Evidence of how a Penn State priest blatantly promotes homosexuality, marching in heretical lockstep with his counterparts in the Penn State campus ministry, is shown in Penn State COLLEGIAN article of Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2000.

See

http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2000/10/10-18-00tdc/10-18-00dnews-7.asp

In the article entitled “Religions unify for LGBT service” a bastardization of religion is clearly evident by individuals purporting to be people of faith to include campus ministers at Penn State, in particular a Catholic priest, who incredibly claim that God blesses acts of sodomy, which is blasphemy. This is done in the name of “accepting diversity in their churches,” where perversity of the vilest kind masquerades as diversity.

We’re told that God accepts the sin as well as the sinner, which defies millennia of Judeo-Christian teaching to the contrary. This is couched, in the words of Greg Harbaugh, a Lutheran minister, as being “room for people who are gay and lesbian as God is calling the church to open the closet doors, to unbind you and set you free.” Harbaugh confuses authentic freedom to do what you ought what license to do what you want, the latter leading only to anarchy. Harbaugh goes on to say that "Paul didn’t have an understanding of sexual orientation as we do today. Paul’s words simply don’t ring literally true to me." So for Harbaugh when Sacred Scripture, the inspired word of God says something counter to what he believes, following the god in his mirror, it must be dismissed out of hand.

Father Joseph Hlubik, Penn State Catholic Community campus minister actually had the unmitigated gall to say “Although some Bible passages speak negatively of homosexuality, there are positive images as well.” He discussed a Bible story in which he would have us believe that “two men share a deep and intimate love” with unmistakable homosexual connotations, which is unnatural. For Hlubik “This is a story of a covenant, a lifelong love between Jonathan and David. This is the same David the Jews and Christians view as the greatest king of Israel." So the Bible, which in Genesis 19 unequivocally condemns sodomy, is somehow reinvented by a heretic posing as a Catholic priest who takes a beautiful holy sacred relationship between two biblical figures, and defiles it.

Hlubik said, “There has been some progress in embracing LGBT people in Roman Catholicism” with the clear inference that it is the sin along with the sinners who are to be embraced, a lie that is nowhere found in Catholic teaching. This lie, however, must be presented as fact to the Penn State Community because that is the agenda of the campus ministers as reported in this article. Never mind that many souls will be lost in the process.

Judaism is not left out as Elana Rivel, program director of Hillel: the Foundation for Jewish Campus Life tells us “in the three branches of Judaism, two have made progress to be more inclusive of LGBT people,” read as more progress in accepting the sin is no big thing. “The third one is not quite there yet,” she said, for which we can thank God that there are still those who remain obedient to His laws in the Jewish faith, in particular, His Natural Law, the violation of which has very severe consequences physically, and especially spiritually.

A ridiculous cowering to the lunatic fringe of radical feminism is reported by the use of inclusive language such as “humankind” instead of “mankind” in the Bible. The Reverend Timmy Shanahan, a chaplain with the Episcopal Campus Ministry said, “she got tears in her eyes 10 years ago when she first read a translation of the Book of Genesis that said God created humankind, both male and female, in his image. God created humankind in his image - not mankind, but humankind, male and female,” Shanahan reiterated.

I guess this means that if the feminist loonies appeased in this ridiculous deconstruction of the language decide to go to a zoo, and see a sign at the big cat exhibit saying, “Beware, man-eating tiger,” they will walk right in fully confident that the warning does not apply to them. Of course what can you expect from people who can’t even spell “woman” correctly, preferring the sanitized “womyn” to let everyone know that they are no longer capable of rational thought!

When this deconstruction rears its ugly head in a religious context, which immediately becomes a pseudo-religious context, it makes the statement that Genesis is to be dismissed out of hand. Not only did Eve not come from Adam, but also Eve doesn’t require Adam at all. Similarly, in the promotion of sodomy as a virtue instead of vice, Adam doesn’t require Eve, as unnatural pleasure is the only thing that matters with procreating Heaven, which is THE ONLY reason for the sexual complementary between man and woman, a gift from God to man in order that man may know, love and serve Him in this life, and spend an eternity with Him in the next, rendered impossible.

But who cares about procreation in the world of “sodomy affirmation” by so-called Judeo-Christian ministers where selfishness for the sake of the world replaces selflessness for the sake of the Kingdom, if we’re to believe the heretics reported in this COLLEGIAN article, especially the Catholic priest, whose faith tradition clearly teaches the exact opposite of what he told Penn State University.

Joseph Hlubik should be ashamed of himself for being a wolf instead of a “good shepherd” to his flock at Penn State, which he and his fellow heretics at the Penn State campus ministry have left wandering in a desert of heresy, which leads ultimately to apostasy. Hlubik, as a Catholic, should be the one setting the primary example for witnessing to the Truth, Who is a Somebody, not a something for his colleagues. The fact that he joined the crowd shows that he’s anything but Catholic, much less a priest.

Gary L. Morella

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Centre Daily Times Values section, Saturday, October 21, 2000

Community reaction to gays, lesbian may subside due to television portrayal

By Rev. Joseph Hlubik

Last week was Coming Out Week at Penn State. Although the topic is getting old - and for many a non-issue - for lots of folks it is still a moral dilemma and for others, especially those in their teens and twenties, it is an extremely painful process of coming to terms with who they are.

Fortunately, with a few positive thought-provoking images of gays portrayed on television and movies and maybe even encounters with gays in our own lives, it is becoming common enough to be a topic of discussion.

There is great taboo and fear surrounding this issue, which I truly believe is not so much religious as it is anthropological and cultural.

It is as confusing as gender roles in the heterosexual population.

The more we see gay and lesbian friends, neighbors and family members like everyone else, the less discrimination and fear there will be.

