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Showing posts from April, 2017

What Sex is For

Sex, God has revealed, is for 1) procreation, and 2) uniting, with the natural joy and pleasure which results, husband  and wife until death. The Catechism explains:  The Creator himself . . . established that in the [generative] function, spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment of body and spirit. Therefore, the spouses do nothing evil in seeking this pleasure and enjoyment. They accept what the Creator has intended for them. At the same time, spouses should know how to keep themselves within the limits of just moderation. he spouses' union achieves the twofold end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission of life. These two meanings or values of marriage cannot be separated without altering the couple's spiritual life and compromising the goods of marriage and the future of the family.  Yet this is just what the sexual revolution has done—Separate just what God never intended to be separated. But because we have been given a free will

Why Fr. Martin is Causing Scanal

Let us now review the scandalous assertions in the above video of Fr. Martin's talk: 1. On the “unique gifts” the LGBT “Community” brings to the Church.  The problem here is that the focus of Church teaching and pastoral activity is the human  person  and not any “community.” It is the  human person  who receives pastoral aid and affirmation from the Church. The USCCB’s 2006 document on  “Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination”  teaches that persons experiencing same-sex attraction should  not  be encouraged “to participate in ‘gay subcultures,’ which often tend to promote immoral lifestyles.” Now Fr. Martin mentions Our Lord's’ own focus on each  person he encounters  in his public ministry. So, isn’t the Church correct to focus on the  person  with same-sex attraction and not the “category” of “LGBT community”? The gifts of compassion, forgiveness, and perseverance to the Church Fr. cites are all gifts of  specific individuals, not coming from a global “commu

On Universalism

From time to time one runs across posts which endanger evalggelization and the Gospel message , a sign of the diabolic. I just encountered one such today, the heresy of universalism--t he belief that "everyone will eventually be saved no matter what. Universalism is a heresy because it is a half truth. Christ did die for all, but the universalist only holds on to that part of the truth. He denies the other half of the full truth, that not everyone will accept that grace and therefore some will go to hell. It is a  heresy because unversalism is not based on clear thinking or logic or the authority of Church teaching or the catechism or the Sacred Scriptures, for there is no support anywhere for universalism in the Catholic faith. Instead it is based on people's feeling that "God is too loving to send anyone to hell." The effects of universalism on the church are catastrophic. If everyone is going to be saved, then why bother to go to Church? If everyone is goi

Praise the Lord! I Agree Tom!

The Catholic Charismatic Movement Is Alive and Bearing Fruit   Tom Ponchak   April 05, 2017 As a longtime fan of Karl Keating and the work of Catholic Answers—I often turn to Catholic.com as a resource in my own parish ministry—I was disappointed by Karl’s recent critique of the Catholic charismatic movement,  Ever Heard of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal?  The article seemed dismissive of the Renewal without offering strong arguments against it. Karl places the Catholic Charismatic Renewal within the context of “enthusiastic religion,” which he described as “the distrust of religious truth unless confirmed by the emotions.” Yet including the Renewal with “enthusiastic” heretical movements such as the Montanists, Donatists, or Albigensians is a false comparison. The Church rightfully condemned these heretical movements, but the Catholic Charismatic Renewal has enjoyed the support and recognition of the hierarchy and faithful theologians for decades. Furt

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