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….and that has lead to many of them harming countless souls.
As I pointed out, this has less to do with their own homosexuality than it does with the Church's doctrine on homosexuality. Being gay does not make anyone more likely to be a sexual predator. Predators will be predators, no matter what their sexuality is. The Church just managed to create an environment that favors - and even fosters and encourages - homosexual predators in particular.
It doesn’t encourage predators, good grief.
Not deliberately, but it does nonetheless. I already explained how.
Nope. I completely disagree. Predators go where they have easy access.
Right. And why do priests have easy access to potential victims? Because of the way that the Church treats homosexuality and gay people.
Treats them? Literally, in the catechism it states homosexuality et al is sinful, but they must be treated with compassion and respect.
While that may be what the Catechism says, the reality is generally much different. Calling someone's feelings, which they have no control over, inherently sinful (and offering absolutely no outlet for them) isolates them and leads to feelings of hopelessness - I don't think that's very respectful or compassionate. If you're straight, your lust is still called sinful, but you at least have the option of marrying. Someone who is gay can't do that - at least not within the Church.
Sexual orientation isn’t sinful, those feelings they have for the same sex isn’t sinful. It’s the ACTION that makes it sinful. The most compassionate thing to do is love the sinner, hate the sin.
It's generally not presented that way, speaking from personal experience. Obviously, this is going to depend heavily on who's doing the teaching though.
Knowing that you can never act on your feelings is, I'm sure, a very difficult and isolating realization. And I'll go out on a limb and say that the people actually experiencing those feelings likely struggle with that distinction. After all, it's also not wrong to be attracted to the opposite sex, but they can get married.
A nice platitude, but we've discussed this before. Most people have a difficult time separating the sinner from the sin, and "hating the sin" frequently comes across as hating the sinner too.
They should be, but again, unless you're a mind reader, how would you know if they aren't truthful? Banning something tends to create a culture where that thing is hidden rather than actually being eliminated, and that's how we ended up in this situation in the first place.
I don’t disagree at all. I’m sure many people have had many different experiences, so I cannot comment on that.
