestiges of a generation gone wrong wends its way through the episcopate.
This priest speaks the mind of a majority of Bishops.