Punditry

Teresa Benedetta has translated what the Pope recently said on Monday

Since faith in the Creator is an essential part of the Christian Creed, the Church cannot and should not limit itself to transmitting to its faithful only the message of salvation. She has a responsibility for Creation, and it should validate this responsibility in public.

In so doing, it should defend not just the earth, water and air as gifts of Creation that belong to everyone. She should also protect man from destroying himself.

It is necessary to have something like an ecology of man, understood in the right sense. It is not outdated metaphysics when the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman, and asks that this natural order be respected.

This has to do with faith in the Creator and listening to the language of creation, which, if disregarded, would be man’s self-destruction and therefore a destruction of God’s work itself.

That which has come to be expressed and understood with the term ‘gender’ effectively results in man’s self-emancipation from Creation (nature) and from the Creator. Man wants to do everything by himself and to decide always and exclusively about anything that concerns him personally. But this is to live against truth, to live against the Spirit Creator.

The tropical rain forests deserve our protection, yes, but man does not deserve it less as a Creature of the Spirit himself, in whom is inscribed a message that does not mean a contradiction of human freedom but its condition.

The great theologians of Scholasticism described matrimony – which is the lifelong bond between a man and a woman – as a sacrament of Creation, that the Creator himself instituted, and that Christ, without changing the message of Creation, welcomed in the story of his alliance with men.

Part of the announcement that the Church should bring to men is a testimonial for the Spirit Creator present in all of nature, but specially in the nature of man, who was created in the image of God.

One must reread the encyclical Humanae vitae with this perspective: the intention of Pope Paul VI was to defend love against consumer sex, the future against the exclusive claim of the moment, and human nature against manipulation.

And then Reuters and other news agencies translated his speech into something quite different.

VATICAN CITY, Dec. 22 (Reuters) – Pope Benedict said on Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behavior was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.

“(The Church) should also protect man from the destruction of himself. A sort of ecology of man is needed,” the Pontiff said in a holiday address to the Curia, the Vatican’s central administration. [The Pope clearly says saving man ‘from the destruction of himself’, not from gays, nor saving ‘gays’ or homosexuals, or any other way of parsing his statement uncharitably and erroneously.]

“The tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less.”

The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. It opposes gay marriage and, in October, a leading Vatican official called homosexuality “a deviation, an irregularity, a wound.”

The Pope said humanity needed to “listen to the language of creation” to understand the intended roles of man and woman. He compared behavior beyond traditional heterosexual relations as “a destruction of God’s work.”

He also defended the Church’s right to “speak of human nature as man and woman, and ask that this order of creation be respected.”

Got that. Defending marriage most beatifically is an attack on people who have same-sex attraction or gender confusion. The media has the charism of infallibility when it comes to reporting what the Pope did not say.

I can just imagine the typical reporter reading what the Pope said. First they would come across the comparison using ecology and think “darn, no headline there” and then come to the part on “between a man and a women” and the pink triangle alarm bells went off with them shouting “stop the presses!” or whatever term is used today.

A reader sent me a link to this article.

Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton has suggested it is not a good idea to go to Confession regularly.

The bishop made the comment in a frank interview with The Catholic Herald in which he defended “green” youth liturgies and said Humanae Vitae, the encyclical that forbade married couples from using contraception, “could be” wrong because it was not infallible teaching.

Doesn’t it just warm your hearts to know that there are bishops who doesn’t know the difference between the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Magisterium? Hey the Church has never made an infallible definition on infanticide, racism, or genocide so your thinking that these are immoral “might be” wrong.

When asked if he thought regular Confession was a good idea, the bishop said: “No, because my own experience when we had Confession every day at St Chad’s Cathedral in Birmingham was that regular penitents came back with exactly the same words week after week. So there you would say, actually, there is no conversion taking place.”

Concerning the grace you receive in sacramental confession – fuggetaboutit! If you are not instantly cured from habitual sin there is no reason to keep trying. We should be able to give a good confession, receive absolution, and then be canonized! Otherwise no conversion is taking place and we should just give up if we have the same laundry list of sins from week to week.

