Vatican fires gay priest on eve of Catholic bishops meeting

The Vatican fired a priest Saturday after he came out as gay and revealed he has a boyfriend on the eve of an important meeting of the world's bishops to discuss church teachings on family life, a topic that encompasses divorce, homosexuality and cohabitation.

Considered a high-ranking Vatican official, Monsignor Krzysztof Charamsa, 43, lived in Rome for the last 17 years and worked at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith since 2003.

In several interviews, Charamsa said he was happy and proud to be a gay priest, and was in love with a man whom he identified as his boyfriend, according to the Associated Press. He said he wanted to challenge the church's "backwards" attitude to homosexuality, the BBC reported.

"It's time the church opened its eyes and realized that offering gay believers total abstinence from a life of love is inhuman," he said, according to the network.

Charamsa also said he knew he would have to give up his ministry but felt he had a duty toward sexual minorities to come out, BBC reported.
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"The decision to make such a pointed statement on the eve of the opening of the synod appears very serious and irresponsible, since it aims to subject the synod assembly to undue media pressure," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said in a statement.

Vatican fires gay priest on eve of Catholic bishops meeting

Cardinal Gerhard Mueller Rebukes U.S. Nuns For Honoring Feminist Theologian Elizabeth Johnson

"G"od help the Catholic woman that dare uses her brain. All because she had the courage to question the men and their so-called "divine revelations" concerning "God."

And yes her book just got added to my list to read!!
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The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), which represents the majority of U.S. nuns, was sharply rebuked by Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), last week during a visit to Rome. Cardinal Mueller emphasized the need for reform within the LCWR, objected to their choice of honoree for a leadership award, and criticized their interest in the idea of conscious evolution.

The CDF, which serves as the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog, told the Presidency of the LCWR that their choice to honor a feminist theologian, Elizabeth Johnson, with an Outstanding Leadership Award "is a decision that will be seen as a rather open provocation against the Holy See and the Doctrinal Assessment."

Johnson's popular book Quest for the Living God was publicly denounced by the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2011. The USCCB released a statement saying that the text reaches many "theologically unacceptable" conclusions. Johnson is a Distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham University, a Jesuit college in New York.

Cardinal Gerhard Mueller Rebukes U.S. Nuns For Honoring Feminist Theologian Elizabeth Johnson