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Email: "‘Catholic’ Group Gearing up to Challenge Church Teaching on Homosexuality"

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BY LifeSiteNews.com By James Tillman WASHINGTON, August 23, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A cadre of homosexualist activists are preparing to launch a new group, Catholics for Equality, whose self-proclaimed mission is to lead lay Catholics away from the institutional Church's teaching on sexuality and encourage support for homosexual "marriage." The Catholic News Agency broke the news of the nascient group Sunday. Although Catholics for Equality will not officially launch until September 14th, and their website is still under construction, their goals are already quite clear.  The group proclaims that American Catholic laymen support “LGBT equality,” and deplores that the "official voice of the hierarchy is increasingly one favoring discrimination and opposing just, humane, and reasonable efforts to secure legal equality for LGBT Americans." "We believe this trend is a repudiation of Catholic teaching about the equal dignity of every person as well as the American and constitutional values of fairness and equality under the law," it states. While the Vatican has often insisted that homosexual individuals must be treated with love and equal dignity as human persons, Church teaching has been unanimous in rejecting homosexual acts themselves, and the new "rights" that are demanded on their account, as immoral and illegitimate. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered, contrary to the natural law, and presented in Sacred Scripture as "acts of grave depravity." "Under no circumstances can they be approved," it states.  The Catholic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has also affirmed that legal recognition of homosexual "marriage" is never to be condoned, as have the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.Catholics for Equality, however, plans to hold campus outreach and help support lectures at “Catholic colleges and universities and at Newman Centers across the country” to promote the idea that “LGBT Equality is an American Catholic value.” They have also announced their intent to find “pro-equality Catholics in the entertainment, civic, business and sports worlds” and use them to promote their agenda.Their plan of action also includes methods explicitly designed to counteract the influence of bishops upon those within their dioceses. For instance, Catholics for Equality's webpage contains an under-construction page on which people will be able to "report anti-equality activity."  The page states that "our church hierarchy is becoming increasingly aggressive in forcing priests at the parish level to distribute anti-equality materials and deliver anti-equality sermons from the pulpit. "It is important for these activities to be reported so that pro-equality Catholics can respond." A request by LifeSiteNews.com for comment from Catholics for Equality went unanswered Monday. According to the March edition of the group's online newsletter, several well-known dissidents and homosexualist activists met in Washington, DC, on January 30-31, 2010, for an organizational meeting that gave birth to the new organization. Mark Matson, president of the dissident Catholic group Dignity USA, attended the meeting.  Dignity USA defies the teaching of the Catholic Church regarding the objective disorder of homosexuality and runs projects such as the "Leather Ministry," which has as a self-proclaimed goal "intergrating leather sexuality with Christian spirituality." Matson described the new organization "as a Catholic equivalent to HRC (Human Rights Campaign)."  The HRC is notorious for pushing an extreme homosexualist agenda. Sharon Groves, the Deputy Director of the Religion and Faith Program at the HRC, was also present at the organizational meeting. Matson said that the meeting was convened by Phil Attey, a Washington attorney and homosexualist activist, and Fr. Joseph Palacios, an openly gay Georgetown University professor. Attey has previously been the "Obama Pride" DC coordinator, and founded a website devoted to uncovering homosexual priests to help bring them to campaign for the homosexualist agenda. Both Attey and Palacios are now members of the board of Catholics for Equality. Other notorious dissidents attending the meeting included Sr. Jeannine Gramick, a cofounder of the homosexualist “Catholic” organization New Ways Ministry; she represented the National Coalition of American Nuns, which advocates for abortion and homosexuality. Sr. Gramick was silenced by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in 1999 for her work with homosexuals, although she refused to obey the order.  New Ways Ministry has also been denounced by Cardinal Francis George, head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), as a pseudo-Catholic organization. The USCCB had not responded to LifeSiteNews.com’s request for comment on Catholics for Equality at press time. See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:El Paso Priest on Homosexuality: Genuine Love Seeks Eternal Salvation, not 'Tolerance' http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/aug/10081911.htmlBishop Olmsted: 'Love Authentically' by Acknowledging Disorder of Homosexuality http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/aug/10081104.html http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/catholic-group-gearing-up-to-challenge-church-teaching-on-homosexuality/

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