Matt Gaspers(Image: Screenshot of RestoreTheCatholicChurch.com home page)
In view of the upcoming Vatican abuse crisis summit, “The Protection of Minors in the Church” (Feb. 21-24, 2019), a new coalition of Catholic media has been organized to push for clarity from Pope Francis on the nature of homosexual tendencies and acts. The group is petitioning the Pope to unequivocally affirm the truth found in Scripture, Tradition, and the Church’s constant Magisterium, namely, that same-sex attraction is intrinsically disordered and that sodomitical acts are always and everywhere gravely sinful.
According to its newly launched website, the Coalition of Saint Athanasius (COSA), whose leaders and members are currently unidentified, is “comprised of journalists, lay activists and the owners and operators of websites, blogs, newspapers, and Catholic action groups concerned by the clerical sex scandals, the coverups and new liberal orientation of the Catholic Church.” The Coalition’s “Open Letter to Pope Francis”, posted on their website, begins:
On the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle and Commemoration of St. Peter, in this year of Our Lord, 2019, we the undersigned approach your august person as representatives of a newly-formed coalition of faithful Catholics seeking to bring the burning concerns of sons and daughters to the feet of their father.
We profess Christ most sincerely, and thus seek pastoral clarification from His earthly vicar on a matter which, if left unresolved, portends dire consequences to the lives of practicing Catholics. That we should do so in this public forum speaks to the urgency of our request and intends no disrespect to the person of the Holy Father. We consider ourselves to be sheep in urgent need of the Shepherd’s word.
Going on to describe the doctrinal and moral certitude of Catholics in generations past, especially concerning sin and its consequences — including the “sin of the Sodomites” — the open letter soberly assesses present circumstances:
Today, that same sin [sodomy] has lost its social and moral stigma to such an extent that “rainbow Masses” are commonplace and the Catholic priesthood itself has been labeled a “gay profession.”
In the face of all this, our Coalition asks the obvious question: How can a sin which “cried to heaven for vengeance” when we were children—which was condemned by St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica as “the unnatural vice” and the “greatest of the sins of lust”—today be regarded as no sin at all?
If even the most grievous of sins can become non-sins merely with the passage of time and change in human attitudes, then ultimately what happens to the very idea of sin, the Ten Commandments of God, the theology of heaven and hell, the particular and general judgments? If there is no sin then what is the point of practicing virtue or frequenting the Sacraments?
Serious questions that deserve and require answers from the Vicar of Christ.
According to a recent press release (full text below), “Representatives of COSA will be in Rome to present this call for papal clarification to the press during the Vatican’s summit meeting on sexual abuse on Feb. 21-24, 2019.” Let us pray and hope that their efforts bear fruit in some manner.
As a point of clarification, it is important for Catholics and all people to understand that the terms “gay”, “lesbian”, “straight”, “LGBT”, etc. are really not accurate or acceptable because they reduce human persons to being identified solely by their sexual tendencies (disordered or not). The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) stated as much in its 1986 letter to bishops On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons:
The human person, made in the image and likeness of God, can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation. Every one living on the face of the earth has personal problems and difficulties, but challenges to growth, strengths, talents and gifts as well. Today, the Church provides a badly needed context for the care of the human person when she refuses to consider the person as a “heterosexual” or a “homosexual” and insists that every person has a fundamental Identity: the creature of God, and by grace, His child and heir to eternal life. (n. 16)
Catholic Family News thus regrets that the Coalition of Saint Athanasius has used the terms “gay” and “straight” (Open Letter and press release), as well as “LGBT community” (Open Letter), in reference to persons who suffer from same-sex attraction (SSA) or other sexual orientation disorders. We respectfully urge Coalition leaders to reconsider their use of such terms, which only bolsters the Church’s enemies, and instead adopt more traditional terminology.
Through the intercession of Immaculate Mary, the Virgin most pure, and St. Athanasius, may Our Lord soon deliver His Church from the “diabolical disorientation” (Sister Lucia of Fatima) and moral “filth” (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) that has infested His Mystical Body and Bride!
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Press Release
A Coalition of Catholic Media Defends LGBT Right to Know: What Does the Catholic Church Officially Teach About Homosexual Acts?
CONTACT: Info@RestoreTheCatholicChurch.com
NEW YORK, NY (Feb. 5, 2019) — COSA (Coalition of Saint Athanasius) is an association of Catholic media seeking papal verification that the Vatican still accepts the Catechism of the Catholic Church’s official prohibition of same-sex sexual intercourse.
COSA’s chief concern is that by creating a false impression the Catholic Church has changed its teaching in this regard, some priests, bishops and even cardinals risk grave injustice to the LGBT community, while sowing disunity within the ranks of all practicing Catholics.
COSA does not seek clarification on the need for pastoral solicitude where gay and lesbian persons are concerned since this falls well within the Church’s clear teaching on the obvious requirements of Christian Charity.
What is increasingly unclear is the Vatican’s own position vis-à-vis homosexual acts, and COSA believes the LGBT community has a right to know the truth.
COSA is enlisting the support of concerned persons from all walks of life—be they gay, straight, Catholic, non-Catholic—in urging Pope Francis to clarify the Catholic Church’s official teaching on homosexual acts so that the wounds of division caused by lack of clarity can be healed.
The founders of COSA are practicing Catholics who accept Francis as Pope and therefore regard him as the only Vatican authority qualified to address this international concern.
For more, see COSA’s Open Letter to Pope Francis at www.RestoreTheCatholicChurch.com.
MEDIA ADVISORY: Representatives of COSA will be in Rome to present this call for papal clarification to the press during the Vatican’s summit meeting on sexual abuse on Feb. 21-24, 2019.
