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When clergy began encouraging believers to contribute to petitions against the Istanbul Convention and the enactment of a gender-neutral association, fierce advocates of these initiatives attacked. The Vilnius Pride social network questionnaire shared the idea that LGBT believers should separate from the Church.
“In response to the events of the past weeks (or centuries), we invite everyone and everyone who is frustrated with the institution of the Church and tired of interfering in our lives to unite and formally leave the Church. The way to do this is to write to the curia in your diocese where you were baptized with a dated and signed application.
In November, Polish activists told us that in response to the priestly pedophilia scandals and the church’s attempts to further restrict the rights of women and LGBT + people, people began to organize en masse and formally leave the institution. of the church.
This week, Lukas Mykolaitis’s recording of a similar initiative, which we thank for its inspiration, also received attention in Lithuania, “the invitation reads. A letter template has also been added, which should only be completed and sent to your diocesan curia. .
It is also proclaimed that the Church seeks to restrict the rights of LGBT people, interferes in legislative processes, opposes any advance in the field of human rights, incites hatred in society.
The evening news of the calls to leave the Church was discussed with the priest. Roberta GRIGU. The clergyman admitted that he had seen this proclamation himself, but did not take it very seriously and did not think that current problems would lead people to abandon the Church and its teaching.
– For me, this invitation is a bit funny, because it smells like a kind of blackmail. Believers join the Church community on a voluntary basis, so they can withdraw of their own free will if they wish. But such an invitation sounds paradoxical: members of the Church community are invited to leave the Church because it has its own values. Although it is because of them that the community joins the Church.
– Have you ever had to receive requests to be removed from the Church lists?
– I haven’t heard of that yet. I think this is an ambition that expresses the political emotions or frustrations that we are currently experiencing. But I do not rule out that there may be people who are not immersed in Catholic teaching and human nature. As a priest, I have a lot to interact with people. I see that, as in all communities, also in the Church there are people who know and adhere to Christian teaching because they support it. At the same time, there are those who formally consider themselves members of the community, but do not know its teachings in greater depth. Some of these people, angered by any word from the priest, may answer the call. It can be hard to say, but it can be good if there are people who are not strangers to Christian teaching and who belong to the Church community not only formally.
– Upon receiving such a request, would the curator remove the believer from the Church lists?
– Almost all parishes have metrics that record baptisms, marriages, funerals, and other local Church services. However, according to the understanding of the Church, the sacrament of Baptism is not revoked like any type of membership in a political party. It can, in fact, be abolished when a person in practice refuses to live according to the teaching of the faith and lives without regard to the moral order of spiritual life. In this way, it seems to be really separated from the Church.
From a bureaucratic point of view, the believer could at least write an apostasy, a renunciation of religion. If a person desires in the course of his life the services of the Church, such as religious funerals or anointing, the withdrawal from the Church must be revoked. As sometimes happens at the end of life, when a person rethinks a lot.
– It is written in the Catechism that the tradition of the Church, “relying on Scripture, which considers homosexuality as a great perversion, has always proclaimed that homosexual acts are intrinsically disorderly.”
– Surprisingly, priests are accused of making public statements expressing basic Catholic teaching on the family, the marriage of a man and a woman, the biological identity of a person. As an older person, it hurts twice as much. I still remember the times of the Soviet occupation, when the faithful were humiliated, they ridiculed us, we suffered various sanctions.
I was pleasantly surprised that the president reacted to the current attack on the Church by comparing it to the Inquisition. This cannot be tolerated in a free democratic society.
– Did some of the clergy’s public attacks just encourage you to speak up?
– Cardinal Sigitas Tamkevičius repeatedly recounted how during the Soviet era he turned to priests as one of the leaders of spiritual resistance and collected the signatures of his vocal brothers after petitions to the Soviet government demanding not to despise the faithful. He has told how the differences in character have been seen: one signs without hesitation, and the other with large beads of sweat spilling down his forehead. This shows that the same courage cannot be demanded of everyone.
And this day brings its challenges. Sadly, the same oppression of beliefs and freedom of expression. And today there are priests, true fighters, like Cardinal S. Tamkevičius. They choose the path of truth and speech. As a result, of course, he becomes a peak in stamina and receives the most attacks. Our bishops boldly criticize us for gender ideology and the Istanbul Convention. At the same time, there are those who struggle in other ways in the performance of their daily priestly duties, no matter how others appreciate it.
– You yourself have invited people to sign petitions against the Istanbul Convention and the legalization of a homogeneous association.
– I hardly saw the distribution of claims based on arguments that they did not do anything offensive, I was happy, I signed and shared. I was a little surprised that no one “hooked” me too much, like some of the other priests who spoke louder.
I think that the now predominant group of aggressively ideologically committed people in Lithuania to attack or disparage these people, who fought for the freedom of Lithuania during the occupation, would be a kind of controversy. That way, they would do more harm to themselves than to us. Maybe the team hasn’t been given that yet.
But when only one truth becomes correct and begins to dominate all areas of life, I do not rule out that we can still have it all. We will not fear public attack or humiliation. I have no doubt that we are prepared for this from previous experiences of resistance in our lives.
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