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Silverfoxesclub-digest In this issue:
-20/20 Program
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For those of you interested, here is the transcript from the 20/20 show yesterday night. This was done after a report in the Kansas City Star almost a year ago. Priests With AIDS Crisis Within Catholic Church Jan. 5 - Like other Roman Catholic priests, Father Roger has taken vows of poverty, obedience and celibacy to stay pure and focused on God. His parishioners trust Roger, who has known since grade school that he wanted to devote his life to the church. But he's afraid if they knew the truth about him he would lose that sacred trust. "My ministry will not be able to continue if people knew that I was HIV Positive," says Roger, who is gay and has broken his vows of celibacy. Father Roger is not the only HIV Positive priest. He estimates that over the course of his ministry, he has known 15 to 20 priests who have contracted HIV through homosexual relations. Many have died. "I've worked with priests who have died with AIDS," says Richard Sipe, a psychotherapist and former priest, who has spent the last 40 years researching and writing about the sexual habits of Catholic clergy. "I estimated that 750 priests had already died of AIDS," says Sipe, who has analyzed hundreds of cases of AIDS in the priesthood, and believes that "another 750 priests carry the HIV virus." The Church's Response No one knows precisely how many priests have the AIDS virus or have died from the disease. But a recent effort to find out was conducted by the Kansas City Star. Reporter Judy Thomas, who has collected priests' death certificates over the past few years, says, "We will be able to document that at least 300 priests have died of AIDS - and that is likely to be conservative." But Sister Maryanne Walsh, the spokeswoman for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the official voice of the church in the United States, says this represents only a small percentage of priests. "It concerns me terribly that anybody has AIDS," says Walsh. "And even more so it concerns me that 300 of our church leaders, of our priests, would have AIDS." But, she adds, "even if you doubled that number, you Even though AIDS can be contracted in a number of ways, experts including Sipes believe many priests contracted the disease through homosexual relations. In his new best-selling book, The Changing Face of the Priesthood, Father Donald Cozzens, a respected Catholic seminary president, says there is such a high percentage of gay priests in the church that he is concerned "the priesthood is or is becoming a gay profession." Sipe, too, estimates that between 25 percent and 45 percent of American priests are homosexual in orientation. Sister Walsh says not only would it be difficult to find evidence to support these estimates of gay men in the priesthood, but it is also irrelevant. "There's no real purpose in saying whether someone is homosexual or heterosexual," she says. "The issue is whether they can make a commitment." Indeed, the Catholic Church teaches that there is nothing sinful about having a gay orientation or homosexual desires - whether you're a priest or not. It's acting on those desires that the church considers unnatural and wrong. So when a gay priest has sex, he is not only violating his vows of celibacy, but the church's very strong moral teachings on homosexuality as well. Preparing for Celibacy Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, an outspoken liberal Catholic leader in Detroit, believes most priests are maintaining their vows of celibacy. But he says many of those men are gay. Gumbleton also believes that until recently, Catholic Seminarians failed to teach priests how to integrate their sexuality and didn't adequately prepare them for a lifetime of celibacy. But the church has made dramatic changes in the last decade in the way it addresses sexual issues in seminary. Instead of denying or repressing sexual desire, seminaries now use progressive psychology to help men deal openly with the once taboo topics of sexual attraction as well as homosexuality. Seminarians, for example, learn how to channel their sexual energy, and that it is alright to embrace their homosexual orientation. They are taught that intimate, nonsexual friendships may help keep them from breaking their vow of celibacy. And even AIDS is now being seriously addressed by the church. "Jesus didn't ask how people got leporacy," says Father Dennis Rausch, a Miami priest who ministers to AIDS victims and also has full-blown AIDS himself. "We don't ask how they became infected. We are here to walk with them - not to judge them in their journey." Rausch still has his job and can talk openly about his disease in his diocese because he refuses to discuss how he contracted HIV. By his silence, he hopes to sever the connection between homosexuality and AIDS. "The Church has worked so hard to take away blame and guilt and shame and victimizing of anybody with this disease," he says. But not all priests with AIDS feel as comfortable speaking so openly. Often, their homosexuality and the violation of their vows of celibacy condemn them, keep them from telling the truth about their disease, and prevent them from finding the support they need.
"I'm comfortable with what I'm doing," says Roger, though he also says
the double life he lives sometimes troubles him. "If people wanted
perfect priests and ministers and rabbis, perfect clergy, we'd all have
to take off our collars and leave the sanctuary." Roger adds, "I'm a good
priest. My HIV is a result of a poor choice I made in my life... And that
doesn't mean that I have nothing left to give to the Church... God will
judge me - with all the strengths and the weaknesses that He has given me." An almost "humorous" footnote... Phelps has run for Mayor of Topeka on at least two occasions... on the DEMOCRATIC ticket. Is that ironic? He has of course been disbarred from practicing law many years ago, and there are few in the religious community 'round the country who allow themselves to be affiliated with him. On many occasions over the last few years, many clergy in the Topeka/Lawrence/Kansas City areas have banned together to speak out against this maniac, but of course it only seems to drive him on. He lives for the media attention. While Dr. Joyce Brothers was visiting Topeka she did a radio program, and was asked about this "man"... She literally laughed out loud. She then went on to explain that "the phychological community has known for many years that any person who cries out so loudly with such homophobic fervor is clearly little more than a painfully self-effacing, self-loathing closeted homosexual in the deepest form of denial. Duh. Mostly, locals just pity him. And they've learned that there is no use in trying to debate him on any level... Afterall, the man clearly needs to be medicated heavily and institutionalized... How much sense does it really make to try to reason with someone who is that deeply disturbed and so painfully insane??
