{"id":356,"date":"2013-07-30T17:36:57","date_gmt":"2013-07-30T17:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/?p=356"},"modified":"2013-07-30T17:36:57","modified_gmt":"2013-07-30T17:36:57","slug":"safe-in-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2013\/07\/safe-in-the-church.html","title":{"rendered":"Safe in the church??"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking of &#8220;safe places&#8221;&#8230;Would you put the fish bowl down on the floor in front of a cat? Would you put a martini in front of an alcoholic?<\/p>\n<p>The Catholic Church has been plagued with scandals of sexual abuse. Young boys have been sexually abused by priests for years. It has nearly torn the Church in two. \u00a0It has left the young men confused, scared and living in the shadows &#8211; for years. They were horrible crimes against these young people by the ones they were taught to trust. The priests were in a place to teac impressionable minds about the ways and nature of God. Their trust was\u00a0betrayed.<\/p>\n<p>And now the Pope says he is willing for those with homosexual tendencies to in serve in the priesthood. Does that make sense to you?<\/p>\n<p>He says he isn&#8217;t the &#8220;one to judge&#8221;.\u00a0He is in a place of authority &#8211; he should be, maybe not judging, but discerning what is wise. The whole of catholicism looks to him to have good judgment. \u00a0Putting homosexual-oriented men in the priesthood seems very foolish and dangerous to me.<\/p>\n<p>I am not saying that every homosexual priest is a predetor of young men. But it is putting temtpation in the way.<\/p>\n<p>And I understand he is saying men with homosexual tendencies but are celebate and living in purity, should be able to serve. Putting them in the priesthod would seem to me to be very difficult on the men. Like having an alcoholic tend bar. Why do it? Why not allow priests to marry women? (I know the ones with homosexual tendecnies would not want to marry a woman so it doesn&#8217;t solve that issue.)<\/p>\n<p>This will have to be handled with great care and wisdom &#8211; strict parameters put in place. Something the Catholic Church in recent history has not done well.<\/p>\n<p>I am not being critical of the Church &#8211; far from it. But this seems very foolish. Has the agressive homosexual agenda reached into the Vatican? I pray not. Are we letting our culture define our values?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking of &#8220;safe places&#8221;&#8230;Would you put the fish bowl down on the floor in front of a cat? Would you put a martini in front of an alcoholic? The Catholic Church has been plagued with scandals of sexual abuse. Young boys have been sexually abused by priests for years. It has nearly torn the Church&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":466,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,20,34,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-current-issues-in-the-news","category-homosexuality","category-personal-thoughts"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Safe in the church?? - Safe Place with Ruth Graham<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2013\/07\/safe-in-the-church.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Safe in the church?? - Safe Place with Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Speaking of &#8220;safe places&#8221;&#8230;Would you put the fish bowl down on the floor in front of a cat? Would you put a martini in front of an alcoholic? The Catholic Church has been plagued with scandals of sexual abuse. Young boys have been sexually abused by priests for years. It has nearly torn the Church&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2013\/07\/safe-in-the-church.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Safe Place with Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-07-30T17:36:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Safe in the church?? - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2013\/07\/safe-in-the-church.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Safe in the church?? - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","og_description":"Speaking of &#8220;safe places&#8221;&#8230;Would you put the fish bowl down on the floor in front of a cat? 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It has nearly torn the Church&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2013\/07\/safe-in-the-church.html","og_site_name":"Safe Place with Ruth Graham","article_published_time":"2013-07-30T17:36:57+00:00","author":"Ruth Graham","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2013\/07\/safe-in-the-church.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2013\/07\/safe-in-the-church.html","name":"Safe in the church?? - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-07-30T17:36:57+00:00","dateModified":"2013-07-30T17:36:57+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#\/schema\/person\/76d20e190c3b83823997a9f422b86975"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2013\/07\/safe-in-the-church.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2013\/07\/safe-in-the-church.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2013\/07\/safe-in-the-church.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Safe in the church??"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/","name":"Safe Place with Ruth Graham","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Ruth Graham","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#\/schema\/person\/76d20e190c3b83823997a9f422b86975","name":"Ruth Graham","description":"\u201cTransparent\u201d is the word most people use to describe Ruth Graham. No stranger to heartache, she seeks to provide a Biblical perspective to her journey of faith. She is warm and talks openly about her own need for a safe place as she journeyed through her husband\u2019s infidelities, her subsequent depression, her divorces, her teenage daughter\u2019s two unplanned pregnancies, another daughter\u2019s bulimia, her son\u2019s battle with drugs, grandson's special needs and returning to school at age 40. Although born into the \"famous\" Graham family Ruth did not feel she had a safe place to unburden the secrets of her life. She felt she had to project and image and wear a mask that she \"had it all together\". She had to meet others' expectations of her. It was not until a mid-life crisis did that she fully discover the unconditional love and grace of God. Her life's passion is to connect people to that same grace and love she found, no matter who they are or what sin. Ruth is an experienced conference speaker and Bible teacher. She has appeared on a variety of radio and television shows including: Good Morning, America, The Hour of Power, Focus on the Family, Moody Broadcasting, Fox &amp; Friends, CBN, Life Today and CNN. She has worked in publishing for over 14 years and is the founder of the Ruth Graham &amp; Friends Ministry. Ruth has three grown children and nine grandchildren. She lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Her life Bible verse is John 1:16.","sameAs":["http:\/\/ruthgrahamministries.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/author\/rgraham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/466"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":358,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions\/358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}