Neutrality is not an option
PORTLAND (AP) - The Catholic church has traditionally opposed or stayed neutral on anti-gay initiatives in Oregon.
But the Oregon Catholic Conference, which represents the state's 425,000 Roman Catholics, will support a ban on same-sex marriage when its board meets Friday, said Robert Castagna, general counsel and executive director.
"The church is not telling people how to vote," Castagna told The Oregonian on Wednesday. "The church offers its moral teaching and better judgment not only to Catholics, but to all people of good will."
Leaders said neutrality is not an option on this issue because it deals with marriage, a holy sacrament for Roman Catholics.
Measure 36 on the Nov. 2 ballot would amend the state constitution to recognize marriage as only between a man and a woman.
Other Christian denominations take varying positions on the measure, said David Leslie, executive director of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, which represents 17 Christian denominations, including Catholics.
"Some are more comfortable with civil unions, some with civil marriage, and some are not comfortable at all using the word marriage," he said.
Catholics take seriously what their leaders suggest, said Patricia O'Connell Killen, a religion professor at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma who has studied Catholicism in America and religion in the Northwest. But, she adds, "All the surveys that have been done over the past 30 years show an increasing trend of Catholics relying on their own consciences more than they rely on formal teaching." [Source]
That last statement is sad but true. The reality is that more people are relying on a conscience that is not truly informed. The teaching they are relying on is the societal drip-down of a more and more self absorbed culture. Ignorance is not bliss.
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That, Jeff, is because we have been terrorized so many times. Admit it, we've all been told things that are not true from people who'd ought to know better. So the things that are really true, have unfortunately gotten confused with the nonsense. People really have come to believe that they have to make sense of things themselves and from there it's only a short hop to deciding other things for yourself.
They should not have carried on with Catholics so. If this is the outcome, they should have seen it coming and repaired it long ago. It's not like this is surprising, given what has happened before.
By saying "carrying on with Catholics so and terrorizing" I mean all the turmoil of the 60-80s in the church. Castigating so many people who were really trying to believe was wrong. Scandalizing so many for the sake of modernizing was wrong. No matter what the powers-that-be thought the future might be like.
The problem of people relying on their own hypotheses about religion will continue to worsen until the Church grows some guts about sticking up for the Faith. Then maybe it will abate to some degree.
But like the Reformation, some of this is probably not going to "go back into the can." We may cut it off the church, indeed at some point we will have to. But it will continue to plague some. Heresies (like modernism) once formulated are around forever.