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ALWAYS OUR CHILDREN - USA BISHOPS AND HOMOSEXUALITY
#1
On the website of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the United States, I read a document entitled "Always Our Children: : A Pastoral Message to Parents of Homosexual Children and Suggestions for Pastoral Ministers" worthy of special attention. It was my intention to translate the document into Italian and publish it "with due comment" on the Gay Project websites, both in Italian and in English. I translated all the text but I noticed that I'm not even allowed to partially reproduce it because it is copyrighted! 

The copyright was born to prevent the commercial exploitation of a publication, but in this specific case, where it is not clear what the commercial interest to defend is, since it is a "pastoral" document, copyright obviously has another meaning, i.e. to prevent even the partial publication of the text and therefore its point by point comment by "unauthorized persons", in essence the copyright here has only the sense of a censorship. I must point out that the Vatican's official documents, which are of very greater importance, are not defended with expedients such as copyright and the Vatican honestly exposes itself to criticism, but the US Bishops' Conference prefers to defend itself with means typical of commercial law!

I invite not only gays but all people who have a civil conscience to read this document (http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/h...ildren.cfm).

I cannot mention the content for copyright reasons, I will limit myself to the impressions I had during the reading of the text.
I note that the text has been copyrighted on 1997, at the time of John Paul II, or rather of Saint John Paul II. The bishops present a non-fraternal but "pastoral" approach in the sense that there is no common research of the truth but there are the pastors who are kindly concerned with the lost sheep. Communication is one-way, from top to bottom, from the bishops to the faithful. 

The discourse on homosexuality is dealt with by insisting very formally on acceptance and respect but by reiterating the teaching of the Church, that is, essentially, radically refusing to open eyes on reality. Galileo also claimed that it is not the sun that turns around the earth but the earth that turns around the sun and was condemned by the Inquisition on the basis of the teachings of the Church, teachings that had nothing evangelical, as Church teachings on Homosexuality have nothing evangelical. 

I have cited hundreds of times fundamental documents on this matter of the World Health Organization, but the Church doesn’t want to consider "reality", which has nothing to do with what the Church itself preaches about homosexuality. It is possible to make a mistake, but insisting in error avoiding any form of comparison means that the other are considered a reality of lower category, to be pitied, to be guided, people whom you must pretend to respect without trying to understand what they think, which is considered wrong a priori.

Then there is another thing that has struck me very much, the document is directed essentially not to gays, but to parents of gay sons and to those who exercise pastoral functions, it is said that the use of conversion therapies "is not mandatory" and it should be accepted voluntarily and also that it is not said that it can solve the problem, but Catholic parents are advised to look for specialists who follow the Catholic doctrine, and this is in itself very significant.

On the one hand the document underlines that a gay son is still a son (because many Catholics had evidently been led to think otherwise!), but for the other it recognizes that a parent can well be upset by a terrible event like realizing to have a gay son, it is recommended that the parent address the community, the parish, the diocese, the associations of parents of gay sons, etc. etc.. But I wondered if the Church had ever realized that the Church itself continues even now to spread false and homophobic messages that have fueled and continue to fuel hatred against gays. 

On the subject of suicide it is said that homosexuality can lead to suicide but in reality it is not homosexuality that leads to suicide but the climate of witch-hunting about homosexuality, fueled by those who, under the gentle and paternal appearance of the shepherd, spread hatred. This was the church of  Saint John Paul II but it was also the church of Benedict XVI and unfortunately it is still the church of Pope Francis.
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