Bishop Olmsted continues to straighten out the Phoenix Diocese

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted privately has ordered nine Catholic priests to withdraw their support from an interfaith statement supporting gay rights.

Two of the nine priests who signed the Phoenix Declaration in January 2003 confirmed they received "personal and confidential" letters from the bishop last week. In the letter, Olmsted tells the priests and one religious brother to remove their names "under obedience" to him. No consequences are spelled out for those who decline.
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Olmsted's predecessors, Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien and Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan, both knew of the declaration but declined to take action against the priests who signed it. O'Brien led a bishops committee in 1997 that drafted "Always Our Children," which before it was watered down by the Vatican was seen as the church's most progressive stance toward homosexuals.

Ah yes, "Always out Children" was 'watered' down by the Vatican - meaning the deficiencies in the document were removed or fixed...You can read what Bishop Bruskewitz thought of the document here and he was not the only one.

The Phoenix Declaration calls for "full acceptance" of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered individuals in churches and in civic life. It calls for an end to "religious and civil discrimination" against those individuals.

Tom Donovan, 66, of Phoenix, who attends services at the Franciscan Renewal Center, said the bishop's action "creates an issue of conscience for those few priests who signed on, some of the finest clergy I know." Donovan added that concerns were raised among church liberals by the bishop's activism on the abortion issue, his reinstatement of the Latin Mass and other issues.

ALARM BELLS went off among the church liberals because of the Bishop's stand on abortion and his giving permission for a LATIN Mass...Sounds like too many buttons to me...

Story here...