Catholic cemetery won't identify gay man's deceased partner as "husband" on plaque

Here is a story lost amid the "gay marriage" debate that I'm surprised we don't hear more about. A Rhode Island man's gay partner died, and he wants to list his partner's name along with "husband" on the mausoleum plaque at St. Ann's Cemetery. The Catholic cemetery refused the request and now the man is claiming discrimination.

As the current generation of gay men and women who "marry" get older, I suspect this is a story we will hear much more about. It falls in line with recent stories where the church is being challenged by laws to go against its teachings. It happened a little over three years ago in California with Catholic Charities and contraception and is happening again now with a Massachusetts law that tried to force Catholic Charities of Boston to go against church teaching and allow gay couples to adopt from them.

Colorado bishops and immigration

We've been getting a few emotional phone calls from Herald readers who are taking issue with the Colorado bishops' stance on immigration reform (read story here). This is an issue we are in the middle of exploring in the Herald so we are quite interested by what you have to say.

Do you agree or disagree with the Colorado bishops' stance on immigration reform?

(Note: Letters to the editor on this issue would be much appreciated!)

Lech Walesa in Denver

This is Jim Myers, staff writer for The Colorado Catholic Herald.

I'm in Denver today (Friday) to cover Lech Walesa's visit and speech at Regis University. For those reading this post who are not familiar with Walesa, he was the man responsible for the Solidarity movement in Gdansk, Poland, that eventually spread to the rest of the country and toppled the communist regime in place. He won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, was elected president of Poland in 1990 and continues to be a shining beacon of freedom through the Lech Walesa Institute.

Walesa will be speaking on topics relating to democracy, free markets and the current state of world affairs. He held a press conference this morning, but I was lucky enough to secure a personal interview with the former president, the contents of which will appear in our next issue. He spoke through a translator.

He is a very engaging man who speaks in colorful tones, and one who is deeply grounded in his Catholic faith. He wore a lapel pin bearing a depiction of what I think was Our Lady of Czestochowa. Here's a snippet of what he said:

Regarding whether Poland's growing economy will shake the strong Catholic roots in that country: "The wiser a man gets, the sooner he realizes happiness does not mean sausage and bread."

On the difficulties of forming a free market society after 50 years of communist rule, using a metaphor to illustrate how easy it is for communists to come to power (this is somewhat of a paraphrase until I check my recorder): "It's like getting fish soup out of an aquarium full of fish. You have all the ingredients there and just have to add heat to it. Imagine the opposite, trying to fill the aquarium with fish out of fish soup...We now have started to get some fish in that aquarium."

One more? How about Pope John Paul II's influence on Poland and his importance in self-determination? "No one predicted we would be given the gift of John Paul II. The very event of the election of Pope John Paul II awoke the nation...(The Soviets) tried to kill the pope. He turned out to be immortal."

He had many other interesting things to say, including how Mikhail Gorbachev's biggest success is the fact that he failed the Soviets so miserably. Keep an eye out for two stories, one focusing on geopolitics and the other on Walesa, Pope John Paul II

Role of Conscience

On Feb. 28, 55 Catholic Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives released what they called a "historic" statement of principles.

I am not sure what is historic about it, as the essential point the statement made — that they can pick and choose what church teachings to believe based on their consciences — is something that politicians of both major parties have done and continue to do.

This statement is a disappointing attempt to try to have a political party dictate the faith on their terms, not the Catholic Church’s. The Catholic Church is neither Democrat nor Republican, and either party’s attempt to dictate to the church what should be believed is wrong.

After several ambiguous statements about abortion, helping the poor and disadvantaged, and providing education and health care to all, the statement says: "We seek the church’s guidance and assistance but believe also in the primacy of conscience." Two important followup questions need to be asked to that: How is that conscience formed? Is it formed by church teachings and divine law or by the world? The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that "when (a man) listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking."

Fifty-five Catholic Democrats had a chance to make a powerful, gutsy statement of faith and allegiance to the magisterium, but instead they show a lack of faith in the church they say they are proudly a part of. In fact, it is just more of the same old, same old.

Hey Now...

Welcome to the official blog of The Colorado Catholic Herald Online (or CCH Online as we'll refer to most of the time from now on). This is a forum of opinion on primarily Catholic -- and ocassionally other issues -- moderated by myself, editor Bill Howard. Staff writer Jim Myers will be a regular contributor as well.

One of the main reasons for this forum is to have thought-provoking and hopefully entertaining discussions, some of which may influence the editorial topics and general content of the Herald. Another reason is to help connect Catholics from around the Diocese of Colorado Springs (and the world, really) to grow closer to Christ. And we want to have fun and let you get to know your Herald staff better.

Now for the ground rules:
1. Once comments are submitted, they are sent to me first so that I can screen out innapropriate content like foul language and personal attacks. Those comments that are posted will be the writer's original words, although I reserve the right to edit for grammar, punctuation or other stylistic reasons. I hope to keep this as open a forum as possible, but due to libel issues, I reserve the right to not publish a comment.

2. E-mail addresses and IDs should verifiable. A poster will be banned if they are caught using a bogus e-mail address.

We will give this format a shot for a while and see how it works out. If we play by the rules, everything should be fine, or as they say, "aight."

Thank you for reading and stay tuned for the first topic later today!