Here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nThe event was organized by Minnesotans United for All Families (MUAF), a homosexual activist group campaigning to defeat the amendment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew that I was gay when I was ordained,\u201d Fr. Pierson stated, after saying that he was \u201coffended to learn\u201d from a 2005 Vatican document that the Church has declared that men with deep-seated homosexual tendencies cannot be priests.<\/p>\n
In defending homosexual marriage, Fr. Pierson quoted Catechism paragraph 2358: \u201cevery evidence of unjust discrimination [against people with homosexual tendencies]\u2026 should be avoided.\u201d However, Fr. Pierson omitted to read the immediately previous passage that declares homosexual acts to be \u201cacts of grave depravity\u201d and \u201cunder no circumstances can they be approved.\u201d<\/p>\n
To defend voting \u201cno\u201d on the amendment, Fr. Pierson also argued for \u201cfreedom of conscience.\u201d He quoted the Catechism\u2019s doctrine that \u201ca Catholic person must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience.\u201d However, Fr. Pierson omitted the rest of the quotation, which states that the conscience must be informed by a higher authority.<\/p>\n
Fr. Pierson\u2019s talk occurred not long after St. John\u2019s sponsored a retreat for \u2018LGBT folks\u2019 at the abbey. According to the Eponymous Flower blog, the retreat, in which students and monks were encouraged to \u201ctouch each other,\u201d was to be conducted by Bob Pileggi, a pro-gay guru who allegedly teaches while he is naked and advocates mutual undressing as part of \u201cerotic spirituality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fr. Pierson apparently cancelled the retreat due to complaints and information about it has been removed from the abbey\u2019s Guesthouse website. However, Behind the Pine Curtain, a blog dedicated to exposing \u201csexual abuse and misconduct\u201d at St. John\u2019s, has retained a screenshot of the guesthouse website, containing the retreat details.<\/p>\n
More information on Pileggi\u2019s retreats\u2014including statements such as: \u201cmassage portions of the weekend will be clothing optional\u201d\u2014can also still be found at Pileggi\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
The monastery has been subject to numerous sexual abuse allegations.<\/p>\n
According to America magazine, Fr. Pierson was listed as a priest in good standing in the 2011 Official Catholic Directory.<\/p>\n
LifeSiteNews made numerous attempts by phone over several days to contact Fr. Pierson\u2019s abbey, but St. John\u2019s failed to reply.<\/p>\n
Contact Information:<\/p>\n
Congregation for Religious
\nHis Excellency Archbishop Secretary +39. 06. 69884584
\nFAX +39. 06. 69884526
\ncivcsva.segr@ccscrlife.va<\/p>\n
St. John\u2019s Abbey
\n(Abbot) Rt. Rev. John Klassen
\nFAX 320-363-3082<\/p>\n
Br. Aelred Senna OSB, Abbey spokesman
\nPHONE 320-266-8119
\nasenna@csbsju.edu<\/p>\n
Minnesota Monastery gone wild: priest urges vote against marriage amendment
\nAngela O’Brien
\nLifeSiteNews.com
\nJun 21, 2012<\/p>\n
View Entire Article and Comments… Here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MINNESOTA, June 21, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) \u2014Collegeville, Minnesota\u2019s notoriously liberal Benedictine community of St. John\u2019s Abbey is in the spotlight once again as one of its monks urges Catholics to oppose the cause for true marriage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[219,209],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aelred-senna","category-bob-pierson","wp-image-borders"],"views":1574,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5543"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8147,"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5543\/revisions\/8147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.behindthepinecurtain.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}