The more we see homosexuals as good citizens and good people, the more tolerant our society and, hopefully, our churches become. The more we see sexuality as only one aspect of a total person, the less we are likely to dismiss people because of their orientation.

Although the Catholic Church teaches that homosexual genital sexual activity is immoral, it recognizes the difficulty in maintaining chastity (for all people) and the necessary pastoral care and concern that needs to be given when dealing with this issue.

We all need to encourage and challenge one another in this matter of chastity.

The most fundamental commandment for both Jews and Christians is love, but then there is always an argument as to what genuine love entails.

I know the essentials of respect, honesty, trust and reverence for oneself and others, that you never do things that would harm or bring shame to another. Love builds upon concern for the other and nurtures what is healthy.

I think St. Paul defines it best in his letter to the Corinthians: "Love is always patient and kind; it is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offense, and is not resentful. Love takes no delight in other people’s sins, but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes ... and now three things remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." Paul tells us that genuine love is even a greater gift than faith; pretty amazing.

Whether we are straight or gay, all of us need friendship and intimacy; we need love. It is the greatest call of the human spirit.

We all need to feel the warmth of hugs and embraces of others. Love needs to be embedded in our relationships and communities.

As the U.S. Bishops have stated in their pastoral letter "Always Our Children," which was approved by the Vatican in 1998, "Our Homosexual sisters and brothers - indeed all people - are summoned into responsible ways of loving. ... We are called to become one body, one spirit in Christ. We need one another if we are to ‘grow in every way into him who is the head,

Christ ... .’ Though at times you feel discouraged, hurt or angry, do not walk away from your families, from the Christian community, from all those who love you. In You God’s love is revealed. You are always our children."

The Rev. Joseph Hlubik is a minister with the Penn State Catholic Community.

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Dear Editor:

It is sad that people calling themselves Christians are espousing the most un-Christian like activities. (Religious unity for LGBT service, Oct 18 Collegian), and (Community reaction to gays, lesbians may subside due to television portrayal, Oct 21, CDT Values).

In regard to the Collegian article, to imply that there is some Christian basis (biblical or tradition) for promoting homosexual lifestyles is gross distortion of Christian teaching, which is very clear on the matter. For example, the Catechism of the Catholic Church in paragraph 2357 quoting Scripture says, "Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved."

The Catechism goes on to say in the next paragraph that the inclinations to homosexual acts are "objectively disordered" because the "inclination is a strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil," quoting the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Catholic Church (CDF). The CDF goes on to say, "To chose someone of the same sex for one’s sexual activity is to annul the rich symbolism and meaning, not to mention the goals, of the Creator’s sexual design. Homosexual activity is not a complementary union, able to transmit life; and so it thwarts the call to a life of that form of self-giving which the Gospel says is the essence of Christian living."

"Therefore special concern and pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not."

Paul, contrary to the quoted claims of some campus ministers, knew more about "sexual orientation" than a plethora of new biblical theorists who must reinvent Scripture and the tradition of the Church to have God, Who is perfect good, promote vice. Sexual orientation doesn’t exist in the homosexual context of an innate, final condition per much contemporary research, which totally debunks claims otherwise. Even if it did, that would not make homosexuality any more acceptable than alcoholism for those so oriented.

For the record the Catechism is quoted here because of the continuing erroneous public comments of a member of the Penn State Catholic ministry who stated in the Collegian article that, somehow, the relationship between David and Jonathan involved homosexual acts, a pathetic distortion of this beautiful part of the Bible, which is totally unfounded. Nowhere in traditional Scriptural exegesis is there even a hint of such a blasphemy, except by those individuals who must reinvent Scripture to make them comfortable with their vices. For any clerics to say, "There are positive images of homosexuality in the Bible," are the fantasies of misguided individuals who have repeatedly participated as members of the Christian clergy in various activities in this community, which celebrate the promotion of a lifestyle that the Church expressly condemns out of a love for those who need to hear the Perfect Truth that is Christ for the sake of their eternal souls - a love they completely ignore. The only ones taking Scripture out of context are these re-inventers who don’t like what it says. What it says on homosexuality is very clear, in particular, Genesis 19.

It’s one thing to embrace all people; the Church does that as we’re all sinners but there is a very important condition that these clerics continually leave out. The Church can never embrace the sin; it requires an amending of one’s life in contrition as a condition for forgiveness. To imply that "we all (those inclined to homosexual acts included) need intimacy in our relationships" implies an eventual sexual intimacy that is against nature and nature’s God.

I would remind those quoted in the aforementioned Collegian and CDT articles that a requirement for love is being truthful. To give a stone where bread is required is selfish hate, not love. Today, the world doesn’t want to hear about redemptive suffering, or following the example of Christ by carrying crosses from a much maligned Church standing out alone as a last bastion of truth, a message of eternal salvation.

It is wrong to say that the Vatican approves Always Our Children (AOC). If that was the case, then why did Rome encourage Father John Harvey, the founder of COURAGE, a Catholic ministry helping people to leave, not live the homosexual lifestyle, to write a critique of every version of AOC that has been released?

Moreover, it is very clear in the Vatican Document Apostolos Suos, that in no way does the very problematic AOC carry any weight as being a binding document to Catholics on faith and morals as such a declaration requires near unanimous consent of the bishops with the Pope, something that AOC never did, coming only from a small committee of bishops. In fact, many members of the National Council of Catholic Bishops not only publicly voiced their opposition to AOC, but also told the faithful that they, in good faith, were not obliged to abide by it whatsoever.

You would think that Catholic clergy on campus would at least make the effort to get that message out. Sadly, that does not appear to be the case.

Gary L. Morella

Associate, Fellowship of Catholic Scholars

Lemont, PA