On the Gender Identity Phenomenon

“When will the Catholic Church come into the twenty-first century?” is a sentiment often expressed in the media these days, suggestive of a set of issues that are known to Christians: same-sex “marriage,” contraception, and divorce (to name only a few). Because the teachings of the Church on these subjects are at odds with the increasingly secular culture, non-Catholics—and even many Catholics—are left frustrated, even angry as to why the Church doesn’t finally come to the same conclusions as does the secular worldview.

Historically, since the Enlightenment western secular culture has presumed (erroneously) that we are progressing slowly toward a perfected humanity. They believe that, given enough time, willpower, money, technological advancements, and scientific breakthroughs, it is believed that we will be able to dig our way out of our brutal past pockmarked by wars, poverty, disease, and social injustice to arrive at a just society.

Another presumption has to do with modernity’s understanding of secular laws. The idea that stature laws are dictated by natural law (which had been the standard belief for centuries) is mostly dismissed today. Natural law is the truth that an intelligible and consistent order exists independently of human opinion or construction, and that this order is a source of moral restriction and command for human beings. Since the 1960s, the dependence of secular law on natural law has increasingly been replaced by the idea that there is no independent, objective moral order; in other words, moral and immoral are categories that are subjectively and culturally constructed.

In sum, a secular worldview believes that the progress of the human person over the centuries has led to changing cultural norms that must become codified in statute law. As cultural norms change, so, too, our laws do and must change. To cite the most media-obsessed example, it is argued that our society has progressed over the centuries to come to understand that relationships between people of the same gender are morally acceptable, and therefore our laws should be changed to allow homosexual marriage.

In the fifth century the Church addressed similar claims concerning the perfectibility of man. Sts. Augustine and Jerome fought a theological battle with Pelagianism. Pelagians rejected the notion of the sinfulness of humanity, embracing the view that we have an unconstrained free will. Because they rejected the idea of original sin (as would the Enlightenment philosopes), the Pelagians concluded that one could arrive at a perfected state of sinlessness. This position was ultimately condemned by the Church because of its erroneous, overly optimistic understanding of the human person.

Thus far, the reader must be wondering: if the Church rejects the idea of inevitable progress towards perfection, are we just terrible sinners who cannot make any progress in this life at all? Catholic docrine makes two claims simultaneously: yes, we can change, and no, we cannot change. (To be continued....)

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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'

The Dysfunctional Nations

From time to time a local pastor fires us up with fortitudinal e-blasts, of which this is his latest: Dear Parishioners, Every Catholic should be angry about this. Please take the time to read the editorial below that recently appeared in Investor's Business Daily . Cheers in the Lord, Fr. Tony United Nations Scolds Catholic Church On Human Rights Anti-Religion: Ignoring abhorrences such as China's one-child policy and atrocities condoned by Shariah law, a U.N. committee tells the Vatican to deal with abusive priests and change its teachings on abortion, contraception and homosexuality. That the report issued by the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child would mention the instances of abuse of children by priests in the United States is not surprising. What is surprising and unfortunate is that the U.N. would act as if the Catholic Church had done nothing about it and use the report as a ...

Several Hundred people do Not Lie!

At present many Catholics and non-Catholics like have little to no understanding of the emotional causes of homosexual attractions and behavior, largely due to spiritual laziness or lack of will to do extensive research into causes of the disorder. Nor is there an awareness of the powerful role that Catholic spirituality can play in the healing of this disorder. In fairness, the reasons for this state of ignorance include the scant literature available on the value of the Catholic Faith and the sacraments in the resolution of homosexual attractions and acts, this in spite of the hundreds of success stories for those seeking to resolve the disorder--hence this blog post. Furthermore, traditional therapy has failed to resolve homosexual behavior, because by definition there is an all-powerful divine element excluded from the process. Add to this the views within the media and educational, social service, health and political fields, and the matter grows more complex. It is no s...

