{"id":4057,"date":"2022-09-24T09:11:17","date_gmt":"2022-09-24T09:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/?p=4057"},"modified":"2022-09-24T09:11:38","modified_gmt":"2022-09-24T09:11:38","slug":"false-shepherds-leading-the-sheep-astray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/2022\/09\/24\/false-shepherds-leading-the-sheep-astray\/","title":{"rendered":"False Shepherds\u00a0| Leading the Sheep Astray"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fr. Gerald E. Murray
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The Flemish-speaking bishops of Belgium have issued a so-called\u00a0blessing service<\/a>\u00a0for the union of homosexual couples.\u00a0This imposture is obviously in complete contradiction to the Catholic Faith<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 an unholy parody of the blessing given within a Catholic marriage ceremony.\u00a0It represents a manifest loss of faith on the part of these shepherds, who swore to uphold the Catholic Faith at the time of their episcopal consecration and have now publicly rejected that Faith by embracing what is offensive to God.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He created man and woman with complementary sexual faculties and commanded them to be fruitful and multiply. He also forbade them to misuse their sexual faculties by engaging in sodomy.<\/p>\n

When a priest blesses a man and a woman who pledge their vows in marriage, he is calling upon God to favor them with His grace and strength to fulfill those vows.<\/strong>\u00a0God\u2019s favor does not, and cannot, rest upon two men or two women who pledge to violate His law by promising to sodomize each other.<\/p>\n

Sodomy is a mortal sin that violates the natural order created by God through a grave misuse of the sexual faculty \u2013 a plain violation of the natural law, condemned in the Sacred Scriptures as a sin of grave moral turpitude.<\/p>\n

The embrace of sodomy by these bishops is disgraceful. The prayer they suggest for the conclusion of the \u201cblessing\u201d ceremony runs: \u201cGod. . . .You know their hearts and the path they will take together from now on. Make their commitment to each other strong and faithful.\u201d<\/p>\n

God has already told us that He condemns the path that these two have embarked upon. Mortal sin is a path to Hell. A commitment to engage in mortal sin is a deadly pact that spiritually harms each person involved.\u00a0Asking God to make this deadly pact \u201cstrong and faithful\u201d is a diabolical perversion of the duty of the Church\u2019s ministers to lead the sheep away from sin with the help of God\u2019s grace<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Do these bishops think that God wants people to ask His help in violating His law?<\/p>\n

What the bishops have done is stupefying. They\u2019re false shepherds, leading their sheep astray into grave sin. They are confirming people in behavior that destroys souls.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The suggested \u201cvows\u201d include this incredible prayer: \u201cWe thank you that we could find each other. We want to be there for each other in all circumstances of life. We confidently express here that we want to work on each other\u2019s happiness, day by day.\u201d<\/p>\n

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**<\/strong><\/p>\n

No thanks should be offered to God for finding an accomplice in mortal sin. God condemns mortal sin. He wants us to avoid both it and the near occasion of sin, which means we should shun unholy friendships that may lead to sin.\u00a0<\/strong>Leading someone to commit sodomy will never produce happiness, but rather plunges the soul into the darkness and disorientation of separation from God.<\/p>\n

The bishops attempt to justify their departure from the Faith by making the\u00a0specious claim that homosexuals who \u201cchoose to live as a couple\u201d have entered into a relationship that \u201ccan be a source of peace and shared happiness for those involved.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do the bishops really believe that violating God\u2019s law brings peace and happiness?\u00a0If they do, then they need to recognize their spiritual blindness and repent.<\/strong>\u00a0They cannot pledge that they are faithful to Christ and his Gospel, and at the same time reject the Divine Law on sexual morality.\u00a0If they will not repent, they should resign.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But we all know that they will not do that.\u00a0They view themselves not as willful subversives working to overthrow Christian morality, but rather as bold prophets of a new, reworked Christianity<\/strong>\u00a0in which sodomy is no longer sinful, but is rather part of God\u2019s plan for Creation.<\/p>\n

They describe homosexual unions as \u201clife situations that do not fully live up to the objective ideal of marriage.\u201d\u00a0But sodomite unions are not \u201clife situations\u201d that happen outside of one\u2019s control. They are a freely chosen way of life that in no way resembles marriage, but rather is a complete counterfeit.<\/strong>\u00a0Marriage is not an \u201cobjective ideal,\u201d in the sense of something one can strive for but which, in fact, only a few attain. Marriage is God\u2019s plan for man and woman.<\/p>\n

For these wayward shepherds, homosexual unions can be \u201cthe generous response one can give to God. . .the self-giving that God asks for amid the complexity of concrete restraints, even when the full objective ideal is not achieved.\u201d This is nonsense, plain and simple. There is no \u201cgenerous response to God\u201d in violating God\u2019s law<\/strong>\u00a0and seeking to justify that violation by claiming that it is something that God allows and looks upon favorably.<\/p>\n

The Flemish hierarchy has decided to launch a full-scale attack on the Catholic Faith under\u00a0the guise of creating \u201ca climate of respect, recognition and integration.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0Their infidelity is in fact a clear example of disrespect to God and his law, and a refusal to recognize that law as being normative. Rather than promote the integration into Christ of those who are troubled with homosexual temptations, the wayward shepherds confirm them in a gravely sinful lifestyle by telling them that God approves of what they are doing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pope Francis is duty-bound to protect the flock from wolves, especially those who teach error with the authority given them by the Church when they were named bishops. The Catholic faithful need to hear from him that preaching error and immorality will not be tolerated.<\/p>\n

The Catholics of Belgium need to be protected from their own bishops who are attempting to destroy Catholicism and replace it with a monstrosity of their own creation, a vicious system that promotes sin and thus separates man from God.<\/strong><\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Rev. Gerald E. Murray, J.C.D.<\/strong>\u00a0is a canon lawyer and the pastor of Holy Family Church in New York City. His new book (with Diane Montagna),\u00a0Calming the Storm: Navigating the Crises Facing the Catholic Church and Society<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0is now available.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Images: *Sermon and Deeds of the Antichrist<\/em>\u00a0by Luca Signorelli, \u00a01499-1502 [Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto, Italy]
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Fr. Gerald E. Murray The Flemish-speaking bishops of Belgium have issued a so-called\u00a0blessing service\u00a0for the union of homosexual couples.\u00a0This imposture is obviously in complete contradiction to [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4057"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4057"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4058,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4057\/revisions\/4058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}