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Diocese uses poster of topless men embracing to promote pro-gay workshop
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<div><a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/austrian-diocese-hosts-pro-gay-workshop-uses-men-embracing-to-promote-event" target="_blank">https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/austrian-diocese-hosts-pro-gay-workshop-uses-men-embracing-to-promote-event</a></div><div>‘<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>Knowledge, attitudes, conventions and experiences in this area are subject to major changes,’ the diocese claims.</b></span></div><span></span></div>
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<span><br></span></div><div><span>By Martin Bürger</span></div><div>AUSTRIA, March 2, 2020 (<a href="http://lifesitenews.com/" target="_blank">LifeSiteNews</a>)
— <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>The Austrian diocese of Graz-Seckau is hosting an event on March 14
promoting homosexuality.</b></span> On the official website of the diocese, the
event, “Sexualities 2020: fact check,” is being advertised by showing
the naked upper body of one man embracing the naked upper body of
another from behind.</div></div><div><div>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>“Sexuality is important. And sometimes complicated,” the diocese <a href="https://www.katholische-kirche-steiermark.at/portal/glaubenfeiern/glaubenswissen/pastoralefortbildung/informationenundangebote/article/10055.html" target="_blank">states</a>
about the event on its website. “Knowledge, attitudes, conventions, and
experiences in this area are subject to major changes. In order to be
able to accompany and support people in the Church context well, it is
helpful to comprehend what various scientific disciplines are currently
saying on these topics.”</b></span></p>
<p>Alexander Tschugguel, the Austrian founder of the St. Boniface
Institute, countered that “human nature doesn’t ever change.” Things
like attitudes and experiences are subjective, he told LifeSiteNews,
“and as such have nothing to do with objective truth.”</p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>According to the <a href="https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm" target="_blank">Catechism of the Catholic Church</a>, <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">homosexual acts are gravely sinful.</span></b></span></p>
<p>“Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as
acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual
acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural
law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed
from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no
circumstances can they be approved,” the Catechism explains.</p>
<p>The website of the diocese of Graz-Seckau states that participants in
the event will focus on what the insights of medicine, psychology, and
moral theology mean “for concrete work in pastoral fields like pastoral
care, liturgy, and education.”</p></div></div></div><p>Tschugguel demonstrated the absurdity of such efforts by suggesting
that one imagine that the Church had adopted the “insights” of the Roman
Empire — for instance, the gladiatorial games — or the “insights” of
the Third Reich and communism.</p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>Fr. Gero Weishaupt, a professor of canon law in Austria and the
Netherlands, spoke of<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"> a “scandalous event, whose demands do not
correspond to </span>the moral teaching of the Church.”</b></span></p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>
</b></span><p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>He told LifeSiteNews that Catholics have the right to point this out
to the bishop.<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"> If the bishop does not </span>remove<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"> the scandal, t</span>hey can get
in touch with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the
Congregation for Bishops.</b></span></p>
<p>Scandal is <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P80.HTM" target="_blank">defined</a>
by the catechism as “an attitude or behavior which leads another to do
evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor’s tempter. He
damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into
spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission
another is deliberately led into a grave offense.”</p>
<p>Alexander Tschugguel said various diocesan organizations in Austria
focus on homosexuality. They are called DAHOP and are some sort of a
diocesan task force, supposedly focusing on pastoral care for
homosexuals.</p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>In the diocese of Linz, DAHOP is hosting an <a href="http://schlosspuchberg.at/seminar/10_22644-und-gott-sah-dass-es-gut-war" target="_blank">event</a> on March 20 called “And God saw that it was good: Lesbian, Bisexual, and Gay people in the Church.”</b></span></p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>According to the invitation, “The Good News, whose core is love, does
not distinguish people according to their sexual orientation!”</b></span></p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>“‘You are beloved children of God!’ and ‘It's good the way you are!’
is also and especially a message of the Catholic Church!” the website of
the retreat center continues.</b></span></p>
<p>Tschugguel demanded clarity from the bishops. “We don’t want them to mislead the people,” he said.</p>
<p>“People who have to live with those challenges don’t have an easy
life, in many ways,” Tschugguel explained. “The duty of the Church is
essential — namely, to bring them the truth, leading them to health of
soul.”</p>
<p>Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger published a letter, approved by Pope John Paul II, “<a href="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html" target="_blank">on the pastoral care of homosexual persons</a>” in 1986, when he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.</p>
<p>In his letter, he pointed out that confusion has been caused by a
false understanding of the Bible. This false exegesis “claims variously
that Scripture has nothing to say on the subject of homosexuality, or
that it somehow tacitly approves of it, or that all of its moral
injunctions are so culture-bound that they are no longer applicable to
contemporary life. These views are gravely erroneous.”</p>
<p>Ratzinger clarified that a homosexual act “is not a complementary
union, able to transmit life; and so it thwarts the call to a life of
that form of self-giving which the Gospel says is the essence of
Christian living.”</p>
<p>While homosexuals can be “generous and giving of themselves,” he
said, “when they engage in homosexual activity they confirm within
themselves a disordered sexual inclination which is essentially
self-indulgent.”</p>
<p>Already in 1986, Ratzinger identified an “enormous pressure,” even within the Church, to change the teaching on homosexuality.</p>
<p>“The Church’s ministers must ensure that homosexual persons in their
care will not be misled by this point of view,” he cautioned.</p>
<p>Directly focusing on pastoral care for people with same-sex
attraction, Ratzinger said they are called “to enact the will of God in
their life by joining whatever sufferings and difficulties they
experience in virtue of their condition to the sacrifice of the Lord’s
Cross.”</p>
<p>“That Cross, for the believer, is a fruitful sacrifice since from
that death come life and redemption. While any call to carry the cross
or to understand a Christian’s suffering in this way will predictably be
met with bitter ridicule by some, it should be remembered that this is
the way to eternal life for all who follow Christ.”</p>
<p>Ratzinger encouraged bishops to provide true pastoral care to homosexuals.</p>
<p>“No authentic pastoral program will include organizations in which
homosexual persons associate with each other without clearly stating
that homosexual activity is immoral. A truly pastoral approach will
appreciate the need for homosexual persons to avoid the near occasions
of sin,” he said.</p>
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