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Showing posts from March, 2015

Libido Redux: Homosexuality and the Ongoing Spiritual Culture War

It has been my experience that nothing seems to stir up the culture wars faster than the subject of homosexuality.  Some see this lifestyle as being no different than any other lifestyle, and as a matter of a civil rights issue parallel to the 1960’s and Martin Luther King. “Who are we to tell anyone else how to live?” “Jesus never spoke about it”, etc .  On the other side, you have a group of people who think that homosexual sexual acts are an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, and it should never be allowed at any time. Is it natural to put a sexual organ and its emissions into the digestive system of same sex partners, or should sexual organs only be put into complementary sexual organs of the opposite sex?  Who’s right? Bishop Fulton Sheen once said about right and wrong, "Right is right, even if no one is right.  Wrong is wrong, even if everyone is wrong." Sacred Scripture records in Genesis 19:24 that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. This is where the term so

Fighting the Irish

The University of Notre Dame Thanks to the new Indiana law , the University of Notre Dame and other Catholic colleges in the state have greater protection for their religious beliefs.    One would think our premier university would rejoice…. But: Does Notre Dame want the help ?  Since October, it has provided spousal benefits to same-sex partners of employees, despite the public opposition of Bishop Kevin Rhoades .  No longer able to cite the law as an excuse, will Notre Dame now uphold Catholic teaching? The superintendent of Catholic schools in Cincinnati sat down with The Cardinal Newman Society to explain why his Archdiocese supports Catholic education as "ministry"— the very language that Archbishop Cordileone is defending in San Francisco. Check it out. W hy pro-life leaders think Catholic schools are "vehicles" of the pro-life movement . See here as well.

Read the Documents! (fini)

The Seventh and final passage: “Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, [this Council] teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism, as through a door, men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved” ( Lumen Gentium , #14). Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium (#14-16) acknowledged the possibility of salvation for non-Catholics. The result? Many Catholics, lay and clerical questioned the need for the missionary undertakings of the Church. If non-Catholics could be saved, why bother trying to convert them? To be clear: Lumen Gentium says that those who k

Children of the Gay Couples

Often in class I mention to my (all female) students that the data on the harm done to children raised in homes of people who desire sex with people of the same sex is difficult to dispute. Because it is print media, they seldom read it in its entirety. Now, however, the adult children of "same sex marriage" are  speaking out in the social media , previously    brushed aside in the so-called “social science research” on same-sex parenting .   As we are made in God's image and likeness, and the Trinity is the genesis of the family as God intended, let us remember the truth of the matter .  Should you decide not to be ashamed of the truth , and proclaim it in the public square, be prepared for retribution . And rejoice, For Our Lord said: For they shall deliver you up to councils, and in the synagogues you shall be beaten, and you shall stand before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony unto them. And unto all nations the gospel must first be prea

Which Sunday Is It?

When I was young the season of Lent had a slightly different structure than it does now. If one pruses a missal from back then, one notices that there are only four Sundays of Lent, followed by Passion Sunday, followed by Palm Sunday. In a current missal you will typically see that Palm Sunday is now labeled “Passion (Palm) Sunday”. Why is this? According to Dom Gueranger in  The Liturgical Year,  “This Sunday is called  Passion Sunday , because the Church begins, on this day, to make the sufferings of our Redeemer her chief thought”. Traditionally, all statues and crucifixes were veiled at the Vespers for Passion Sunday. The Introit, Gradual and Tract all are petitions to save the just from the persecution of the unjust and the Tract even foreshadows the scourging: Introit:  “Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy: deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man: for thou art my God and my strength...” Gradual:  “Deliver me, O Lord, fr

Libido Redux: A Case of Mistaken Identity!

David Prosen I have blogged extensively on how, according to His Holiness Pope Paul VI, Satan is a clever seducer who can enter the Body of Christ through the human libido, and have written about how this is done both in my book and in these pages. Rarely have I come upon so succinct expression of how Our Lord in and through His Church has "overcome the world" and its thinking on the homosexual orientation as this one by David Prosen . Click in the link ad educate yourself in the truth....

Fashion Statement

Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana are fashion legends, gay, and together at one point. They have come out with some statements against gay marriage and gay couples having children. Ø   In an interview with the Italian magazine  Panorama , they said, “The only family is the traditional one. No chemical offspring and rented uterus. Life has a natural flow; there are things that cannot be changed.” Ø   More from  Breitbart : They also  said , “Procreation must be an act of love.” “I call children of chemistry, synthetic children. Uteri for rent, semen chosen from a catalogue,” Dolce stated. Gabanna said, “The family is not a fad. In it there is a supernatural sense of belonging.” The pair have long been outspoken about gay marriage.  Ø   In 2013, the  London Telegraph   asked them if they had ever considered getting married. They answered, “What? Never!” Dolce said, “I’m a practicing Catholic.” Ø   Gabbana told the  Daily Mail   in 2006, “I am opposed to th

Half Way There

Most Catholics today are used to the Mass being conducted in English, and they hardly ever think about the fact that Latin remains the official language of the Catholic Church. But occasionally, Latin reasserts itself, as it does in the case of Laetare Sunday, the popular name for the Fourth Sunday in Lent. Laetare means "Rejoice" in Latin, and the Introit (entrance antiphon) in both the Traditional Latin Mass and the Novus Ordo is Isaiah 66:10-11, which begins "Laetare, Jerusalem" ("Rejoice, O Jerusalem"). Because the midpoint of Lent is the Thursday of the third week of Lent, Laetare Sunday has traditionally been viewed as a day of celebration, on which the austerity of Lent is briefly lessened. The passage from Isaiah continues, "rejoice with joy, you that have been in sorrow," and on Laetare Sunday, the purple vestments and altar cloths of Lent are set aside, and rose ones are used instead. Flowers, which are normally forbidden during

Libido Redux: Sexual Wisdom

O ften in teaching my classes, rather than refer to sexual intercourse (when the subject of “having sex” comes up), I refer to it as the marital act. My intention is to teach that use of our sexual faculty is by Divine command to be reserved for marriage between husband and wife. “Having sex with” merely reduces the marital act to genital activity and an exchange of body fluids. The marital act is holy. Does this mean that married couples must accept that they may not limit the number of children that God intends for them? No, if one is familiar with what the Church refers to as natural family planning. The Church has never determined the number of children a married couple should have, nor has it besought any commandment that couples have as many as physically possible. The complementarity of marriage occurs in self-donation, of placing one’s spouse’s well-being above one’s own. Examples: conversation across a dinner table, in the kitchen and in bed; holding a job; ho