The 21st Century Must Come Into the Church

Continued from September 14.... T hrough the Church’s teachings, God has also revealed his truth on how humanity can live happily. What is so little understood by Catholics and Christians is that doctrinal revelations that come through the Church come out of God’s very Self. They are not tied to culturally constructed norms! Read Vatican II’s Dei Verbum : “by divine revelation God wished to manifest and communicate both himself and the eternal decrees of his will concerning the salvation of humankind.” Our Lord’s Church derives its basic vision not from mere human speculation, which would be tentative and uncertain, but from God’s own testimony—from a historically given divine revelation. Thus Catholics believe that just as God himself is immutable, so, too, are His teachings as revealed through the Church because they come from him. As I discuss in my book, although the Church does not change its central teachings, we do see the theological principle of “devel...

Dancing With Mr. D: Grooming the Little Children

A former pro-transgender activist said she regretted her previous work in pro-transgender activism, adding she felt she was "indoctrinated" on gender ideology in an interview with Fox News Digital. "I started to realize that what I had been doing at my job at the LGBT Center, it was grooming," Kay Yang, a former employee of a location in New York, said. Grooming in this context means "to get into readiness for a specific objective." Kay works as a 'deprogrammer' to help parents and children who have been 'indoctrinated' by the 'cult-like' transgender agenda. Yang herself previously went by they/them and worked as a 'trans educator' in schools for years. Listen to her testimony.

An Important Reflection for Catholics Intending to Vote for Hillary November 8th....

In his recent Crisis article, "Two Newmans and Two Springs," Fr. Rutler offered a brilliant analysis of the current situation facing Catholics loyal to the teachings of Jesus Christ as we approach the November 8th presidential election. I should like to offer a summary of the points he made, which I hope will sober up all but the most tepid of Catholics. On a Tuesday in 1852, at the First Provincial Synod of Westminster at Oscott College, Blessed John Henry Newman delivered a sermon, “The Second Spring, in which he observed:” Have we any right to take it strange, if, in this English land, the spring-time of the Church should turn out to be an English spring, an uncertain, anxious time of hope and fear, of joy and suffering,—of bright promise and budding hopes, yet withal, of keen blasts, and cold showers, and sudden storms? Newman might deliver these words in our day, when the Body of Christ seems as divided as the U.S. The issues which confront the American peop...

From The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God

In our attempt to get a clear understanding of how we arrived at the present crisis of faith, it is instructive to examine the experience of another council peritus , Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, theologian, Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, gloriously elevated by the Holy Spirit to the Chair of St. Peter as Pope Benedict XVI in April, 2005. By way of background, from 1930-1950 in response to the pervasive secularism of these years in Europe , a broad intellectual and theological movement emerged among prominent European theologians, among them Frs. Romano Guardini, Karl Adam, Henri de Lubac, Jean Danielou, Yves Congar, Louis Boyer, and Hans Urs von Balthasar. The inspiration for this movement was a belief that the Catholic Faith had to speak more effectively to the modern world, and that to do this a rediscovery of all of the riches of the two-thousand year tradition of the Church was a crucial step. These reform-minded theologians saw that the precursor t...

From Chapter 5 of The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God

When conciliar teaching precluded such deviant “reforms,” an appeal to “the spirit of Vatican II” was made by the defectors. Religious themselves were sent to seminars, conferences, and think-tanks which pressured them to abandon hierarchical structures in favor of the “democratic,” to question traditional doctrinal certainties, and to demand reasons for those things formerly regarded as sacred, the most important of which was the basis for their vocation to the religious life. They became exposed to new anthropologies under the influence of psychology, sociology, and other social sciences, acceptance of which many sisters were naturally compliant under obedience — all this in spite of the obviousness that such changes were not approved by Rome and threatened the existence of their communities. In other words, the desired ressourcement of the council Fathers , rather than providing the guiding atmosphere in which aggiornamento was to occur, was ignored in favor of “updating.” ...

The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God to be published soon!

With the help of God, if it be His will, my work, The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God , excerpts of which have been posted on this blog, will be published and available on Amazon.com Be sure to check back often!

Review of Bad Religion!

I have noted Ross Douthat's recent work on religion in the United States , much of which is corroborated by my own research. Catholic World Report has just reviewed it! I have it on summer reading list.

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