Now we certainly require the proper disposition to more fully receive the fruits of the sacrament of confession. That certainly even with frequent reception of this sacrament that we can block grace and being complacent by not really preparing ourselves for grace and acting on the grace given.

I do find it odd that those who seem to have a problem with frequent reception of the Sacrament of Reconciliation at the same time don’t seem to have a problem with everyone going to Communion. The Eucharist is a power hose of the sacraments and since the world isn’t brimming with saints I guess “no conversion” is taking place and we should stop having frequent reception of the Eucharist by this logic.

I also noticed he mentioning of using to have daily confession. I guess there like so many places in the world now that I guess people are not sinning anymore and so don’t need more access to the sacrament.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church encourages regular Confession but says that Catholics are only required to confess once a year.

Bishop Conry also suggested that there should be a greater emphasis on charity rather than on contraception.

“The birth control issue becomes easy because it’s measurable. You do it or you don’t do it. But love: you do it or you don’t do it, how can you measure that? We fight the easy battles but we ignore the bigger ones,” he said.

How about both/and here and beside contraception is not opposed to charity. It is a lack of charity that leads to contraception in the first place. The view that a potential child is a nuisance is about as uncharitable as they come. Being open to the gift of children is both charitable and an act of responding to God’s will. And as for “a greater emphasis on charity rather than on contraception” – it would be hard to have a lesser emphasis on something than contraception from the pulpit. Contraception has become the Lord Voldemort of sins. “The-Sin-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named.”

But Bishop Conry criticised environmentalists who attacked the Church’s teaching on contraception.
He said: “You get people like George Monbiot saying: ‘If the Pope changes his position tomorrow, the world would be rid of the scourge of Aids.’ He’s talking nonsense.”

Exactly right.

On the traditional Latin Mass the bishop said he thought it was “a bit over the top” but that he had never tried to restrict it in any way.

He said that traditionalists in England and Wales were “a small group of very vocal people” and that Summorum Pontificum, which allowed priests to celebrate the traditional Mass without the permission of a bishop, did not introduce “significant change”.

Bishop Conry, who is supervising youth ministry after the closure of Catholic Youth Services, also said the Church had to speak to young people in their own language.

He argued that talking about faith in the context of climate change was likely to be more effective than addressing salvation or repentance.

“You can’t talk to young people about salvation,” he said. “What does salvation mean? My eternal soul? You can only talk to young people in young people’s language. If you’re going to talk to them about salvation, the first thing they will understand is saving the planet.”

Yeah young people can’t handle the Gospel. This is exactly the type of thinking that has worked so well in the last 40 years! 40 years of catechetical desert. Sure as St. Paul said we have to be fed milk first, but milk is substantive and you are nourished by it. Preaching the Gospel in the context of climate change is one of the sillier statements I have run across. What exactly is the context? That saving your soul is related to saving the planet? Call me a soulamentalist, but I believe saving your soul is the most important thing, While being a good steward of the environment is being thankful to God for his creation I don’t think climate change hysteria (the new Millenialists) is the proper context for teaching Christ crucified. Pope Benedict has talked about using the context of ecology to explain how respecting the inherent laws of creation as a way of what is seeing what is good or bad. On the occasion he made these remarks on teaching young people he first started with a philosophical explanation of conscience and natural law. We can certainly pull examples from the world around us to explain the moral law and our need for redemption, but we must explain the moral law. Young people deserve the respect to be talked to seriously and not talked down to.

American Papist reminds us of this story:

Last July, 15 nuns from a schismatic convent in Washington state rejoined the Catholic Church. They left the motherhouse of the Religious Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen (CMRI), located on the outskirts of Spokane, to form a new congregation: the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Church. They formally renounced their state of schism, made a profession of the Catholic faith, became a private association of the faithful under the care of Spokane Bishop William Skylstad, and recognized the legitimacy of the popes from Paul VI through Benedict XVI.

