Prairie Messenger espouses "gays".

Muenster, SK--With his editorial in Saskatchewan's Catholic weekly, The Prairie Messenger, for May 7, 2003, Father Andrew Britz, O.S.B. (Order of St. Benedict) became the first Catholic editor in Canada (to our knowledge) to openly espouse the "gay" cause. His column, "Celebration, not mere tolerance," urged his readers to celebrate the fact that homosexuals are the way they are.

Fr. Britz sees opposition to the homosexual lifestyle as the typical temptation for "fundamentalist Christians," a group of people whom he has denounced many times before. In the United States, he tells us, President Bush and fundamentalist Christians have "taken ownership" of the Iraq war by elevating it to a holy war of religion. "Are we not in much the same situation as church," he asks," "when we are tempted to maintain family life legislation to the explicit exclusion of gays and lesbians?"

Fr. Britz sees "homosexuality" as a question of "rights" (Editor: as the "gay" activists want all of us to do). Consequently he asks: "Since when are the rights of one institution strengthened or protected by denying the rights of others? Doesn't history tell us that when the rights of some are denied, the rights of all suffer?"

Following through logically, he asserts that "our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters" do "not choose their sexual orientation any more than the straightest among us." Rather, it is God who "with divine wisdom, awakens at puberty men and women to different sexual orientations." We should not be praying therefore "for their conversion to our lifestyle" because that is nothing less than to "question the very wisdom of God."

What is wrong, therefore, with "gays" and lesbians is not their lifestyle, but the fact that they are "marginalized." But, he adds, "did not Jesus have a marvellous way of telling everyone he met, especially the most marginalized, that they were cause for him to celebrate the great mystery of the God of all wisdom ...?"

Comment

Father Britz clearly contradicts the teaching of the Church when the Church has reaffirmed this teaching a number of times over the last 30 years. He tries to make his dismissal of Catholic teaching on homosexuality a little easier for himself when he attempts to fit history to his thesis in another area. According to him, "through two millennia the church has 'cheated' on Jesus' humanity to make certain of his divinity. We are similarly tempted to 'cheat 'on the dignity of gays and lesbians to safeguard the sacredness of marriage."

P.S. For arguments that homosexuals are made so by God, see the comments at the close of the article "The same-sex "marriage" verdict" in this issue, pages 11-15.

P.P.S. If Fr. Britz no longer respects the teaching of the Church, how can he remain the editor of a semi-official Catholic publication which serves the dioceses of a whole province?