Ornery Henry

Lest we let our pride of parish blind us, we need to be aware that other First World countries have their own hateful clerics. Our local bishops aside, ours tend to fundamental Protestants.

Canada has its share of yippers and yappers who won't stop chewing on the bone of homosexuals and same-sex marriage. The purest example of the intolerant and irrational may be Calgary's Roman Catholic Bishop Fred Henry.

He is adamantly and incessantly anti-gay, anti-gay rights and most certainly anti-same-sex marriage, law or not. He is a publicity hound, who publishes widely and will not pass a dais without leaping behind it to orate.

Among his many public pronouncements are:

• Same-sex marriage will "usher in an era of intolerance and discrimination the likes of which we have rarely seen before." His main point is that bigoted speech may be prosecuted.
• "It's about the children, stupid!" Same-sex marriage makes "children's rights secondary to adults." He contends that "stable and exclusive homosexual coupling is the exception rather than the norm." (This link is a PDF.)
• The hidden agenda — "Contrary to what is normally alleged, the primary goals in seeking legalization of same-sex 'marriage' are not financial or health benefits associated with marriage; nor are the goals the search for stability and exclusivity in a homosexual relationship. The principal objective in seeking same-sex 'marriage' is not really even about rights."
• Democracy should be a moral weapon. "The denial of the social and legal status of marriage to same-sex couples is not discrimination. It is not something opposed to justice; on the contrary, justice requires such an opposition. The goal is to acquire a powerful psychological weapon to change society's rejection of homosexual activity and lifestyle into gradual, even if reluctant, acceptance."
  

He also is more than happy to use sacraments as weapons, such as denying any politician who votes incorrectly communion. For example, as to Prime Minister Paul Martin, Henry said:

Yes, I would refuse him Communion. I felt in conscience that I had to write a pastoral letter to my people in which I explained that his position was morally inconsistent and incoherent and that there was no way in which he could claim to be a good practicing Catholic and at the same time espouse this pushing of the same-sex union legislation and his position on abortion.

So, it's his way or the road to hell. Hmmm, think, think, think.

By the bye, Martin's home-parish priest, Rev. John Walsh, in Quebec disagrees and offers the PM communion. "We can't use the eucharist as a time...to judge a person's conscience by refusing them communion," he said on CJAD radio.