Their former order, which still has approximately 35 sisters, holds to the sedevacantist position that popes elected since John XXIII are invalid and that Vatican II was a heretical council.

Which brings us to another story

he nuns’ Dec. 12 letter says the Vatican’s action “has diminished our Church.” They believe that “excommunications depend not on edicts or laws, but on compliance” by the faithful. If the faithful do not exclude or shun someone from the community, they are not excommunicated. The letter asserts that Bourgeois is not outside the community because they “embrace him wholeheartedly.” The letter was organized by the National Coalition of American Nuns (NCAN).

“In the first century, Christians resolved their disagreements about following traditions such as circumcision and kosher dietary laws by dialogue and discussion,” said Sister Beth Rindler, speaking for NCAN. “We need to follow their example by promoting public discussion about the ordination of women,” the Franciscan Sister said.

“We hope the excommunication is not issued,” said Dominican Sister Donna Quinn, one of the coordinators of NCAN. “The medieval punishment of excommunication serves only to embarrass our Church in the eyes of the world and fuels further anger and resentment among the U.S. faithful.”

“Many of the signers have served the Church for more than 40 or 50 years. Many are prominent leaders in their fields,” said Loretto Sister Jeannine Gramick, another NCAN coordinator. She pointed to Mercy Sister Theresa Kane, who made worldwide headlines when she asked Pope John Paul II to open all ministries to women on the occasion of his first visit to the U.S in 1979, and Dominican Sister Carol Coston, who founded Network, a Catholic social justice lobby. She also noted the signatures of Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister, a prolific writer in the field of spirituality, Notre Dame Sister Ivone Gebara, a noted Brazilian feminist theologian, and Loretto Sister Maureen Fiedler, host of the public radio show Interfaith Voices.’

Of course Jeannine Gramick was previously restricted by the Vatican pastoral work with lesbian and gay persons and then changed to a different religious order that was more open to disobedience to continue her outreach to confirm people into sin. The only surprising thing from NCAN is that they only had a hundred signatures.

“”The medieval punishment of excommunication serves only to embarrass our Church” shows they understand the issue of excommunication as thoroughly as the issue of women’s ordination – that is not at all. Excommunication is certainly no medieval punishment, but a ecclesial remedy to help focus someone on repentance that has been used since the beginning of the Church. The idea of excommunication is certainly rooted in the steps Jesus tells us to take when we need to rebuke a sinner that ends with “if he refuses to listen even to the Church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. ”

“If the faithful do not exclude or shun someone from the community, they are not excommunicated.” Yeah that would really have worked during the Arian or other heresies in the Church. There is always some community willing to embrace a heretic. Besises excommunication is not shunning in any way. Excommunicatin as a censure that affects the person’s right to receive the sacraments and has nothing to do with removing someone from the Church.

As you would expect we once again get the constant call to dialogue as if this issue can never be settled unless they get their way. Get with Vatican II sisters which restated in Lunem Gentium.

This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.

Or as Pius XII said in Humani Generis:

But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians.

Disobedience to the magisterium of the Church will never be a path to holiness, but a path that can lead straight South. Disobedience to the Church is disobedience to Christ no matter how prophetic you say you are.

I do think these stories make a nice contrast. One group gave up the belief that there was no pope, NCAN needs to give up the belief that they are the pope.

In other news Sister Carol Keehan, the president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association issued a statement praising Obama’s pick of Sen. Tom Daschle for Secretary of Health and Human Services. Yes the same Tom Dashle who was once pro-life who voted for cloning, ESCR, and abortion in almost every case (except for partial birth abortion). Looking at what she has written in the past no doubt she fully approves of Dashle’s vision of socialize health care and so what if he supports killing the innocent? You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet and you have to support child killing politicians to get socialized health care. Though to be fair she has written in the past “Our ethical standards in health care flow from the Catholic Church’s teachings about the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death.” Too bad Catholic Tom Daschle does not believe the same.

