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Toronto Msgr Says Misguided Thunder Bay Priest Betrays Doctrine

This was first printed as a letter to the editor by Msgr. vincent Foy in the Aug. 26 Toronto Star. Msgr Foy was responding to the Star's republication of a sermon by Fr. Scott Gale of Thunder Bay objecting to the Vatican's recent document on homosexual unions.

Reprinted with permission of the author

Father Scott Gale of the Thunder Bay diocese attacks the teaching of the Catholic church against homosexual unions.

Gale's sermon is a scandal to Catholics. It is a violation of his own profession of faith. When he became the pastor of St. Andrew's parish, Gale was required to make a profession of faith in which he said: "I firmly embrace and accept all and everything which has either been defined by the Church's solemn deliberations or affirmed and declared by its ordinary magisterium concerning the doctrine of faith and morals, according as they are proposed by it."

Gale, claiming freedom of conscience in the matter of same-sex unions, does not present accurately the teaching of the Second Vatican Council on this matter. That council teaches that a right conscience must be properly informed, then conformed, or it is deformed. We read in the document of Vatican II, in reference to married couples: "They must always be governed by a conscience dutifully conformed to the divine law itself, and should be submissive to the church's teaching office, which authentically interprets that law in the light of the gospel."

There is another blatant error in Gale's thinking. He does not see anything wrong in politicians like Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin forming their consciences in favour of same-sex "marriage" on the grounds of the separation of church and state. Separation of church and state has nothing to do with this issue. Are judges and politicians disenfranchised when they step from their private lives into the public square?

Are they to be like Dr. Jekyll in private and the corrupt Mr. Hyde in public? May they now, in good faith, call for what they know by their faith is evil: the killing of infants in the womb or the denigration of the family through same-sex "marriage"? Must they parrot the policies of secular humanists? Are they not free and obliged to promote those values that they believe are for the common good?

Gale finds the church's language on same-sex "marriage" harsh and, "hateful to our gay and lesbian relatives and friends." It is, in fact, the language of love, for same-sex "marriage" is a betrayal of homosexuals. They, like all of us, are called to live lives of chastity and goodness. St. Paul reminds us: "You are not called to immorality, but to holiness." Homosexuals deserve better than to be locked into a mutilated mockery of marriage.

Gale needs prayers and correction.

Msgr. Foy may be contacted at
See LifeSite report on on Fr. Gale article
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/aug/03082502.html

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