More evidence that the Catholic hierarchy has already lost:

[hedgehog]

This article talks about Archbishop Nienstedt telling his priests to get behind his campaign against same sex marriage or else keep their mouths shut:

http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012/01/21315/

The article condemns the hierarchy for spending tax free money to push a political agenda. But consider this: the bishop felt obliged to issue a general warning to his priests to fall in line. It wasn't so long ago that every one of those priests would have had a knee jerk reaction against same sex marriage. The bishop isn't just losing the laity on this, he's losing the clergy. It's easy to tell lay people who disagree with Church teachings that maybe they'd be happier as Episcopalians, but the bishop is already short of priests. If enough priests stand up in opposition, he won't be able to punish them all.

[HillWilliam]

1. The paragraph FTW:

[blockquote style="background: #efefef"]Minnesota Catholics: if you put money into the collection plate on Sundays, this is what you’re supporting. Yes, Nienstedt’s bigotry is out of step with the vast majority of Catholics. Yes, the Catholic church provides important services to poor and disadvantaged people. But there are dozens if not hundreds of charitable organizations providing the same services as the Catholic church without the spiritual bullying. When you donate to your local parish instead of these other charities, though, you give tacit approval to Nienstedt’s reprehensible persecution of your LGBT family members, friends, neighbors, and congregants.

[FedUp_Queer]

2. You have no idea how right you are.

My Parish, admittedly, is great in New York. They have met my partners, we have a gay group at the Church and my Pastor appointed me to the Parish Council, know I'm gay. However, there is no question that if the Church spent as much time on this as opposed to speaking out against Wall Street and corporate America (which being the Archdiocese of New York the Church here has a golden opportunity to do), it would go a lot further towards achieving a more just country.

[closeupready]

3. I think the difficulty of making priests fall in line can be attributed to a few things:

1) Many gay activists have, for decades now, attacked effectively the Vatican's notions of 'natural law' as well as the purported scriptural basis for objecting to homosexuality.

2) The pedophilia scandal has weakened the church hierarchy by besmirching any moral authority they pretended to have in earlier times.

3) Activists have also effectively destroyed popular objections to homosexuality and gay people.

Probably other things I haven't thought about. K&R

[hedgehog]

4. Not to mention many priests themselves are gay -

it's hard to believe that gays are "intrinsically disordered" when you yourself and/or some of the colleagues you like and respect are gay!