NAPLES — President-elect Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, are appearing in Italian nativity scenes this year, alongside the baby Jesus and wise men, according to Naples craftsmen selling figurines in the run-up to Christmas.[article]

Well I guess we should be happy they are not replacing Jesus with the Obama child in swaddling clothes. Surprised they at least didn’t have him down as one of the wiseman. Surely his pal Gov. Blagojevich could sell a wise man seat to him. Obama would be better cast as King Herod the Great with the murder of the innocents.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was almost grounded at Murrayville Elementary School this week after a parent complained about the classic Christmas song’s inclusion in her daughter’s upcoming kindergarten concert.

The objecting parent was upset about the words “Christmas” and “Santa” in the song, feeling that they carried religious overtones.

That prompted the song to be pulled from the upcoming holiday concert, which in turn upset more parents.

…”They have clearly decided that any other religion or custom is not important,” the objecting parent said after learning about the reversal on “Rudolph.” She asked that her name not be published, to shield her daughter’s identity.

The mother, who is Jewish, said she was trying to have a Hanukkah song added to the musical lineup but had not received a return phone call about it from school officials by mid-afternoon Friday. [article]

We seem to get these stories more and more every year. Multiculturalism and tolerance only leads to thin skins and perceived offenses found everywhere. Finding offense though in a song developed for Montgomery Ward only proves how silly this trend has become.

It is also rather sad that the most religious song they had for Christmas was Rudolf in the first place. We have turned into a culture looking for slights at every opportunity. Survival of the whinniest. There are certainly things in the culture to be offended at, but demanding a Hanukkah song to balance a song about a reindeer with a luminous birth defect is just plain dumb. Though what is even more dumb in those in the schools that accede to such requests instead of laughing them off. The idea of some kind of quota for a concert is also wrong. I would have no problem with including a Hanukkah song, but it shouldn’t be done in this PC mindset. Will school concerts have to also include songs on primordial ooze to satisfy atheist parents?

When I was an atheist singing in a choir I had no problem singing religious hymns even if they were predominantly Christian with some Jewish ones. I loved the songs that were musically solid songs. The modern atheist seems to be a weaker atheist. The new atheist go around demanding that they never have to hear of religion and demand pathetic little signs wherever there is a public nativity. Though I would also have a problem with those who remove those atheist’s signs. Though maybe their signs evolve and develop legs and walk of by themselves. Atheist signs on a bus don’t disturb me and signs of religion shouldn’t disturb them.

As dumb as public schools are in their decisions we get stories like this.

Enduring favourites such as Hark the Herald Angels Sing and God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen are being altered by clergy to make them more “modern and inclusive”.

But churchgoers say there is no need to change the popular carols and complain that the result is a “festive car crash” if not everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.

It comes just a day after a Church of England vicar banned his congregation from singing O Little Town of Bethlehem because he believed its words do not reflect the suffering endured by modern residents of Jesus’s birthplace.

Another clergyman has rewritten the Twelve Days of Christmas to include Aids victims, drug addicts and hoodies.

Among the “theologically-modified, politically-corrected” carols encountered by visitors to the website are Hark the Herald Angels Sing in which the line “Glory to the newborn King” has been replaced by “Glory to the Christ child, bring”.

The well-known refrain of O Come All Ye Faithful – “O come let us adore Him” – has also been changed in one church to “O come in adoration”, both changes apparently made for fear the original was sexist.

“[One reader] wrote in asking if the original line was considered too gender-specific,” Mr Goddard said. “But as he rightly pointed out, Jesus wasn’t hermaphrodite, neither was he a girl.”

Churchgoers at one carol service will not be allowed to sing the words “all in white” during Once in Royal David’s City in case they appear racist, while another cleric has removed the word “virgin” from God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen. [article]

Political correctness does the opposite of bringing people together. A forced conformity that is not conformity at all. Whether it is religion or gender we have created a society of people looking for an offense to be upset about.

