Skip to main content

The Pope, the Press and "Gays"




Renouncing a right to "judge" others is something that goes back to Jesus. It does not mean a refusal to recognize the moral character of others' behavior. One can form a moral judgment that what someone else is doing is wrong (Jesus obviously does not forbid that) without having or showing malice toward them. Francis’ statement that homosexuals should not be marginalized is old news- in keeping with the Holy See's approach to the subject, as 1992 Vatican document On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons. His statement that same-sex attraction "is not the problem," is also nothing new. "The problem," is going beyond merely having a sinful tendency--a temptation to which one is subject. Obviously, temptations are a problem, but if we resist temptation we do not sin. "The problem," on this understanding, is giving in to the temptation and sinning or--worse--building an ideology around the sin and trying to advocate the sin, thus calling evil good and good evil. The Pope’s statement that "they're our brothers" is also not innovative. Christians, like everyone, have fought to resist acting on every sort of temptation. Same-sex attraction is just one temptation among numerous others, and the fact that a person suffers from this temptation no more denies him of the status of brotherhood in Christ than does any other. But here also is what is not new: the media are painting a fabricated picture by contrasting the "good" Francis to the “bad" Benedict. None of Francis's remarks are antagonistic to the approach Benedict took during his papacy. Benedict himself (as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) was the signer of the previously mentioned letter on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, as well as the follow-up document on non-discrimination regarding homosexual persons.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News

DANCING WITH MR. D:   This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News : 'via Blog this'

Tolkein, Paul VI, and the Devil

In 1941, Tolkien wrote a masterful letter to his son Michael, dealing with marriage and the realities of human sexuality. The letter reflects Tolkien's Christian worldview and his deep love for his sons, and at the same time, also acknowledges the powerful dangers inherent in unbridled sexuality. From the letter: This is a fallen world…. the dislocation of sex-instinct is one of the chief symptoms of the Fall. The world has been 'going to the bad' all down the ages. The various social forms shift, and each new mode has its special dangers: but the 'hard spirit of concupiscence' has walked down every street, and sat leering in every house, since Adam fell….The devil is endlessly ingenious, and sex is his favorite subject. He is as good every bit at catching you through generous romantic or tender motives, as through baser or more animal ones.  Tolkien advised his young son that the sexual fantasies of the 20th century were demonic lies, intended to ensnare u...

Are We in a War?

Power Line POSTED ON   NOVEMBER 22, 2020   BY   JOHN HINDERAKER  IN  DEMOCRATS ,  LIBERALS ,  SOCIALISM FIGHTING WORDS, BY DAVID HOROWITZ Our friend David Horowitz wrote this essay, which he titled “Fighting Words.” It is a call for freedom-loving Americans to fight back against the totalitarian Left. By now it should be obvious – even to conservatives – that we are in a war. It is a conflict that began nearly fifty years ago when the street revolutionaries of the Sixties joined the Democrat Party. Their immediate goal was to help the Communist enemy win the war in Vietnam, but they stayed to expand their influence in the Democrat Party and create the radical force that confronts us today. The war that today’s Democrats are engaged in reflects the values and methods of those radicals. It is a war against us – against individual freedom, against America’s constitutional order, and against the capitalist engine of our prosperity. Democrat radi...

On the Spirit of the Liturgy

Defending the papacy of Benedict XVI vs . the New York Times (!), Randall B. Smith has written : Like his predecessor before him, Benedict effectively carried on the authentic reforms of the Second Vatican Council, as opposed to the false “reforms” that so often led the Church astray in the post-conciliar period.  A cardinal archbishop told an audience recently that the liturgy was so abused in the early seventies when he was in seminary that the faithful seminarians would say about the ersatz masses being done by their elders: “Everything in them changes but the bread and wine.” Benedict, by contrast, did a great deal to help realize the original intentions of the liturgical reformers.  Given that the  lex orandi  (the law of praying) is intimately intertwined with the  lex credendi  (the law of believing)—which is another way of saying that what we pray is what we believe—reforming the liturgy has always been an absolutely essential way of helping...

