Admittedly, I have not followed the Duck Dynasty controversy, but the excerpts I did read indicate the man was asked a question about his moral beliefs and responded that the culture is on the slippery slope of instituting a human written moral code of sexual attractions that contradicts Divine laws and subject to that principal, anyone's sexual attractions can take refuge in that code.
After all, who are we to make judgments about polygamists if they are seeking the Lord in good faith? And so on.
As many concerned Catholics have expressed, the silly statements from the Pope are damaging to catechists, parents, grandparents and Catholics who are intimately aware that the mission of the Deposit of Faith is to teach the substance that gives every person right judgment about their actions as they relate to the salvation of their soul.
Each of us has to make a judgment about our sexual attractions before we act upon them, even if we go to Church every Sunday, or every day for that matter.
Making judgments about our sexual attractions is a critical tool for the salvation of our own souls.
The damage the Pope has done plays itself out in today's article written by E.J. Dionne in the Washington Post.
Dionne has fired up his crack pipe with the Pope's irresponsible statements and unveiled the fruit of Pope Francis:
Yet when even the pope wonders aloud as to whether it's appropriate for him to judge, you begin to see the difficulty of deciding what "true Christians" ought to believe. This raises the question of whether the religiously based principles are merely cultural artifacts that we bend to our own immediate purposes...
The answer lies in embracing a humility about how imperfectly human beings understand the divine, which is quite different from rejecting God or faith. This humility defines the chasm between a living religious tradition and a dead traditionalism. We need to admit how tempted we are to deify whatever commitments we have at a given moment. And those of us who are Christian need to acknowledge that over the history of the faith, there have been occasions when "a supposedly changeless truth has changed," as the great church historian and theologian Jaroslav Pelikan put it.
The disordered picture the Pope is giving is crystal clear.
I'll talk more about how this plays out in catechesis in our parishes and schools - and more importantly in the family some time after Christmas.
I don't actually give a flying fig that he was voted person of the year in Time magazine.
What I care about is what he is saying and doing in the public square that gives my children and future grandchildren the understanding of their faith - how to live it, what practices and judgments they must make upon their own actions, how to evangelize others.
Thus far, this Pope is a disaster to that end.
The Pope has set catechesis apart from the Deposit of Faith. Those who attempt to state moral code written by God Himself are now subject to losing their job based upon the Pope's caricature of our beliefs. He has made those who attempt to teach and preach subject to hatred and malice - in some countries said malice will cost them not just their livelihood but their very lives.
He is pitting children against their parents.
That's not even the bad news.
The bad news is, the man of the year shtick is robbing souls of their salvation.
3 comments:
You really nailed it.
Thank you.
We are the 1%. No not THAT 1% (not even close me). The grumpy 1% not gushing over the Man of the Year and next Nobel Peace Prize winner (count on it).
The problem is with the way the word "judge" is perceived these days. There's a difference between condemning behavior and using discernment (aka evaluating people and situations). People also forget that the pope's comment (if I recall correctly) was about one man, one of his appointments (who, frankly, should never have been appointed, anyway).
Regardless of what the pope meant when he said, "Who am I to judge?" it's obvious that he won't do anything about the "gay lobby" because he doesn't give a damn!
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss (and the older one before that).
Phil Robertson for Pope!
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