A school choir was forced to withdraw from a Christmas event because organisers branded its carols ‘too religious’.
Around 60 children aged between seven and 11 had spent six weeks practising favourites including Once In Royal David’s City and Silent Night for the Corringham Winter Festival.
But they were let down at the last minute when their headteacher was informed their programme did not ‘dovetail’ with the festival’s theme. [article]

How dare they use a religious reference like “dove” which can refer to the Holy Spirit! We need to go back to the French Enlightenment which renamed the days of the week and increased the number of them to avoid Sunday as a day of rest. In fact the word Festival which they are using is from the Latin Festivus (predates Seinfeld) referring to Feast which has historical Catholic overtones. Come on if they are going to wipe every religious significance they need to do a much better job. They need to have Spring, Summer, and Fall occasions also and not just celebrations of Winter which give a seasonal bias and seasonal exceptionalism and still point to the event they are trying to erase.

The culture is trying to bring about a case of cultural amnesia where celebrating the birth of Christ must be replaced by some vague amorphous feeling where for some unknown reason we are suppose to have nice comfy thoughts tied to a season of the year. We are to be given our pottage and we are to enjoy it! So what if the modern thought is a deprivation compared to what went before it. That the coming of Christ which was the biggest thing that ever happened is to be replaced in the name of multiculturalism that is to contain any culture but a Christian derived one. As G.K. Chesterton said “Paganism was the largest thing in the world and Christianity was larger; and everything else has been comparatively small.” I say secularism is one of the smallest things in the world and it makes us smaller when we embrace it.

Tony Blair (pictured) has now teamed up with one of Canada’s best-known pro-abortion figures. Belinda Stronach (also pictured), a prominent businesswoman and former MP, has joined her foundation with Mr Blair’s Faith Foundation in order to promote the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The British government under Tony Blair interpreted the MDGs as including a universal right to abortion on demand. When an MP, Belinda Stronach said that women’s groups should only receive government funding if they are pro-abortion. The Blair-Stronach partnership will also promote the Faith Acts Fellowship, which the Tony Blair Faith Foundation runs in partnership with the InterFaith Youth Core. The InterFaith Youth Core is bankrolled by major pro-abortion foundations.

How much more evidence do religious leaders need about the close-knit ties of Mr & Mrs Blair to the culture of death before they realise they must act to block the Blairs’ infiltration of faith communities? [source]

No surprises here for this recent Catholic “convert”.

On today’s Laura Ingraham show she interviewed Newsweek Religion Editor Lisa Miller about her recent article making the religious case for homosexual marriage. Miller’s defense was quite laughable. At one point when asked by Laura Ingraham about St. Paul’s references to homosexuality, Lisa Miller replied that the same scripture also condemned drunkenness, adultery, and divorce.

Now I thought that was a rather odd reply, especially when she said drunks can get married (though they might actually be psychological impaired to be able to actually give consent). Laura Ingraham pressed her on drunkenness, adultery, and divorce and weren’t they all bad things? The answer was lots of people get divorced. With that kind of logic we might as well get rid of laws since lots of people break them.

Now this might seem an incoherent argument, but this understanding has natural consequences. It is really only the Catholic Church that defends marriage and properly sees what marriage actually is. Protestant denominations for the most part have quite accepted divorce in a way reminiscent of Moses who allowed it because of their “hardness of heart” as Jesus said. We really should be having state constitutional changes on banning no fault divorce which is one of the most destructive things in human history. With rampant fornication, adultery, divorce and “remarriage” in a hook-up culture we can’t be surprised that the definition of marriage has fallen on hard times. The sacred character of marriage is that it is an indissoluble union. A a mutual giving of two persons, and the good of the children demands total fidelity. Turn on the TV or look at the culture and it would be really hard to extrapolate the meaning of marriage.

With the culture having such an improper understanding of marriage it is no wonder that so many can see no problem with same-sex marriage. Contraception and abortion are making heterosexual sex just as sterile as homosexual sex. When children as one of the two purposes of marriage are excluded it is easy to see how same-sex marriage can seem valid. Sex gets reduced to just mutual pleasure with no meaning beyond gratification.

