No surprise here. The Guardian in the UK has an article about homosexual apologists attacking the new iPhone app to help people make a good confession.
I reviewed the iPhone here with follow up entries:
In my review I pointed out the inclusion of homosexual activity in the examination of conscience. NB: activity not orientation.
Let’s have a look with my usual emphases and comments protocol.
Gay rights groups attack iPhone confession app for Roman Catholics
Group claims app fosters ‘anti-gay spiritual abuse’ as it shoots up list of popular downloads
Jamie Doward and Gabriel Stargardter
The Catholic church has approved [First line of the article, factual error. The “Catholic Church” did not approve this app. One bishop in the USA gave the app an imprimatur. An imprimatur does not mean that the “Catholic Church” approves of the content. It means that nothing in the app is contrary to Catholic doctrine.] an iPhone app that helps guide worshippers through confession.
The launch of an iPhone app that guides Catholics through confession has prompted a furious response from gay rights groups, who accuse it [? Do they mean the creators of the app?] of “promoting anti-gay spiritual abuse“. [A rather slimy choice of words. They are trying to link language associated with the subject of clerical abuse of minors to this app. Ironic, no? Most clerical abuse of minors, by large percentage, was same-sex abuse of minors. Furthermore, I believe the hijacking of the word “gay” is an act of spiritual abuse of happy virtuous people everywhere!]
“Confession: A Roman Catholic App”, which costs £1.19 from the Apple iTunes store, has shot to 26 in the download charts, behind Sims 3 and Resident Evil 4: Platinum.
The app allows “a personalised examination of conscience for each user”, and has already won the backing of senior members of the Catholic church. A spokesman for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales said it was a “useful tool to help people prepare for the sacrament of reconciliation”. [Is the spokesman a senior member of the Catholic church? Perhaps readers in the UK can help with this. Have any bishops there commented on this app?] Among the questions users are asked is: “Have I been guilty of any homosexual activity?” [NB: activity. Homosexual activity is a sin. It is deviant behavior, as is evident from man’s nature, from Scripture, and the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church which cannot err in matters of faith and morals.]
Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, a group that campaigns on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people, accused the app of “helping to create neurotic individuals who are ashamed of who they are“. [The app is focused on action, not on the orientation. Of course, the orientation itself is a departure from what is normal for a human being. But what is necessary to distinguish are the acts from the orientation. The app does not go beyond activity.]
“This is cyber spiritual abuse that promotes backward ideas in a modern package,” said Besen. [Ho hum.] “Gay Catholics don’t need to confess, [They do if they commit homosexual acts! Homosexual acts are intrinsically evil. They are mortal sins. Commit a mortal sin and die unrepentant and unconfessed and you will probably wind up for eternity in the state of separation from God which is called Hell. Sin = Death + Hell.] they need to come out of the closet and challenge anti-gay dogma. The false idea that being gay [This is either mendacious or the person saying this is a little thick. The app doesn’t say anything about homosexual orientation. The person who said this seems to think that people must express themselves genitally with a person of the same-sex if that is the orientation. I suspect this is a manifestation of the sexual obsession and enslavement that habitual and vicious deviant behavior can drag a person into over time.] is something to be ashamed of has destroyed too many lives. [Indeed? Repent, amend your life, friend, and go to confession to save your soul, no matter what the sins are.] This iPhone app is facilitating and furthering the harm.”
Gay rights groups have become concerned at the use of technology to target minorities. [For pity’s sake, that’s just silly. As if homosexual groups haven’t ever employed technology to target the Catholic Church.] Besen pointed to the Manhattan Declaration app, which was released last October on the back of a 5,000-word petition drawn up by several Christian groups, and opposed LGBT rights and gay marriage. A furore among liberal commentators prompted iTunes to pull the app from its store. [To the eternal shame of Apple.]
A spokesman for the Confession App’s creator declined to comment. However, the company has insisted it did not write the questions, which were posed by Catholic priests.
Shocked! I’m shocked! The Catholic Church says homosexuality is not normal and, GASP, homosexual sex is sinful! Imagine such a thing! Imagine an app designed to help with confession might mention deviant sex! Imagine!
I like this app more and more.
All compassion and charity is required towards our neighbor. If our neighbor has a homosexual orientation, our homosexual neighbor should have compassion and charity just like everyone else. It is never charitable or compassionate to say intrinsically sinful acts are good or indifferent. They are evils which can result in the spiritual death of our neighbor whom we are called by the Lord Himself to love with the love He modeled on the Cross: charity – the love that looks to the good of the other. It is a spiritual work of mercy to instruct the ignorant and to admonish the sinner. We do so with compassion and charity. Remembering that we, too, are ignorant sinners in many ways, we do so with humility. We should not be indifferent to the spiritual peril of our neighbors. It may or may not be our place in our relationships to “admonish” directly or with strength. But in our actions and words we can admonish in ways suited to our positions and places.
Meanwhile, may I suggest to the readership that, if you have an iPhone, even if you don’t need or want to use it, you should immediately go buy this app?
I am not getting a percentage of the sale for the app, btw.
St. Valentine, priest, was martyred in 269 at Rome near the Milvian Bridge on the Via Flaminia. He is considered a patron of bee keepers, engaged couples and epileptics. In pictures or statues he can identified with the symbols of birds and roses.
Ecumenical dialogue has been much on my mind these days. I often think about ecumenism, since I myself am a convert. There is a lot of “false ecumenism” out there.
No surprise here. 
