On why priests don't preach hard sayings...

Last Sunday I blogged about a sermon that was undoubtedly trying to be "pastoral", and thus avoided mentioning those disturbing, pesky bits of the faith about the need for actual repentance from mortal sin for salvation.

This week, there have been two rather awful stories about just why priests actually avoid preaching on these hard truths, from North America:

• in New Brunswick, Canada, Fr Donat Gionet was suspended without any discussion with his bishop for a sermon denouncing abortion and homosexuality following complaints by parishioners - a member of the parish council is apparently an openly practisng homosexual!;
• in West Texas, Fr Michael Rodriquez transferred for his public comments denouncing homosexual activity in the context of a local council political debate.

Would it happen here?  You betya.  We do after all, even in the Sydney Archdiocese of all places, still have "Acceptance" masses taking place every week explicitly catering for homosexual persons which you can pretty much guarantee are extremely "pastoral" indeed in their sermon pitches!

And, as in the US, any such attempt to preach the truth is likely to be dealt with far faster than any accusations that the priest concerned was actually practising any of the sins concerned...

Bishops and priests need to be prepared to be white martyrs for truth.