by Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D.
“The Liberation of Lifelong Love: Church Teaching on Marriage” is the opening of my contribution to a new book called “Women, Sex & the Church: A Case for Catholic Teaching.” I realize that many of my readers are not Catholic. However, I still enthusiastically encourage you to consider purchasing this book. Many of the chapters contain valuable information from the social sciences that will be helpful to anyone from any faith tradition making the case for traditional sexual morality. Read more…
Before I sign off for the night, I have to quote my friend Fr. James Schall, prof of govt at Georgetown University, lo these many years. He has a marvelous essay on a recent conversation Pope Benedict had with a group of students.
“You asked me questions with great frankness and at the same time showed that you have firm points, convictions. And this is very important. You are young men and women who think, who question themselves, and who have a sense of truth and good. In other words, you know how to use your minds and your hearts, and that is no small thing.”
– Pope Benedict XVI, To Young People in the Cathedral in Sulmona, July 4, 2010 (L’Osservatore Romano, English, July 7, 2010.)
Both John Paul II and Benedict are at their best in youth audiences. Imagine anyone else in the world telling young men and women that it is”no small thing” to use their minds! Benedict adds:”I would say that it is the main thing in this world: to use the intelligence and wisdom that God has given to you properly.” This again is a theme that is typical of Catholicism at its best. It recognizes that our minds are not our own original creations. We are given them by God in the very being we have received, a being that does not originate with us. …
The students also asked the delicate question of “How we can be in the world but not of it?” Praying in our room, meditating, going to Mass, Benedict says, does not “remove” us from the world. It rather “helps us be ourselves,” not subject to pervasive forces
“Dear friends, faith and prayer do not solve problems but rather enable us to face them with fresh enlightenment and strength, in a way that is worthy of the human being and also more serenely and effectively.”
I am pleasantly surprised by this statement from Cardinal Mahoney of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Cardinal Mahoney is not usually known for making strong statements on what are usually considered “social conservative” issues. “Social justice” issues, yes. But life and marriage– not as much. So listen to this:
Today it was announced that U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker has ruled that Proposition 8 which was enacted by the People of California is unconstitutional. His decision fails to deal with the basic, underlying issue–rather he focused solely upon individual testimony on how Prop 8 affected them personally. Wrong focus. Read more…
Recently (Saturday, June 10th) there was an awesome webcast called Ending Abortion. It’s well worth checking out.
You can download any (or all) of the ten hour-long sessions as an MP3 to your computer or ipod and listen to each at your leisure.
Nice sound, eh? I met the brains behind CatholicMom, the original Catholic Mom, Lisa Hendrey, at the NACFLM conference this past weekend. I don’t know how she does it. I thought I was hyper-active. Check out this site of hers, all you Catholic Moms! Or non-Catholic moms. Or Jewish dads. Or, whatever!
she also blogs at the Faith and Family blog, put out by Circle Media.
The US Catholic Bishops have finally withdrawn from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (LCCHR). According to Deal Hudson, editor/blogger of Inside Catholic:
There is nothing ambiguous about LCCHR’s lobbying activity on behalf of abortion, same-sex marriage, and “family planning.” All the items on the LCCHR Web site listed here affirm their support of “marriage equality” and opposition to bans on same-sex marriage — policy positions directly opposed to the teaching of the Catholic Church.
Evidently, the LCCHR’s support for Elena Kagan for SCOTUS was the last straw. Read more…
I get such a kick out of Tom Peters, the American Papist. he has a great sense of humor. And where does he get this photos!?!?
News Flash! Pope Against Gay Marriage, Abortion!
How Many Times Have I Explained This?
Super-duper Hat tip to Tom Peters, The American Papist!
This story caught my eye. Catholic University Seton Hall will be offering a course on same sex marriage next fall in the Women and Gender Studies Department. I doubt that the course would have even been noticed by the media, except that the Archbishop of Newark objected:
Archbishop John J. Myers said news that Seton Hall students will be studying gay marriage “troubles me greatly.”
In a statement, the archbishop said the church teaches that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. Read more…
The Anchoress points to this news in the Baltimore Sun:
With the financial backing of the Vatican, University of Maryland researchers will lead an international group of scientists to study adult stem cells from the intestines with the hope of discovering treatments for diseases while bypassing the ethical debates that have embroiled such research for a decade.
…
This is not the first time the Roman Catholic Church has funded stem cell research, said Richard Doerflinger, associate director of pro-life activities at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Catholic dioceses in South Korea and Australia have supported adult stem cell research with grant money, he said.
“The Vatican has been very interested in adult stem cell research for many years,” he said. “I think it’s a logical outgrowth of the church’s interest in this field and of promoting ethically sound and beneficial stem cell research.”
As one of the scientists points out, Read more…
That’s the question Colleen Carroll Campbell asks. in reference to the recent story about a Catholic school in Colorado that denied readmission to the child of a lesbian couple. As she put it:
Boulder’s vociferous gay-rights activists mobilized to protest the priest, the parish and the Archdiocese of Denver, brandishing signs outside the church that plaintively asked: “What would Jesus do?”
