one clear opinion: i went to the coolest high school in the world.

"This new document puts more emphasis on the church’s moral teaching about sexuality. It says that although having a 'homosexual inclination' is not itself a sin, homosexual sex is a sin — as are premarital sex and adultery. The answer in all these situations is chastity."

so according to today's nytimes, apparently the US bishops are voting on a new document about ministering to gay catholics. i dunno. i'll snarkily say that this is a better summary than i expected from the times, because at least it's not "the catholic church says gay people are EVIL EVIL EVIL. for no reason." but i'm waiting. i don't know for what. things change slowly, but they do change - right?

i predict that the "gay Catholic leaders" quoted in this article are going to protest anything less than a 180 on moral teaching. that's not news as much as the times wants it to be news. time will tell if their protest is healthy or divisive - but again, the spirit leads people all kinds of places, and who can say which revelations are valid?

"A previous document, issued by a committee of bishops in 1997, was directed primarily at parents with gay children. But it proved controversial and was never approved by the bishops conference. "

i don't think that's true. as a rule, i'm suspicious of blurbs that quote a mysterious "previous document" as if the rest of us are too stupid to look it up. i don't know if always our children was controversial, but it's certainly not un-approved. perhaps there is another level of approval somewhere. we learned about it in high school, though, and i don't think i even realized at the time how concerned (in a good way) our teacher was about the gay students in her class. this is one of those things i didn't realize was cool until later, when i thought about how many catholic high school religion teachers would never bring this up...

i'd like the church to be a little clearer on loving gay people, with a little less emphasis on morality. but church leaders have a balancing act on this one, and i honestly don't know how i'd do it better. BAH. wait and pray...