Priests talk on problems of homosexuals

Catholic priests are becoming increasingly involved in promoting an appreciation of the problems of the homosexual.
The priests have been.making themselves heard through "Reach", an ecumenical organisation concerned with deepening the Christian under standing of homosexuality. About 20 priests are members of the organisation.
The director of "Reach" is the Rev Dennis Nadin, an Anglican clergyman and a selfdeclared homosexual.
Fr Andrew Beer, assistant chaplain at Sussex University and secretary of the local "Reach" committee, has scheduled a meeting of the organisation for June 28. Already there have been five "Reach" meetings this year.
Fr Gerard Hughes, Si, Lecturer in Ethics at Heythrop College, will talk on a natural law approach to the subject; and the Rev Michael
Wadsworth, an Anglican who is Religious Studies Lecturer at Sussex University, will discuss the scriptural appraoch.
Fr Beer said this week that all were welcome to attend the meeting and join in the discussion.
There has been growing interest in the problems of the homosexual among the Chris tian Churches in recent years. Quakers and Unitarians have also carried out studies of the subject and a Unitarian minister runs a discussion group made up of both homosexual and normal people.
Mr Nadin said the Anglican Church had taken by far the greatest interest in the subject and Anglican bishops have chaired "Reach" conferences.
The Church of England set up a working party under Dr John Yates, Bishop of Whitby, last September, to study the subject and Church response to it.
As reported in the Catholic Herald on January 3, an unof ficial Catholic homosexual group exists and has been addressed by a number of priests. Mr Nadin said "Reach" was primarily an educational organisation, set up two years ago "to promote, within the Christian Churches, a deeper understanding of homosexuality and the problems faced by men and women who are Christian by conviction and homosexual by nature."
Fr Bob Eccles, chaplain to Leicester University, was one of four Catholic priests among 30 clergy who attended a "Reach" conference at the university's Anglican chaplaincy last month.
Freedom limited
Communist and Catholic newspapers are equally limited in their Press freedom, according to the Hon Vere Harmsworth, chairman of Associated. Newspapers, in a letter to The Sunday Telegraph.
He said: "As the Roman Catholic Press considers itself free within the limitations of accepted dogma, so does the Communist Press consider itself free within the limitations of accepted dogma."
In the Middle Ages the language of politics was that of Christian theology and people were massacred to save their souls, he said. In Communist States the language was Marxian dialectics.
"Press freedom in any society is limited by the strength of the beliefs of that 'society. The stronger the beliefs the narrower the belt of freedom." he added.
Just as with the Peking People's Daily today, if the Osservatore Romano had existed in the Middle Ages, it would consider it had "all the freedom required within the limitations of the true Faith. Any freedom beyond that would be thought licence."
Mr Harmsworth was replying to Peregrine Worsthorne's report in The Sunday Telegraph of their visit to China as part of Li Press team. Mr Worsthorne complained that Mr Harmsworth did not criticise the lack of Press freedom in China..