Terry in KC
What's lightly amusing about Epiphany is that here in France, where just about anything is an excuse for a mass and a knees-up, nobody takes any notice of the twelfth day. Christmas decorations are taken down when somebody remembers they were put up - usually sometime in February... If you look around you'll see the only sign of Epiphany in baker's shops: the "Galette des Rois" which represents the offering the three Wise Men/Kings made to baby Jesus. It is a thin cake made of flaky pastry and filled with a kind or marzipan. It comes complete with a paper crown which is worn by the person who gets the porcelain figurine (more likely plastic nowadays) hidden in his/her portion of the cake. The figurine is called "la fhve" - the "broad bean" - because that's what it used to be in past times: a dried broad bean which is better hidden than the figurine, and therefore easier to break a tooth on if you bite down hard on it!
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Einstein, Picasso and George W. all arrive at the pearly gates. Due to a warp in the space-time continuum that only Einstein would understand, they died decades apart but arrived in heaven all at once. St. Peter says they've had problems with imposters, so he wants proof of who they are. Einstein explains the relationship of time and matter, theorizes on the construct of heaven itself and its relationship to the physical and spiritual worlds and begins to describe the origin of the universe and theology itself, when St. Peter interrupts and says, "OK, you've lost me. You must be Einstein. Go on in." Picasso asks for some paints and canvas, which magically appear, and he immediately creates a surreal perspective of time, space, good and evil, life and death. St. Peter is stunned and can barely whisper, "All right, you can come in." He turns to George W. Bush and says, "Well, I don't know how you all arrived at once, but they really were Einstein and Picasso, so we'll be done here if you can prove you're really President Bush." "Who were Einstein and Picasso?" says Bush.
"Come right in, George," replies St. Peter.
Hi all, I live in West Jordan, UT and I was wondering if there were any silver foxes on the list here that live in Salt Lake City or the surrounding area that might like to meet up with this fox hunter. I am 30 years old but look about 20. I am 6'2 with long brown hair and a medium build weighing 180 lbs. Very attractive, or so I'm told. I am looking for an older(45-60) gentleman to play and explore with, anything from mild to wild. I don't have very much experience but want to try it all. I am versatile but more submissive than anything else. I am totally drug and disease free. I am very serious, it's time to start living and quit fantasizing. Long term relationship possible with the right silver fox.
Thanks...
Ben Boxer goes tsk-tsk: Poor chap! The royals already have their ass in a sling over riding to the hounds in pursuit of little foxes. Now his arm, too! The Americans on the list have prolly not read about the current hubbub in the U.K. with animal-rightists protesting for the rights of dogs and foxes. Forty well-bred hunting pooches were dognapped last week by activists and sequestered in "loving, caring" homes (per the dognappers). No ransom notes have been forthcoming, and the foxes are said to be partying in the glen. Lovely thought. Perhaps there are some Great Silvers among them. Although most Americans don't know it unless they read "Town and Country" or "Fox and Hounds," there is a whole fox-hunting culture in this country, too, mostly on the Eastern Seaboard. It's very stylish and high society, of course. My mother used to live in the thick of it in Virginia, and one of my lawyer cousins successfully defended a millionairess among the fox hunters who was accused of murdering her Argentine live-in lover, a superb polo player. Polo and fox hunting go hand in hand, or hoof in hoof, as it were.
Headline:
Text: He was thrown to the ground when his horse took an "unexpected jump" during a ride with the Mey Nell Hunt in Derbyshire on Saturday, a St James's Palace spokeswoman said. Doctors decided the injury would heal itself and put his arm in a sling, which St James's Palace said the prince would wear for a few days. It is understood Charles's sons, Princes William and Harry, were riding with the Beaufort Hunt in Gloucestershire at the time. The BBC's Royal Correspondent Nicholas Witchell said Prince Charles would be accustomed to falling from horses both during fox hunting and while playing polo. In 1990 he broke his right arm quite badly in a fall during a polo match. ------------------------------ End of silverfoxesclub-digest V1 #100
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Attached is a composite picture of Prince
Charles before the fall, plus the Silverfoxes
Clubhouse mascot, Studly, our virtual silver fox,
lapping up a pint of lager to celebrate the
dognapping, plus arguably the most famous
hunting pack in the world, the dogs of the Duke
of Cheverny at his chateau in the glorious Loire
Valley of France, where a couple of our
members live in same-sex marital bliss. I
wouldn't dare tell Studly, but it was once my
privilege to visit Cheverny with my own dogs
who loved the kennels and grounds a lot better
than our apartment in Paris!