Gay Prostitue? Work for the Vatican!

According to a post on the NY Times:

A singer in an elite Vatican choir and a jailed Italian public works executive who served as a papal usher were let go by the Vatican this week amid allegations that they were involved in what prosecutors believe was an organized network of gay prostitution, Italian news media reported.

Reports of a gay prostitution ring that emerged this week. Citing a police document drawing on intercepted phone conversations, La Repubblica reported Wednesday that Mr. Ehiem procured men for Mr. Balducci. In one conversation, the paper quotes Mr. Balducci as asking Mr. Ehiem, “At what time does he have to return to the seminary?”

Over more than a year of taped conversations, Mr. Ehiem described the physiques of various men to Mr. Balducci. “I have a situation from Naples,” Mr. Ehiem says in one conversation, according to La Repubblica. “I have a situation from Cuba,” he says in another, continuing with “a German who just arrived from Germany,” “two black guys,” “the soccer player” and “the dancer for the RAI” state broadcaster.

Of course, as the Catholic church has the ongoing reputation as the most corrupt institute in history, this really doesn’t send shock waves, but isn’t it ironic?  It’s OK to pimp out the gays…just don’t give them rights or equality…and spend lots of money to keep them as second class…that way you’ll always have plenty to choose from for your prostitution ring!

For Gay Catholics D.C. Marriage Win Bittersweet

“I didn’t go on Ash Wednesday for the first time in years,” he says. “I really felt like I didn’t belong anymore, and I couldn’t be part of a church that didn’t want me or anyone like me as part of it.”

Clutching the hand of Allen Pittinger, his partner for the past nine years, Dunham says he has long felt snubbed by the Catholic Church. But the final straw came when Catholic Charities in Washington, D.C., stopped handling adoptions so that it would not have to place children in the homes of gay couples. And as of March 2, it stopped providing spousal benefits for all employees, lest the organization give benefits to a gay spouse.

Pittinger and Dunham see these as cynical moves.

“Now, they don’t have to provide any type of benefits for anyone going forward,” Pittinger says.

More at: KOSU.org!

Politicians Can’t Be Catholic!

You can’t be a considered a good catholic if you support gay marriage, or you support equality, according to a top Italian cardinal “It’s impossible to consider oneself a Catholic if that person in one way or another recognizes same-sex marriage as a right,” says Cardinal Carlo Caffarra of Bologna.

L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, printed part of a doctrinal note the cardinal released on 14 February entitled “Marriage and Homosexual Unions.” the report which appears in full on the archdiocese’s website, is aimed at helping enlighten Catholics in public office so that “they would not make choices that would publicly contradict their affiliation with the church,” .

He states that catholic politicians must promote the church and the common good “(They) have a serious duty to make sure their beliefs, thoughts and proposals concerning the common good are consistent. It’s impossible for the Catholic faith and support for putting homosexual unions on equal footing with marriage to coexist in one’s conscience — the two contradict each other,” said the cardinal in the special note.

According to the cardinal, it would be far more serious if a catholic politician who votes in favor of a law that supports gay marriage, he said. “This is a publicly and gravely immoral act,”

If a Catholic official were to ever implement or enforce such a law, “God forbid, we will, at the proper moment, give the necessary directives,” one wonders what such directives would be?.

The Cardinal, holds a number of positions of power within the church, including being a member of the Pontifical Council for the Family, the Pontifical Academy for Life and the Vatican’s highest tribunal, known as the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature. He believes the consequences of same-sex marriage would be “devastating.” adding in the report “One of the pillars of our legal order — marriage as a public good — would crumble,”

“The state’s legal order must not be neutral on marriage and homosexual unions just as it can’t be (neutral) on the common good: society owes its survival to families founded on marriage, not homosexual unions”

Jason Shaw, Brighton, England.

GayAgenda.com’s United Kingdom correspondent.

Jason’s blog The Seafront Diaries takes a lid of the life in the slow lane, word loss and finding grey in the bush!

Catholics Play Hard Ball with DC Equality

So much for “Christian” acts of kindness. It looks as though the Catholic church as more than enough money in the bank to spend a combined millions on preventing same-sex couples from gaining marriage equality, but perhaps they’d much rather spend their tax-free monies on discrimination than helping people…or maybe they’re just running out of money after spending so much on discrimination?

According to The Washington Times:

igate all outside contractors dealing with the city to recognize gay couples.

Its decision, posted late Tuesday on the archdiocese’s Web site, announced that the archdiocese had ended its 80-year-old program Feb. 1, the day the city’s contract expired with Catholic Charities, the church’s social services arm.

“We regret that our efforts to avoid this outcome were not successful,” Catholic Charities Chief Executive Officer Ed Orzechowski said in a statement. “Foster care has been an important ministry for us for many decades. We worked very hard to be able to continue to provide these services in the District.”

Catholic Charities will discontinue offering public adoption services. The agency processed 12 such adoptions throughout 2009 and including into this year.

“It was a very high-quality program, so this was really hard,” archdiocesan spokeswoman Susan Gibbs said of the foster care/adoption service. “We said last fall that we could not continue this program if the bill was passed as written. Well, this has come to pass.”

So there you have it. Religious bigotry…and HATE, yes hate, at its very best. No room for compromise, no need to agree we disagree, simply stop helping those who need it…something a tax-exempt organization is suppose to do. This is an act of terrorism. Too harsh of a word? Perhaps, but realistically, purposely harming innocent people to demonstrate a dislike is exactly what terrorist do. It looks as though the Catholic church is living up to their reputation as the most corrupt institution in all history. I guess Catholics don’t ask that Christian question; “What would Jesus do?”

Anglican Church Issues ’Profound Apology’

The head of the Anglican Church (known as the Episcopalian Church in the U.S.) offered gays and lesbians his “profound apology” for remarks designed to appease anti-woman and anti-gay hardliners and hold the splintering faith together.

Tensions in the Anglican Church, which has 77 million members worldwide, started decades ago over questions of what role women should play in the church. Some hardliners reject the notion of women as bishops–and indeed, those elements are pondering a conversion to Catholicism, a move that the Roman Catholic Church would welcome. The Vatican has already issued an invitation to conservative Anglicans who wish to join the Catholic faith. Converts would be allowed to retain some elements of the Anglican Church, such as priests being free to marry. Pope Benedict XVI has said that an influx of Anglicans to the Catholic tradition would be “a blessing for the entire Church.”

More at: Edge Boston!

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