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Tuesday August 3, 2010


Anne Rice Quits Christianity over Bishops’ Opposition to Gay ‘Marriage’; Son a Gay Activist

By John-Henry Westen

LOS ANGELES, CA, August 3, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Famed novelist Anne Rice has revealed the reasons behind her Facebook announcement last week that she is leaving Christianity. The abrupt announcement came just over a decade after Rice returned to her childhood Catholic faith, a conversion that she chronicled in her 2008 spiritual memoir entitled “Called Out of Darkness.”

In a recent NPR interview Rice, whose son is homosexual and a gay activist, said that her reason for leaving was the Church’s social teachings, which she said she has struggled with since her reversion to practice. When asked to specify, she singled out the Church’s public opposition to homosexual ‘marriage.’

Asked by NPR to spell out the “last straws” which drove her from the Church, Rice responded:

I didn’t anticipate at the beginning that the U.S. Catholic bishops were going to come out against same-sex marriage. That they were actually going to donate money to defeat the civil rights of homosexuals in the secular society. This is not something I ever foresaw. I certainly knew that the Catholic Church was never going to marry gay people or accept gay clergy or sanctify same-sex marriages. But that they would go into the secular culture to defeat same-sex marriage in Maine or in California that was something that I had not foreseen. When that broke in the news, I felt an intense pressure. And I am a person who grew up with the saying that all that is needed for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing, and I believe that statement.

Rice says that she will no longer receive communion in the Catholic Church. Asked if she would miss anything about the church, Rice replied: “I miss the Mass terribly I miss the Eucharist, I miss taking communion. But, Holy Communion is a communal meal and I no longer belong in that community.”

Suresh Dominic of Campaign Life Catholic told LifeSiteNews (LSN) that Rice’s refusal to continue to take communion was commendable, and that he hoped it would be an example to some self-professedly Catholic politicians. “As sad as her leaving the Church, is,” said Dominic, “at least she is being honest with herself and recognizing that because she is not able to accept the fundamental teachings of the Catholic faith she is no longer calling herself Catholic.”

Dominic added, “Many politicians who do not stand by the Church’s teachings on life and family matters would do well to imitate her in this, and in her respect for the faith in refusing to take Communion sacrilegiously.”

Rice also mentioned the fact in the NPR interview that her son Christopher is a homosexual activist; but when asked if this had anything to do with her decision, she denied it.

Last week, Rice posted on her Facebook page, saying:

For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

In another post she wrote:

As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

To listen to the NPR interview click here.

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