Bishop Who Demanded Catholics Choose Between Their Soul and Soulmate Is Back
An Illinois Bishop whose attack on LGBT people last month drew national outrage is back, now attacking LGBT people and their allies for supporting same-sex marriage. Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki in a new video has decreed that lawmakers and judges who have voted to support the constitutional right of same-sex couples to marry must no long take holy communion. He also laments the strength of the “LGBT lobby.”
Bishop Paprocki’s remarks follow his direction in June that same-sex couples should be banned from Communion and Catholic funeral rites unless they denounced their soulmate before death.
“Those politicians and judges who helped to make same-sex marriage legal and who aid and abet abortion, for example, by voting for taxpayer funding for abortion, should not receive Holy Communion unless they repent, go to confession and amend their lives,” the Springfield Bishop says in his new video, as CNS News reports.
But Paprocki doesn’t have his sights set only on LGBT people, rather, he’s widening his shot.
“Those who use artificial contraception should not receive Holy Communion unless they repent, go to confession and amend their lives,” he adds.
“Those who have had an abortion or have assisted in performing or procuring an abortion should not receive Holy Communion unless they repent, go to confession and amend their lives,” Paprocki continues.
“Those who miss Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, unless it would be impossible due to a grave cause such as serious illness, should not receive Holy Communion unless they repent, go to confession and amend their lives,” he added.
Bishop Paprocki does offer Catholic same-sex couples an “out,” allowing them to participate in Catholic rites: forgo sex and pretend to be brothers or sisters.
“An exception would be where the couple agrees to live as brother and sister, as long as there is no public scandal.”
He uses the word “scandal” seven times.
Similarly, if there is no public scandal, two men who live chastely with each other as friends or as brother and brother, or two women who live chastely with each other as friends or as sister and sister, may receive Holy Communion if there is no public scandal.”
Bishop Paprocki also includes an offensive attempt to be, as he calls it, “respectful, compassionate and sensitive to all our brothers and sisters in faith, as was the ministry of Christ Jesus,” as long as LGBT people repent.
“People with same-sex attraction are welcome in our parishes in the Catholic Diocese of Springfield in Illinois as we repent our sins and pray for God to keep us in his grace.”
Paprocki also says that he has been asled to rescind his decree, but can’t understand why, since it’s just a “straightforward application of existing Catholic doctrine and canon law.”
He finds it “quite astounding” that people would have been so outraged that he decreed legally married same-sex couples should be forced to denounce their soulmates so they could be buried in the Catholic church. Paprocki says the enormous outrage “shows how strong the LGBT lobby is both in the secular world as well as within the church.” Or, it shows that most people are not monsters.
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