Why I’m Not A Catholic Anymore
May 27th, 2006 at 5:31 pm by Susie
And honestly, I don’t understand how any thinking Christian can support these purges:
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Joseph Nadeau prayed for storms when he was an altar boy, hoping the lights would go out and he’d be picked to play the church’s creaking organ to celebrate Holy Mass. Now in his mid-thirties, Nadeau’s bold spiritual arrangements have brought dozens of parishioners to his suburban parish in Roeland Park, Kan.
But last Sunday, Nadeau ended his last Mass at St. Agnes Catholic Church with a wrenching solo on “God Help the Outcasts.” It was his other life, as the artistic director of one of the nation’s largest gay male choirs, that ultimately cost him his job.
“I’ve known I was gay since I was 15 or 16,” said the soft-spoken Nadeau at his brick home in Kansas City. “My parish priest told me just follow your heart and you can’t go wrong. I can’t think of doing anything else.”
The Roman Catholic Church views homosexual acts as “intrinsically disordered,” and in November held that priests who support “so-called gay culture” cannot be ordained. While Vatican teachings also instruct that gays and lesbians should be treated with compassion, church employees are expected to live in accordance with Catholic doctrine.
The church’s decision to let Nadeau’s contract lapse, however, comes at a time when the role of homosexuals is causing debates inside churches nationwide - though the bulk of those conversations never go public.
In January, St. Agnes Catholic Church hierarchy summoned Nadeau into a closed-door meeting, he said. Pastor Gary Appelgate told Nadeau that to continue as music director, he needed to resign from Kansas City’s Heartland Men’s Chorus, take a vow of celibacy and acknowledge that homosexuality was a disorder, Nadeau said.
I was raised Catholic, but haven’t been to mass in 16 years. The last church I belonged to, almost every Sunday the “sermon” was about how the church needed more money. It was always about money. Maybe if the Monsignor bothered to give us some inspiration instead of bitching and moaning about how cheap we were we might have opened our wallets.
I’ve come to believe that organized religion is almost always a scam to make money. I’d rather take my chances on my own, try to be a good person who does the right thing, and hopefully if there is a God he will notice.
For the most part, organized religion is a disorder.
Too bad you all make snap judgments about such a thing as faith - you probably say you have faith but don’t like organized religion. I don’t even think you know what it is for and how to use it. You have not been to Mass in 16 years, so you don’t know changes that have happened and then you slam one sermon you hear? That’s lame. How would you like to be judged on one comment you make that someone does not like or does not find inspiring? The fact that the church has it’s own opinon and ruling on Gays means that is the way it wants to conduct its business, for its own issues of faith. Small minded people make quick judgments and never study much beyond their own momentary passions. The church has been studying these issues for years and yes, they do sometimes change some of what they once said (not about faith but about what we practice) but isn’t informed and prudent change what you want? Too bad you just don’t get it - Blessings!