Recently in Punditry Category

Here are two things we learned from the Bishop's meeting this week.

1) Homosexuality had nothing to do with the fact that the overwhelming percentage of priestly sex abuse victims were post-pubescent boys. These abusers I guess were equal opportunity abusers and would have been willing to abuse girls as equally as boys and it was just a target of opportunity thing doncha know.

CCHD is just fine and any grumblings and facts otherwise are just "outrageous claims." Rest assured CCHD gives no money to groups involved in the Culture of Death or other things at odd with the truth of Church teaching. I feel so much better now and so relieved I can finally support CCHD. Hey just because the problematic groups they did finally drop was due to outside pressure and reports from an outside group means nothing. Just because they did nothing to investigate the groups they contributed to and had for years given money to groups that supported abortion, contraception, homosexual marriage is no big deal and again if you hear otherwise it is an "outrageous claim."

It is I guess an outrageous claim that CCHD still gives money to groups not sympathetic to Church teaching like L.A. Community Action Network, Women's Community Revitalization Project, San Francisco Organizing Project, Preble Street, Faith in Community, People Organized for Westside Renewal, Coalition L.A., Justice Overcoming Boundaries in San Diego County, Nuestra Casa, San Francisco Organizing Project, Time for Change Foundation (a.k.a. All of Us or None). Just drop your money in the basket this weekend for CCHD, because there is no problem - just move along.

Remember a couple of years ago it was shown Catholic Charities was giving money to one group that was promoting and distributing contraception and the official replay was pretty much denial.

When the South American bishop's complained to the Canadian bishops conference to stop giving money to groups in South America that supported the Culture of Death we got a reply from an angry Canadian bishop complaining about bloggers.

Nice to know there is a siege mentality within bishop's conferences and Catholic organizations that can't even manage a sly wink and say "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" Aren't you confident that every thing is being done to prevent future problems?

One of the strangest features of the decline in Religious life in many areas of the Western Church - at least to those who are strangers to the study of social pathology - is the tendency of its representatives to deny that anything is wrong at all. The facts, however speak for themselves in that those Orders and communities which actually ing and recruit -in the United States, France and elsewhere - have taken precisely the opposite road from the kind of "renewal" Carey describes. They are brotherhoods or sisterhood (or in some cases double communities) where the heart of Religious life is taken be the invitation to love God with peculiar directness; where a classical identity based on the historic sources and norms of monastic and Religious lie is explicitly and unembarrassedly maintained; where a strong community life pertains, complete with common ritual practice, and where consecration (simply being a Religious) is prized as well as mission (what a Religious does).

That was written 10 years ago in "Christendom Awake" by Fr. Aidan Nichols, O.P. and it is perfectly said and quite apt in consideration of the reaction to the Apostolic Visitation of American women's religious orders.

There have been so many denials of anything being wrong from these struggling orders and the usual suspects of National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, America Magazine, and the statement issued by California bishops. How this happened shows a fail of leadership on almost every level. The Orders themselves let it happen or joined in, the local Bishops turned a blind eye, till it was left to the Holy See to finally respond long after much of the destruction had ever occurred.

The denials of there being a problem in the first place remind me of a couple of things. First the Black Knight scene in Monty Pythons Holy Grail where the Knight has all his limbs hacked off only to in the end admitting to a draw. That scene is a comedic masterpiece, but what happened to religious life in so many areas is not funny at all. The loss of so many religious is certainly akin to having all your limbs removed and those that stayed decided to enable even more flesh wounds.

It also reminds me of Baghdad Bob's assertions "We have them surrounded in their tanks" and "There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!" This is no different than all the whines about the Apostolic Visitation and framing it as a persecution or new inquisition. Rampant dissent with orders following a phony feminism and worship of creation without a mention of the creator. A social justice mission that is not a whit different than what is done by a county social worker.

For them the cure is worse than the disease. They can hardly fail to actually see the lessons of the vibrant religious orders that are faithful to the Church. Or maybe they see the growing of these Orders as some kind of punishment from God for their orthodoxy. They started by jettisoning the habit, but they did not stop there and jettisoned much of their faith. The path to repentance begins with the acknowledgement that we have sinned. These Black Knight denials are so very sad because of this.

Here's a real pastoral question to consider: What place is there for the adulterous person in the Catholic church? With the warning from the archdiocese of Washington, D.C., that it would pull out of social services in the city rather than accede to a bill that would afford benefits to adulterers, a question, too long neglected, arises for the whole church: What is a adulterous Catholic supposed to do in life?

