saintfletcher and Alchemist,
For your benifit I made no such claim that the Church I attend has pedophile problems. We have two males who are Court leason officers for DOCS and another a Principal of a Public Primary school. The three women are teachers in the Public school system. Two junior teachers who are preschool supervisors and another a trainee teacher.

So all your vitriol about me protecting pedophiles demonstrates your bias by jumping to conclusions. My original statement was a general statement of all cases taken to court against child abusers in the Church. The majority of them referred to homosexual acts.

“reality,” your plagiarised post was 284 words long, plenty of room for a citation, and even some comment about the text, had you understood (a) the ethics of naming sources and (b) the meaning of concepts like “parsing” and “(p<0.10)”.

Your excuse for your plagiarism is just another lazy lie, like the original post.

As for your comments on majorities, a more relevant statistic is the number of people participating in religious activities: “In 2002, almost one-quarter (23%) reported participating in church or religious activities over a three month period.” ABS: http://snipurl.com/tewr Doesn’t sound like a pious majority to me.

In any event, democracies don’t grant majorities the right to ride roughshod over minorities. While your religious beliefs are protected in this country, they don’t afford believers any special rights over others.

And yes, “reality,” I’m aware that there’s more than one target of your ill will.

Fletch, you’re doing it again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwins_law

Sympathies go out to Fr Richard in his very difficult pastoral position. Men and women who give up the great good of having a family to serve our spiritual needs are the salt of the earth.

Fr Richard's Archbishop - Cardinal Francis would probably have been the better man to source an article from on this topic. Fr Richard's piece highlights the tensions priests face in ministering to us the weak and fallen children of God, and at the same time presenting a masculine spirituality that urges us towards holiness and admonishes sin.

The teaching arm of the Church is patient and understanding of the difficulties of its diocesan shepherds.

A genuinely enlightening article would have expanded on the sentence "The gay and lesbian community needs to admit that two millennia of church experience and wisdom do have something to offer the discussion."

I won't forget the young gay man on John Saffran vs God saying (in a tone that seemed as if he was sick of being patronized) "I fall in love with men [so? so what?] in response to this fact I listen to Augustine, the Tradition of the Catholic Church, the Pope and the Good News of Jesus Christ, not the gay lobby."

The Church simply must affirm the call to holiness, it must remind us of the sinfulness in following our disordered desires.

"I thought I should be too miserable, unless folded in female arms; and of the medicine of Thy mercy to cure that infirmity I thought not, not having tried it. As for continency, I supposed it to be in our own power (though in myself I did not find that power), being so foolish as not to know what is written, None can be continent unless Thou give it; and that Thou wouldest give it, if with inward groanings I did knock at Thine ears, and with a settled faith did cast my care on Thee." Augustine

We can't excise the hard sayings of Jesus. He made some stern judgments. He knew we could take it. He made us.

There is nothing more disordered or violent than the starting of wars, manufacture of weaponary and the endless desires to create even more vile machines of mass destruction in this neverending chase to be the overwhelmingly dominant power on the planet. Cock of the yard.

Still, bless, it is so much easier for clerics to turn their poisonous, cowardly attention on minority groups who go out of their way to get on with everyone - people who generally bring a little bit of sunshine into peoples' lives - than it is for them to stand up to the real human aggressors in society. I mean, a poof aint anything to be scared of so lets pretend the rest isn't happening and to show that we are still holy and gods advocates on earth - we'll have a go at pansies instead ... and the vile ones will love us. Thus, we'll be safe from harm. Thus we will be allowed to be. Still you makes your choice and you pays the price...

Christ refused the sword - but clerics don't bring this to our attention. Christ stood up to and confronted the political and religious leaders of his day - he understood they deliberately created disharmony in order to maintain and project their own sense of power - simultaneously undermining the lives of ordinary decent people. Christ stood up for the oppressed - he didn't participate in their oppression.

Christ was not hung up about sex - but he was deeply disturbed by the cruelty of politicians and clerics - the ones who made final judgement on his life. History repeats itself. Power corrupts - whatever the organisation. Todays clerics (of all religions) fan the flames of their political leaders wars. Freedom by the barrel of a gun aint no freedom - the correct word is oppression. Christ's unity will never be achieved in a climate of "with us or against us" - probably the most evil phrase that it is possible to utter.

But Kevin, Political Correctness is on the gay lobby's side. The Church doesn't get applause for re iterating a five thousand year old unbroken tradition regarding human sexual relations.

Jesus' Church's stance on sexuality is always counter cultural given the selfishness of human nature.

The Christian Church has also never pretended to be pure, built as she is on St Paul and St Peter, a murderer of Christians and a deserter of Christ.

It is the Church and faithful Christians who assume the role of Christ when slandered by accusations of obsessions with sex and power.

You'll find the gay lobby often viciously attacks religious belief, labelling fundamentalist anyone who disagrees. Which is the power political ploy of the Marxist, who, not believing in any transcendent morality, believes the political ends justify the means. Completely opposed to Christ's example – emptying himself of power by being born of a woman like us – born in a stable and placed in an animal trough – born to peasants – born within a 7th rate mountain people – allowing himself to be humiliated and tortured because as God, as pure relatedness, he held nothing of himself back from us.

Now who do you think understands better about mere human power? Who is more likely today to be corrupted - Christ's Church or the powerful gay lobby?

If only they knew how the Church is much more interested in homosexual people's welfare. The real advocate is Christ and those prepared to take on the role of bad guy rather than pamper people's weaknesses.

Joy is the promise. We shouldn't take His promises lightly, we must trust Him.

Dear Martin - Christianity is not 5,000 years old - but if you mean to refer to old testament thinking on sexuality (Freudian slip?) then you have not yet discovered the New Testament of Christ.

The gay lobby does not attack religious belief - only when it is misused as techniques for oppression. "It is not the collar that maketh the priest".

I know many gay christians and I experience them to be loving, generous, open hearted, friendly people, who look to build good, solid, warm relationships with others. I will always trust in my own experience of each and every individual I meet, rather than follow blindly the generalised false witness of others - predjudice is never attractive and always leaves a feeling of distate.

I repeat, there are much bigger issues (more obvious causes of oppression) to concern those who believe they represent Christ and would profess to do as he he would have done. Name calling vulnerable, harmless people was never on his agenda.