FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Wayne Besen, Executive Director
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
LGBT Catholics Shouldn’t Confess, They Should Come Out, Says TWO
BURLINGTON, Vt. – Truth Wins Out today condemned an iPhone App, designed to guide Catholics through confession. Among one of many offensive questions asked on, “Confession: A Roman Catholic App”, is “Have I been guilty of any homosexual activity.”
“This is cyber spiritual abuse that promotes backward ideas in a modern package,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director, Wayne Besen. “Gay Catholics don’t need to confess, they need to come out of the closet and challenge anti-gay dogma. The false idea that being gay is something to be ashamed of has destroyed too many lives. This iPhone App is facilitating and furthering the harm.”
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote about the downloadable software today. Three young men in South Bend, Indiana designed it with the help of two socially conservative priests. According to iTunes, the App is ranked No. 22 in sales worldwide.
“When a person feels his or her most innate feelings of sexuality and love are sinful, it denies them a healthy connection to humanity,” said TWO’s Besen. “This app is helping to create neurotic individuals who are ashamed of who they are. The creators of this device are the true sinners and they need to confess for the damage they are doing in the name of religion.”
The app says it is: “Designed to be used in the confessional, this app is the perfect aid for every penitent. With a personalized examination of conscience for each user, password protected profiles, and a step-by-step-guide to the sacrament, this app invites Catholics to prayerfully prepare for and participate in the Rite of Penance.”
Recently, there has been concern that the Catholic Church is becoming more anti-gay and intolerant. The organization Catholics for Equality recently voiced unease over new funding from the Dioceses of Oakland and Colorado Springs for the establishment of chapters of the “ex-gay” organization Courage. This organization has traditionally focused on celibacy for gay people, because it has worked so well for priests.
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
Yep, I would say it’s anti-gay. I wonder if there is an app within the app that asks priests “Have you sexually abused any minors?” Probably not.
” Becoming more anti-gay ” ????????
What rock have you been living under? The Catholic Church has ALWAYS been anti-gay. Virulently so.
The neurotic clergy would line up to stone us to death, if they could get away with it.
Chris – I’ve been living under the third rock from the sun. But that’s besides the point.
You raise a good question – as they have never been too friendly. But, they have become more aligned with the protestant religious right in recent years. From not giving communion to politicians to taking part in anti-gay marriage equality campaigns.
So, I guess they have been more likely to act on their views in the political arena.
I don’t think stoning is on their dance card, though.
Speaking as an ex-Catholic who attended a Catholic university in the 1980s —
The church hierarchy has become much more bigoted, doctrinaire, and intolerant of dissent since the early 1990s.
There was a time in the 1970s and 1980s when more-or-less openly gay clergy were tolerated in many places, and Dignity chapters were allowed to exist and conduct meetings in church facilities at the discretion of the local church or diocese.
No more.
Okay folks don’t “stone” me for asking what is an honest question here…but isn’t this application more of a matter of electronic convenience than of a new Catholic teaching? These same or similar questions are in every Catholic confession guide or prayer book I know of.
It is true that in various years it has been enforced more than others, but the Roman Church has pretty much maintained that homosexuality in all forms (behavior not orientation) is sinful. So it really should not be a huge surprise that a preparation guide for the Sacrament of Penance would include questions about this particular (in their eyes) “sin.”
I agree that the Church is off base here, but I believe that the answer is more than likely to find an LGBT affirming church instead of expecting Catholics to change their doctrine in this area. They are simply speaking from the perspective of Rome. There is life after Catholicism. I know.
“They are simply speaking from the perspective of Rome.”
True – and Rome is wrong on this issue, as well as their silly new app.
[...] Truth Wins Out Condemns Catholic Confession iPhone App As Anti-Gay Spiritual Abuse. Read more [...]
Merlyn, you took the words right out of my mouth, they should also have an app for the upper hierarchy to confess how often they have hidden, moved, and shielded child rapists from legal prosecution. This ‘confession’ app is as tacky and cheesy as the electric votive candles that most of them now have.
Ratzinger is a rabid homophobe (and i assume a closet case) and was the one who was always lighting a fire under the last pope to be more of a gay basher. When benny the rat became Maledict XVI, I knew those lgbt people who were still foolish enough to remain in that evil sadistic ‘church’ were in for more shame and misery. GET OUT NOW!
“The false idea that being gay is something to be ashamed of has destroyed too many lives”
But the church is concerned with “souls”,not just lives, as regardless of what you say is a false idea, our lives are but a blink of an eye, and the church would rather be spit on than deny one of us the chance to eternal joy.
“and the church would rather be spit on than deny one of us the chance to eternal joy.”
or…not.
[...] Out, un colectivo que lucha contra la homofobia de los fundamentalismos religiosos, se trata de una “persecución virtual que difunde ideas retrógradas en un formato moderno. Los católicos homosexuales no necesitan confesarse, sino salir del armario y desafiar los dogmas [...]