Tag Archives: morality

In, But Not Of

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Scripture tells us to be in the world but not of it. Obviously somebody forgot to tell the Anglicans. The implication of these actions is that if it’s legal in man’s law, it should be legal in God’s law. "It has the state’s blessing. Why shouldn’t it have ours?" Oy. I bet this kind of thing drives Pontificator nutty.

Liturgy for Gay Marriages Developed in Vt.
Fri Jun 18, 4:26 AM ET
By DAVID GRAM, Associated Press Writer

BURLINGTON, Vt. – Vermont’s Episcopal Diocese has become the first in the country to develop a liturgy – a script for a religious service – in response to a state law making same-sex unions legal.

Rolling My Eyes

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CHURCH & STATE
by Neal Pollack

A lunatic Christian cult has the run of the White House and the ear of the president. What do they want? The end of the world. Be afraid.

I almost didn't blog this article due to it's secular silliness and lack of intelligent analysis, but the author offers the following pile of stinking feces (Ad hoc or accurate assessment? Let me know.) as a prayer. It reeks of the kind of warm, fuzzy, "I'm OK. You're OK" relativism that defeats the whole point of having faith at all.

"Dear [Higher Power of Choice], give us the will to restore religion in this country, as our Founding Fathers intended, to an abstract guiding principle, not the theologically unsound justification for a twisted foreign policy. Let us fight our enemies with peace and wisdom, not anger and indiscriminate force. Allow our country to serve as a symbol of what's good in humankind, not what's corrupt. Most of all, grant us the strength and wisdom to remove President George W. Bush from office. In your name, we say: Amen."

"abstract guiding principle"?!? Why believe in God at all? Why not just stick to secular humanism? It makes you feel like you're a good person acting on an informed, enlightened conscience without any of the nasty thankfulness, codes of conduct, or global implications and applications inherent to most religions. No fuss, no muss. "Ethos Lite: All of the Flavor, None of the Obligations"

Honest Enquiry

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Pam, the Catholic blogmistress of “A
Bird’s Melody“, sincerely wonders why homosexual acts are sinful. Anybody
out there want to field this one? I suppose we could point her to the relevant parts
of the Catechism, but I suspect that would be unsatisfying for her.

the church
and homosexuality

A sin is either an act that is harmful to God, oneself, or others, or simply an act of turning away from God. How then exactly are acts of homosexuality harmful? I’m asking this question seriously, not rhetorically. If they are not harmful, how are they turning away from God? Please do not point to the Bible and say “there, in this verse, it says that it’s sinful.” I know the Bible says that. I want to know how, exactly, acts of homosexuality are sinful.

Fasting From the Eucharist

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Here’s a completely different take on the current communion debate that’s all the
rage these days.

Staying
in the Pew at Communion Time

I’ve come to believe that part of the problem has to do with the unremitting insistence
on frequent Communion. I will pause for a moment as 90% of my readers emit gasps
of horror at what I’ve just written. I think we’ve hammered frequent Communion (a
wonderful thing, in itself) into the people’s heads so hard and have at the same
time failed so miserably to catechize them on the full richness of this Sacrament’s
meaning, that now we find Communion time resembling (as one of my scandalized Mexican
parishioners described the English-language Masses) a stampede of cattle, leaving
behind empty pew after empty pew as everyone surges forward to get a Host. And if
they can’t have a Host, you damn sure better give them a nice blessing because it’s
Communion time and, you know, everybody has to get something. I’ve had people go
to confession for not having gone to Communion even though they were present for
an entire Mass. It is not a sin not to go to Communion. But people have been led
to believe that it is. Together with the misunderstood insistence on frequent Communion,
a poor understanding of “active participation in the Liturgy” must shoulder
a fair share of the blame.

Bombs and Bishops

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The following article is interesting mainly for the comments found below it.

American
bishops and Ronald Reagan

Catholic bishops share in the charism of infallibility when they speak on faith
and morals, in conjunction with the Holy Father. That is part of the magisterium,
the teaching authority by which we know the pure truth of the Gospel. That magisterium
cannot be broken because it comes from God himself (Mt 16:18).

When they stray from faith and morals, bishops are no more likely to be free from error than any other well-informed people. On many important subjects in the 1970s and ’80s, American bishops brought their prestige to bear against many policies Ronald Reagan favored.