Another Georgetown Dissident Priest

As the DC City Council was getting ready to legalize same-sex "marriage" (it's in quotes because same-sex unions are NOT marriage, despite what secular governments say).   Father Joseph Palacios, a Georgetown University sociology professor joined DC Clergy United for a rally in support of the messure.  I refer you to the article and will note below some logical fallacies in some of his statements.

He likens his own homosexual orientation to his Latino ethnicity.  That's flat wrong.  The Magisterium plainly teaches that the homosexual orientation is intrinsically disordered and is sinful if one acts upon it.  Father states that he is celibate.  Be that as it may, he does advocate for the promulgation of the gay lifestyle.  That is inherently sinful.

He also states that he opposes the stance of the Archdiocese of Washington on this whole mess.  That stance?  It's merely to request that individuals and private business owners be free to refuse goods and services related to same-sex "weddings".  As far as I'm concerned, that stance is rather wimpy.  However, even that doesn't pass the rarified muster of this dissident.

However, as they say, "a broken clock is right at least twice a day".  One statement of his merits close examination. He says, "And it actually doesn't help the church accept dollars for its services. i'm of the generation that lived in the church where everything was separate. Now we're so dependent on the government that Catholics don't have to practice charity". 

His last sentence is spot-on correct.  We Catholics are called upon to practice the works of mercy - both corporal and spiritual.  Matthew 24 and 25 seem to indicate that the Catholic who fails to do so may not attain eternal salvation.  The practice of charity cannot be "subcontracted" out, as it were.  It's not sufficient to chuck a few dollars into the collection basket for the Catholic Charities collection and to think that your charitable obligations are satisfied in some sort of surrogate fashion.  Each of us must get off our duffs, roll up our sleeves, step out of our comfort zones and perform these salvific works. 

The collection basket, though, cannot pass us by.  It is we who must financially support the Church's charitable works.  The Church simply must stop collecting monies from the government.  Else, it becomes a de facto participant in socialistic income redistribution, as it becomes just one more piglet attached to some governmental teet.  Such governmental largesse comes with plenty of strings attached, such as discouragement from preachin on matters of life and sexual ethics. 

Of course, before we fill the collection basket, we scrutinize it carefully.  As we saw last month (and the preceding months to that), the CCHD collection continues to funds organizations harmful to the Church and to the Culture of Life.

As a start to cutting the governmental tethers, our bishops must start to discipline the colleges within their boundaries.  That includes Father Palacios and Georgetown University here, Notre Dame in South Bend, etc.