I saw this recently shared on insta and it's not available in English but only through Google translate.
A 24-year-old invalid wants to be a Catholic priest, but the Catholic Church refuses and refers to him as sick. He claims that he is not sick but that it's his condition.
A 24-year-old invalid wants to be a Catholic priest, but the Catholic Church refuses and refers to him as sick. He claims that he is not sick but that it's his condition.
Quote:Denis (24) is in a wheelchair and wants to be a priest. But they won't let him. 'That's why I took a letter to the Pope...'
He has had cerebral palsy since birth, is dependent on a wheelchair and other people's help, is blind in one eye and partially sighted in the other, and has been told three times within the Church, at different levels, that he cannot become a priest.
That's why I wrote a letter to the Pope, traveled to Rome where I participated in his audience, and handed the letter to him! I received the Holy See's response about twenty days later, and it did not say that I could not become a priest, which encouraged me to continue fighting for my life's calling.
So far, he and his parents have approached the Church on several levels, but the answer has always been the same: Denis cannot be a priest. Only healthy people can be ordained, they were told. And Denis answers them like this:
- I am not sick, this is my condition. I cannot hold the chalice and distribute the host, but someone can help me with that at mass. I am sorry that our Church does not look deeper into me, into my heart, instead of only seeing what is on the outside - says Denis.
source
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"