"The Spirit of Vatican II"

My advice to one confronted with doubt sown by those who make reference to “correct interpretations of Vatican II” is to reflect closely upon the words of John Paul II: With the Council, the Church first had an experience of faith, as she abandoned herself to God without reserve, as one who trusts and is certain of being loved. It is precisely this act of abandonment to God which stands out from an objective examination of the Acts. Anyone who wished to approach the Council without considering this interpretive key would be unable to penetrate its depths. Only from a faith perspective can we see the Council event as a gift whose still hidden wealth we must know how to mine . In short, it is this abandonment, this interpretive faith perspective that is woefully lacking in many who would offer to explain what the Council taught in “the spirit of Vatican II.” Watch here  to see what abandonment looks like!

Libido Redux Explained

When I read for the first time Pope Paul VI's 1972 “Smoke of Satan” homily, I was intrigued by his reference to the human sex drive as one way Satan can seek the ruin of souls. The sexual decadence of popular culture—in music, television, and videos—is only the most obvious manifestation. But let us consider from the standpoint of Catholic moral teaching the evils of fornication, adultery, cohabitation, divorce, bearing children outside wedlock and homosexual sex. Controlling these sins, living chastely, is a basic Catholic moral value. But I blog on these because, even as the social and economic results from these practices becomes ever more obvious and serious, priests and laity seem determined to ignore talking of them. No parish today seems willing to admonish or rebuke someone because of sexual misconduct, this in spite of the reality that it is precisely these sins that are wreaking havoc throughout society. Just what are social consequences of uncontrolled libido? For...

Hello Again! (It's Not Over 'till Epiphany!)

Well I have not writtenf or some time, as I have been gettting reacquainted with the throes of ending the semester before the Christmas break, which I am now enjoying.... Lotsa stuff happening, but I found this piece capable of bringing the joy of CHRISTmas to souls.

What [the] Hell???

Dr. Kreeft has dashed off a worthy piece for Christians to muse: Hell PETER KREEFT The hell with hell!  says the modern mind. Of all Christianity's teachings, hell is certainly the least popular.  Non-Christians ignore it, weak Christians excuse it, and anti-Christians attack it. Some, like Bertrand Russell in his famous essay "Why I Am Not a Christian", argue that because Jesus clearly taught it, he was not a good moral teacher.  (Russell's essay, by the way, makes fine devotional reading for a Christian.  My college roommate was about to lose his faith until he read it; he said to me, "If those are the arguments against Christianity, I'd better be a Christian.") Why do we believe there's a hell? Not because we're vindictive.  "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." Why, then? Simply because we've been told, by Christ himself.  There's a popular fallacy that Jesus spoke only comforting words and that...

VATICAN III?

New York Times best-selling author and Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist  Regina Brett has issued a call for Vatican III . She says the Church needs true renewal. I agree that She does need true renewal, the best explanation of which is set down in Vatican II's call to personal holiness, yet to be acknowledged by a majority of Catholics in the U.S. at present (hence the Year of Faith!). Brett writes: " Instead of renewing our faith by returning to the fundamentals of church teachings, why not open our minds to a new church? It's been 50 years since Vatican II renewed the church and helped it face the modern world. The world has only gotten more modern. The Catholic Church hasn't." Just how will this produce true renewal? The New Evangelization is about true renewal, and the first step toward personal holiness. She also recites the familiar " God speaks, not only through popes, bishops and priests, but through ordinary p...

The Devil's favorite color? Gray.

The Gates of Hell Temporarily Prevail Lisa Correnti and Wendy Wright Editor’s Note: The Bill and Melinda Gates’ Family Planning Summit in the UK concluded yesterday, with staggering high-dollar commitments from nations and agencies all over the globe. C-FAM Director of Operations Lisa Correnti and activist Wendy Wright, working with pro-life watchdog Turtle Bay and Beyond , were present, keeping a sort of mini-journal of events. Here are some of their chilling reports: Today on World Population Day, government officials and charitable foundations have convened at the UK Family Planning summit co-sponsored by the Gates Foundation and DFID - the UK’s development aid program, to seek financial commitments to further implement population control efforts in developing countries. Government official after government official and spokespersons for billionaires foundations are all reading from the same script; family planning programs are necessary to save lives of poor wome...