One always wonders ...

... when the MainStream Media (MSM) reports on the Church and anything having to do with the loins. But this article by Rachel Zoll of the Associated Press (as run here in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer) about "rules for ministry to gays" has some quite fundamental problems. (I can't find the initiative mentioned on the USCCB Web site, so I'm alsoreliant on the article as truthful.)

I mean, do you laugh or cry at the start of the third paragraph?

But the authors repeatedly state that any such ministries must be led by people who uphold church teaching on sexuality ...

Damn tyrants -- insisting that people involved in church ministry uphold the Church's teaching on that subject. What happened to freethought and freespeech? Did we learn nothing from the lynching of Father Nugent and Sister Gramick. I know it's just three characters, but there is a whole worldview and a universe of presuppositions contained in the word "but." It implies that this is something unexpected or surprising in what the article takes pains to tell us the bishops "repeatedly state" (not just "state" mind you -- the damn tyrants MEAN IT!!!).

The problems actually start with Zoll's lead, which conflates two issues — (1) ministry to homosexual persons, which is an internal Church matter, and primarily a pastoral one to individual souls; and (2) the issues of marriage and adoption, which are public matters of the common good, and therefore not wholly about the Church, but also about the polity and populace. While there is certainly a moral dimension to both matters, strictly speaking they are unrelated. What does marriage have to do with a pastoral outreach?

Then we get to the end, and these priceless reaction paragraphs:

Sam Sinnett, president of DignityUSA, which represents gay and lesbian Catholics, said it was clear the document was prepared "by none of us for whom it is intended."
"They speak in willful ignorance about people in same-gender families. They speak in willful ignorance about homosexuality - sexuality in general," Sinnett said. "They are continuing to discriminate against us."

Ya think Mr. Sinnett should ... well ... calm the hell down? But one expects no better from Dignity, who claim They already know everything and so the Church has nothing to tell them (hence it being a problem that Dignity didn't get to prepare the proposal since it was "us for whom it is intended).

Actually far more telling is Ms. Zoll's word choice, saying that "DignityUSA represents gay and lesbian Catholics," which is ... not to put too fine a point on it ... a pile of crap. To the extent Dignity speaks for anyone, those people are dissenters, as five minutes poking around the Dignity Web site will tell you (I didn't know Mary Daly had found a new post -- I presume she doesn't have to deal with males at this one, while calling for a Catholic Stonewall).

Perhaps less seriously, the AP writer also apparently couldn't find (or didn't think to find or didn't know she could find) any homosexual persons or groups who believe what the Church teaches. So there's only negative reaction from homosexual persons to the bishops' proposal, whatever it might be. Which tells us by omission that the story is really the bad old homophobic Church "cracking down" on the poor innocent LGBT Community. Ms. Zoll, if you read this ... my e-mail is to the right. And if my unwillingness to be a "public homo" is too much, I have some friends in various cities, a chaplain of my own group, and a group with an office, all of whom might be willing to talk about this and other matters.