 There should always be truth in advertising. That allows consumers of products and services to know what it is that they are getting before they purchase it.
One group who needs to have a little more truth in advertising is the National Catholic Reporter (whose editorial board is pictured here). They may be national, and they might even report, but by no stretch of the imagination could they be considered Catholic.
One of their recent editorials show just how out of touch, clueless and most importantly secular they are.
So why again? Apparently the bishops feel that people just aren’t listening. If that’s their hunch, we’d agree. Why aren’t they listening? Let’s consider for starters the document on contraception. A lot of the U.S. bishops today might say there are a lot of bad, or at least ignorant, Catholics out there, Catholics influenced by the contraceptive culture, for instance, who no longer know good from evil.
Maybe they’re right. More likely, though, it’s because the teaching makes little sense, doesn’t match the experience of lay Catholics and tends to reduce all of human love to the act of breeding.
No, it doesn't match the experience of lay Catholics because lay Catholics for the most part either don't know about it, or don't understand it. Obviously these morons don't understand it.
The concepts of fruitful marital love, partnering in God's work of creation, and the theology of the body are not only not being preached from the ambos on Sunday, they are not being taught at the vast majority of Catholic high schools or Pre-Cana (marriage preparation) classes.
Part of that is because the vast majority of unmarried lay Catholics are shacking up, and what's a sin of slipping on a condom when you put it up against fornication. Like my daughter once asked me: "Dad, if I have premarital sex, is it a sin to use a condom?" I said: "If you murder someone, is it a sin to take their wallet?".
In short, the bishops aren’t terribly persuasive or clear when they talk about sex, and they tend to want to talk about sex a lot. To be sure, they say lots of lovely and lofty things about marital love, about how it completes people and cooperates with God’s plan and fills married lives with joy and happiness. You can want not to have children, say the bishops, you just can’t do anything “unnatural” about it. It’s a strange concept, like not wanting to die of heart disease while not doing anything “unnatural” about it. [ed.- Emphesis mine.]
This is simply a lie. I would like to see any of these bozos name me one bishop (not counting Milingo) who has said that it's ok to want not to have children. You can space your children in certain circimstances, but not finishing the act renders the whole conjugal act a lie.
Imagine if you would for a moment, our Lord and Savior. He has healed the sick, preached, teached and performed countless miracles. He's sitting in the upper room at the Last Supper and decides that this preaching and teaching stuff is cool, but he's not too keen on dying for our sins.
We are not redeemed.
The same could be said when couples go almost all the way, but don't perform the last, final, selfless act that gives meaning to the whole rest of it. They say: "We like this pleasure stuff, but we really don't have any interest in any children you might have planned for us".
It’s either be open to having kids or married sex is no more significant than an encounter with a prostitute. Such a view of marriage and sexuality and sexual intimacy can only have been written by people straining mightily to fit the mysteries, fullness and candidly human pleasure of sex into a schema that violently divides the human person into unrecognizable parts. There’s a reason 96 percent of Catholics have ignored the birth control teaching for decades. We doubt the new document will significantly change that percentage.
The reason that 96 percent of Catholics have ignored the birth control teaching is that there's a good chance that 96 percent of Catholics have never read Humanae Vitae (or even know about it, or even pronounce it since Vatican II).
So it is with gays. Here again, church authorities try to fit together two wildly diverging themes. They go something like this: Homosexuals are “objectively disordered” (that’s about as bad as it humanly gets, in our understanding of things), but we love them and want them to be members of our community.
Only this time out, the bishops are not using the term homosexual “orientation” (a definite position) but homosexual “inclination” (a liking for something or a tendency toward). Sly, no? The inference to be drawn, we presume, is that someone inclined one way can just incline another way, whereas someone with an orientation is pretty much stuck there.
That science and human experience generally say otherwise is of little concern, apparently, though the bishops were clear they weren’t suggesting that homosexuals are required to change. This time, too, the bishops, while acknowledging that those with homosexual tendencies should seek supportive friendships, advise homosexuals to be quiet about their inclinations in church. “For some persons, revealing their homosexual tendencies to certain close friends, family members, a spiritual director, confessor, or members of a church support group may provide some spiritual and emotional help and aid them in their growth in Christian life. In the context of parish life, however, general public self-disclosures are not helpful and should not be encouraged.”
Inclination is a more accurate term. If homosexuality is an orientation, then alcoholism is also an orientation. Alcoholics are pretty much "stuck there". We love our alcoholic friends, but we don't offer them drinks at parties, or celebrate when they fall down drunk. Homosexual activity is more dangerous in many cases than frequently getting drunk.
We help our Alcoholic friends stay on the wagon if we love them, so we should help our homosexual friends "stay on the wagon" if we love them. But if they are born that way, it should be fine and dandy, right? Here. Have a drink.
And as far as "disclosure" goes. The time when alcoholics divulge their particular "orientation" is when they want your help in fighting the temptation. When most gays divulge their "orientation" they want acceptance of their behavior.
No one’s come out with a program, but we’ll venture yet one more hunch. It has become apparent in recent years that there’s been an upsurge in historical ecclesiastical finery and other goods. We’ve seen more birettas (those funny three-peak hats with the fuzzy ball on top that come in different colors depending on clerical rank) and cassocks (the kind with real buttons, no zippers for the purists) and ecclesiastically correct color shoes and socks, lots of lacy surplices and even the capa magna (yards and yards of silk, a cape long enough that it has to be attended by two altar boys or seminarians, also in full regalia). In some places they’re even naming monsignors again.
It’s as if someone has discovered a props closet full of old stuff and they’re putting it out all over the stage. Bishops, pestered by the abuse scandal that they’ve avoided looking full in the face, find it easier to try to order others’ lives. They have found the things of a more settled time, a time when their authority wasn’t dependent on persuading or relating to other humans. It was enough to have the office and the clothing. Things worked. Dig a little deeper in the closet and bring out the Latin texts, bring back the old documents, bring back the days when homosexuals were quiet and told no one about who they essentially are. Someone even found a canopy under which the royally clad leader can process.
What amazes me is that these people can consistently bring up the concepts of acceptance of homosexuality in the priesthood and the abuse scandal in the same article without cracking up. It helps when all we can do is read this without seeing the expression on their faces.
Hey morons... The rampant acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle in the seminaries coupled with an immature sexuality (brought on by not understanding the proper and ordered role of sex in the lives of covanentally married people) was the main cause of The Scandal™. Had the proper use of sexuality been effectively taught in our seminaries for the last 40 years, and we had been more discerning about the sexual maturity of the men we were ordaining, we probably would not be talking about a scandal, and Catholic parishes around the country would be about $1B (yes, that's billion) richer. You can buy a lot of soup for soup kitchens for a billion smackers.
Is it a coincidence that the abuse cases go back to about... Ummm... the beginning of Vatican II? Maybe it's a coincidence that Vatican II happened about the time the hippies (like the ones on the National Catholic Reporter editorial board) were touting "free love".
After a billion bucks, it looks like "free love" isn't quite so free.
So, NCR(eporter) editors... isn't it kind of dark in there?
(A tip of the hat to Cantor at Cantate Deo for the heads up. He reads that faux Catholic rag that is only useful for training the puppy or wrapping a fish so I don't have to.
Piling on:
Cantate Deo
The Curt Jester
Bettnet.com
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