Imagine you are a devout Catholic who is also an adulterer. Here is a list of the things that you are not to do, according to the teaching of the church. (Remember that most other Catholics can choose among many of these options.) None of this should be new or in any way surprising. If you are adulterous, you cannot:

1) Love. You can not have fulfilling love with one or more adulterous partners. From their earliest adolescence many, anticipate, dream about, hope for, plan about, talk about and pray for having sex with multiple partners. A lifelong abstinence from sex with people other than your spouse and a call to be chaste within your married life.

2.) Marry. The church has been clear, especially of late, in its opposition to divorce and remarriage. Of course, you can not marry your adulterous partner within the church. Nor can you enter into any sort of civil, oppisite-sex unions of any kind. They are beyond the pale. This should be clear to any Catholic. The Catechism even claims: " Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death. Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which sacramental marriage is the sign. Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery"

3.) Adopt a child. Despite the church's warm approval of adoption, you cannot adopt a needy child. You can not leave your family to start a new family with another person despite how needy the child.

4.) Enter a seminary. If you accept the church's teaching on chastity for married, and feel a call to enter a seminary or religious order, you cannot--even if you desire the celibate life. In fact no only does the Church deny the priesthood to adulterous males, it extends the ban even to married men who are not part of the adulterous lifestyle.

5.) Work for the church and be open. If you work for the church in any sort of official capacity it is close to impossible to be open about your adulterous lifestyle. You can not brag about your sexual conquests among your co-workers. Laypeople have even been fired as principles of Catholic schools and other positions for having adulterous affairs.

At the same time, if you are a devout Catholic who is attentive both to church teachings and the public pronouncements of church leaders, you will be reminded that your actions are a "grave offense against the natural law" and "a deviation from God plan for marriage."

Nothing above is surprising or controversial: all of the above are church teaching. But taken together, it raises an important pastoral question for all of us: What kind of life remains for these brothers and sisters in Christ, those who wish to follow the teachings of the church? Officially at least, the adulterous Catholic seems set up to lead a secretive life. Is this what God desires for the adulterous person?

Except for my obvious substitutions this is pretty much Father James Martin S.J. article "What Should a Gay Catholic Do?" This was a parody on his post which in turn was a parody on Church teaching.

This bit of propaganda tries to make pastoral issues trump the fact that homosexual acts are indeed intrinsically disordered. It totally leaves out "Go and sin no more" and the universal call for holiness. Certainly same-sex attraction is a very heavy cross, but we must all pick up the cross daily if we are to grow in holiness as we grow closer to Christ. As sinners we certainly do not need priests making excuses for our sins. It is not an act of charity in anyway to make the Church teaching on God's plan for sex only between a husband and wife to seem like a sequence of negatives.

Fr. Martin has pounded only on negatives and makes no mention of what our brothers and sisters in Christ with same sex attraction can do. No mention of Courage and other Catholic apostolates to help people with same-sex attraction. Plus while father mentioned that those with deep-seated homosexual tendencies can no enter the seminary, it also certainly is not true that all people with some level of same-sex attraction fit that category. There is a lot in our culture that confuses people on the most basic of things making them think that if they have some level of same-sex attraction that they must give in to it. Fr. Martin does not mention that we are all called to chastity. Those that are not married must be celibate. The person who has attraction to the opposite sex must be just as chaste as those who have attraction to the same sex.

No doubt Fr. Martin writes this with the best of intentions. But undermining Church teaching to excuse sin is simply evil. That marriage is only between a man and a women and is indissoluble is part of God's plan. To say otherwise is to oppose God.

It is also rather ridiculous to frame those who actively live the homosexual lifestyle as being a devout Catholic. I am not speaking of those with same-sex attraction who do not fall into sin. An active fornicator or adulterer is not a devout Catholic, they are a Catholic who has fallen and needs to repent and confess their sins. What Fr. Martin has written will help no one who currently follow the homosexual lifestyle to repent. He ends up preaching Christ without the Cross and does a disservice to those suffering. I wonder if he has ever been to a Courage meeting and if he would describe those attending as leading a lonely, loveless, secretive life? One of the priests of my parish runs the local Courage apostolate and he is doing more for our brothers and sisters in Christ than anybody who makes excuses for sin.

I don't write this as an attack on Fr. Martin, I am a fan of his book "My Life with the Saints" and some of what he has written. But of course he identified himself in the progressive camp in the New York Times and this bit of homosexual agitprop just further shows this.

There is also the story of the former "gay" youth leader with a dramatic conversion story. When he announced this two years ago there was such a negative outcry from those he knew that he went silent for two years. Yes the irony was that they wanted him to return to the closet about this.

Since then he says he has "relied on God, and God alone." "I have enjoyed living a relatively 'normal' life," he said. "I go to church. I've dated girls. And, I continue to understand the ramifications of the homosexual sin in increasingly deep ways, as I encounter others in the grip of this sin, learn more about human nature, and watch my own experiences - comparing them to the way I might've responded or acted in certain situations just a few years ago."