For the reporters breathlessly covering the story and many Catholics, the answer was obvious. Jesus would allow the children to stay in the school. He would tell the teachers not to worry about the conflict between their duty to teach Catholic doctrine on marriage and their desire to protect the feelings of students being raised by a couple that flouted that doctrine in a particularly obvious way. Read more…
Yesterday, I posted about the impact of redefining marriage on the District of Columbia. Some of the comments about my post and others on this topic around the web, seem to say that if only the Catholic Church would stop being so stubborn and get with the program, they wouldn’t have these problems. These are the new values of society, and the Church needs to give up its beliefs.
Wait a minute: How do you know these are the new values? Every time we ask the voters what they think, Read more…
Here is my NOM colleague and friend, Maggie Gallagher, referring to the unintended consequences of same sex marriage in DC. (I posted on this yesterday: the Catholic diocese discontinues health care for spouses; the words “bride” and “groom” are removed from the city’s marriage licenses; Catholic Charities out of foster and adoption city contracts.)
What gay person in D.C. is practically better off as a result of this mean-spirited and successful attempt to drive the Catholic Church out of the public square in key ways? If this were left up to ordinary gay people, I’m betting it would all turn out very different. Live and let live Read more…
In the wake of the District of Columbia’s new same sex marriage policy, these changes have happened.
Item #1: In DC, the Catholic Archdiocese discontinued offering health care benefits to spouses. Read more…
My debate at Stanford, with Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute, has just been put on our podcast page. Pretty fun debate, pretty friendly debate, too, especially compared with some of my encounters on same sex marriage. I especially like the Q&A at the end of this debate. Enjoy!
Further response to the Good As You readers: I suspect the issue that bothers you the most is why won’t the Church recognize a same sex union as a valid marriage? The answer is that we believe that we do not have the authority or power to redefine marriage.
Some things can be defined and redefined by society. We can decide whether we will drive on the left or the right side of the road. We can decide whether the retirement age will be 63 or 68 or some other number. Read more…
To readers from the Good As You blog, thanks for dropping in. I am responding to this post about Bishop Cordileone, originally posted over there. I thought this was a little much for the “comments” section. So thanks for coming over.
In the first place: Bishop Cordileone has as much right to participate in the political process and public discussion of the definition of marriage as anyone else. You seem to think you have uncovered some deep dark secret that a Catholic bishop believes what the Catholic Church believes, and teaches what the Catholic Church teaches. Catholics lay and clergy alike, have the same right to express their opinion in the public square as anyone else. We have the same responsibility as anyone else to convince our fellow citizens to join with our views. Read more…
Expanding the reach of the anti-discrimination law, is almost certainly a side effect of redefining marriage. The one and only argument for ssm is the equality argument. it’s crude form, which we saw during the Prop 8 campaign, is “you’re being mean to us. you’re hurting our feelings. it’s not fair.” incredibly enough, that is what we are now hearing in a federal courtroom. The legal argument is equal protection, but that’s just a dressed up version of the same thing. And, the plaintiffs have no shame about bringing sob stories into the courtroom. so, if we accept the equality argument for purposes of marriage, it will be that much easier to accept the equality argument for anti-discrimination purposes. So, contrary to some libertarians who woudl like to think that ssm represents a retreat of the state from civil society, the exact opposite is true. Read more…
from the National Catholic Register’s story on military chaplains during the Christmas season in Afganistan and Iraq:
Father Michael Duesterhaus has been deployed to combat areas three times, including Fallujah, Iraq, in 2006. The Navy chaplain said “close teamwork, mission focus and personal deprivations [can] deepen one’s faith” and recounted how “one Marine, who I baptized, confirmed, and gave first holy Communion to in the Al Anbar Province told me one night, ‘Catholicism is a tough religion. … Have to believe that the Eucharist is truly Jesus and not a symbol. And confession — whoa, there’s a challenge. Yeah, it’s tough. But I’m a Marine. Who wants a wimpy faith?’”
December 29th, 2009
Betsy
I don’t care what religion you are, the Pope speaks words of wisdom. Too bad more people don’t or won’t listen.
VATICAN CITY, DEC. 15, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is the message Benedict XVI wrote for the Jan. 1 World Day of Peace. The letter was released today and is titled: “If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation.”
1. At the beginning of this New Year, I wish to offer heartfelt greetings of peace to all Christian communities, international leaders, and people of good will throughout the world. For this XLIII World Day of Peace I have chosen the theme: If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation. Respect for creation is of immense consequence, not least because “creation is the beginning and the foundation of all God’s works”,[1] and its preservation has now become essential for the pacific coexistence of mankind. Man’s inhumanity to man has given rise to numerous threats to peace and to authentic and integral human development — wars, international and regional conflicts, acts of terrorism, and violations of human rights. Read more…
We first reported this travesty here. Now CitizenLink has picked up on it, hopefully spreading the word to millions more people. The welfare rules of the Great Society drove marriage out of the homes of the poor. The health care bill has the potential to drive marriage out of the middle class.
A closer look at premium payments in both the House and Senate health care bills shows higher premiums that might discourage couples from tying the knot. Read more…
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