Report from the Canadian press about Fr Gionet including quotes from his now infamous homily which was given in several locations around his parish coinciding with the local gay parade. The major of the town, who also sits on the parish council is gay.
"After 51 years as a priest, Gionet has been barred from saying mass and administering the sacraments in the Bathurst diocese.
Gionet said Wednesday that people who are gay are a threat to the Catholic Church.
"We have to try to fight [homosexuality], destroy it, or do our best to invite people to change their life," Gionet told CBC.
"And that's something which is from my duty as a priest. I have to teach the truth to the people. I have to tell them how they should live to be with the church because if you're gay you're not with the church."
Representatives from Gionet's diocese said they have heard mixed reactions from the priest's congregation, with some supporting his message but others uncomfortable with his sermons."
Of course there are mixed reactions, no one wants to hear their activities are sinful, but that is the duty of the priest! To call the sinners home to repentance and to preach the truth in season and out of season. God has blessed his faithfulness with a larger audience than he ever hoped to reach in his quiet parish. Stories about the priest, who is a modern day St Jean Marie VIanney, continue to multiply.
I was interviewed by Rene Landry of Radio Canada about Fr Gionet and will post a link to the broadcast here.
Courageous Priest weighs in on the issue here quoting a letter written by Fr Gionet to the press explaining his homily but not backing down one iota.
“I said:‘Today,it is we Catholics who are destroying our Catholic Church. We need only look at the number of abortions among Catholics,look at the homosexuals,and ourselves.’ (That’s when I pointed at my chest –through that action I wanted to say,we the priests) and I continued saying:We are destroying our Church ourselves. And that’s when I said that those were the words expressed by Pope John Paul II. At that point,in the St-Léolin church only,I added: ‘We can add to that the practice of watching gay parades,we are encouraging this evil’ …What would you think of someone who seeing what was happening on (Sept.) 11,2001,the crumbling of the towers,had begun clapping? We must not encourage evil,whatever form it takes.”
Fr Gionet sees homosexuals with the compassionate eyes of Christ, he sees their grave sins, and invites them home to confess and live a life in the grace of God. We tend to forget that after Christ saved the woman caught in adultery from judgement and stoning, He told her "go and sin no more". Fr Gionet is like Christ, not wishing violence against gays but warning them that if they persist in mortal sin, they are condemning themselves to hell.
Such pure love is seldom understood by the world, but one would expect his bishop to understand.
Such pure love is seldom understood by the world, but one would expect his bishop to understand.
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