Vatican to Priests: Don’t Offend the Homosexuals

[12.04.08] The Vatican released a pamphlet last week warning Roman Catholic priests not to use any language in their parishes that might be deemed offensive to gays and lesbians reports the dailymail.co.uk Web site.

The brochure, created by bishops and given to those priests under them, instructs priests to no longer assume every parishioner is heterosexual and therefore to refrain from using “heterosexist” language: “Remember that homophobic jokes and asides can be cruel and hurtful—a careless word can mean another experience of rejection and pain.”

The Web site states that priests have also been told to put up posters promoting various “support services” for homosexuals attending church.

“It is things like this that are enfeebling the Church at the moment—the concentration on things that don't matter and missing the things that do,” commented Catholic author and activist Lynette Burrows reports the site. “What is pitiful as well as demeaning is that the Church is running after homosexual opinion but nothing is going to make homosexuals like the Catholic Church. This is because the Catholic Church teaches that homosexuality is a disorder and whatever the bishops say will not change that.”