MINNEAPOLIS, October 12, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com)
– “You are summoned to a tribunal where you cannot have a defense
lawyer and you cannot record the proceedings nor have a witness present.
The people judging and prosecuting you have no legal qualifications.
The accusation is ambiguous, having to do with ideas the state does not
like. The penalties could include fines equal to several thousands of
dollars, public recanting, and rehabilitation classes. You are a bishop.
This is not China. This is Canada. The offense: explaining why
homosexual relations are a sin.”
So began the address of Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast to St.
Thomas University Law School Monday, October 8, where he laid out the
alarming consequences of same-sex “marriage” from the Canadian
experience.
The archbishop was describing the true experiences
of Calgary Bishop Fred Henry, who in 2005 was hit with a human rights
complaint for proclaiming the Church’s teachings on homosexuality. The
complaint was subsequently dropped by the plaintiff, who admitted that he only filed the complaint to get media attention.
Others, however, have not been so lucky. Alberta pastor Stephen
Boissoin, for instance, was dragged through a several year process in a
human rights commission, at the end of which he was found “guilty.”
His crime? Writing a letter to the editor of a local newspaper
expressing his concern about the gay agenda in schools. Boissoin was hit
with a fine and ordered never again to publicly speak about his views
on homosexuality.
Archbishop Prendergast also expressed his concern for those who,
thanks to the legalization of gay “marriage,” “are deceived into
destructive lifestyles, approved of and funded by Canadian governments.”
“The Bible is being called hate literature,” he said. “Clearly, the
Church is in the crosshairs. There will be growing pressure for the
Church to comply or to be shut down.”
Enumerating the “consequences of same-sex marriages and related
sexual license are already manifesting themselves,” the Archbishop
noted:
- restrictions on freedoms;
- forced sex education;
- sexually confused children;
- sexual experimentation among children;
- muzzling and debilitating the Church;
- more births out of wedlock;
- more in vitro fertilizations;
- more abortions;
- more poverty;
- more misery;
- more disease;
- more addictions; and
- higher health care costs.
Click “like” if you want to defend true marriage.
“By reassigning financial benefits to same-sex marriage, what was once an incentive to fruitful, traditional families has become an incentive to sterile, destructive social arrangements,” he said.
Archbishop Prendergast ended his address on a positive note. “Every
challenge to the Church’s teaching is an opportunity to clarify it,” he
said. “Media attention is putting the Church on the front page, and we
must see that as a good thing.”
“Just the same,” he warned, “the playbook of our opponents is unrelenting attempts to change or destroy the Church.”
The state of Minnesota is set to vote on a referendum to protect traditional marriage on November 6.
