Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
So it's okay for a Catholic bishop to hold traditional Catholic beliefs so long as he keeps his mouth shut? It's worth pointing out that the media turned to Henry again and again for comment whenever these social issues came up. Pretty sure they aren't calling up local imams for comment whenever sex education or LGBTQ bathrooms come up.
It's sad how few Canadians today really believe in pluralism.
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I'd take it one step further. His positions on the HPV vaccination and LGBT school club issues have been consistent, logical and warranted from the Diocese's angle.
On the HPV issue:
People tend to forget or ignore that parents did not need Diocese's approval to vaccinate their daughters at all. Everyone knew that - parents, children, media, doctors and teachers. Diocese has zero administrative control over Catholic Board of Education; none. This was entirely a clash of conflicting beliefs in what's right and what's wrong. Catholic doctrine does not allow for pre-marital sex. The fact that many Catholic kids do it anyway is irrelevant to the dilemma; in the eyes of the Church, they shouldn't. So, issuing a spiritual approval of the vaccination protecting kids having sex from HPV would have been a public acknowledgement of the doctrine impotency, or a moral conundrum for the Diocese. So, Bishop Henry had to stay with the doctrine, as he was installed to do.
On the issue of LGBT school clubs:
Again, some people are quick to narrow this conflict to homophobia and bigotry, because it allows them to resort to labeling without looking into the issue at depth. But it is much more to do with the right of Provincial Government to impose secular principles onto the constitutionally established separate education system. Minister Eggen, without any discussion or consultation with multiple boards of education issued an order that required "...the support for the establishment of gay-straight alliances (GSAs) and queer-straight alliances (QSAs)
in all schools. This was arguably against the recent 2015 Supreme Court decision about the rights of Catholic parents that have children enrolled in Catholic educational institutions and the rights of these institutions to frame education within the tenets of their faith. Bishop Henry called
Eggen's approach totalitarian and, as a Catholic leader, he had a point - this was a complicated constitutional rights issue that should have been discussed at more length and involving legal experts.