The natural law can certainly lead us to an understanding of the two aims of marriage. Though the Newsweek article said it was making the “religious” case for it. Though actually they were making a progressive Christian argument for it since they did not address other religions or in fact provide arguments from those opposed to their conclusion. They were using scripture from both Testaments, yet somehow never got around the commandment to be fruitful which is impossible with same-sex sexual acts. No doubt homosexual apologists will point to heterosexual couples who are sterile, but this misses the fact that in their case something biological is not working properly. It is a defect which in some cases can be remedied. Whereas homosexual acts can never lead to children by its very nature.

There are so many things I love about the Catholic Church, and one of them is the consistency of her teachings. She can condemn homosexually, contraception, IVF, divorce, masturbation, fornication, etc; based on the actual meaning of marriage as taught by Jesus. Sex within marriage is the only valid context for sex and the sexual act must never be formally separated from the possibility of procreation. The last sentence provides the basis for all of the Church’s teaching on human sexuality. When you separate sex from procreation (or vice versa) and/or allow sex outside of marriage all of the other errors necessarily follow.

Lisa Miller also referenced during the interview Psalm 139 which she called a “beautiful psalm” as evidence for support of homosexuality. This was from the reference to Fr. James Martin, S.J. she made in the original article. Fr. Martin commented on my blog about this reference. Though his comment was actually a reply to something Diogenes asked about whether he thought Jesus was still alive and clarified by saying Jesus if he was walking the Earth in physical form “would likewise reach out to the marginalized today, a group that would include gays and lesbians.” Jesus reaches out to all of us and part of that reaching out is calling us to repentance and saying “Go and sin no more.” Though I would add part of that marginalized group would be those who defend the Church teaching on sexual ethics. It is much more likely that someone objecting to homosexuality will be persecuted and even sued than someone with same-sex attraction. We can easily look to the Proposition 8 witch hunt being used against those who supported it in California as am example.

I would like to see some further clarification from Fr. Martin. Father linked to the Newsweek article on the America Magazine blog and gave no caveats as to what was quoted of him. My simple questions is does he believe that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered as the Church has always taught? For the most part I really enjoyed his book “Life with the Saints” and some of the articles he has written, it just annoys me when someone seems to skirt an issue instead of providing clarity.

Fr. Philip Powell, OP has the same reaction that I did to the Newsweek story.

“The question I would love to ask the writer is: if your thesis is true, why in 5,000 years of Judeo-Christian religious history has there never been a single instance of a same-sex ‘marriage’ being celebrated as exemplary for Christians and Jews? You would think that if scripture is pressing the point that love and fidelity are more important that the sex of the couple, then one very powerful way of showing this would be to give us an example of a loving, faithful same-sex marriage. Yet, none exist. And we must be careful not to confuse same-sex friendships (Jonathan and David) with sexually active, religiously recognized, sacramental marriages celebrated in the Bible.”

He makes the point I was trying to make much better. While negative evidence doesn’t provide much of a proof, the total lack of reference to something that is suppose to be part of God’s will for human sexuality is rather odd. I guess in their view that God being the author of scripture needs an editor since he managed to leave out and positive reference to something normative.

Diogenes references another part of the article:

My friend the priest James Martin says his favorite Scripture relating to the question of homosexuality is Psalm 139, a song that praises the beauty and imperfection in all of us and that glorifies God’s knowledge of our most secret selves: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” And then he adds that in his heart he believes that if Jesus were alive today, he would reach out especially to the gays and lesbians among us, for “Jesus does not want people to be lonely and sad.” Let the priest’s prayer be our own.

And then replies:

“If Jesus were alive today …” The blunder invites the obvious response: Has Jesus died AGAIN? Why weren’t we told?

Miller does not put those words in quotation marks, and it’s a reasonable conjecture that they represent her own obtuseness rather than Fr. Martin’s. But there’s an important doctrinal point to be made. Jesus IS alive, and he speaks to us, today, through his Vicar, the successor of Peter. Such is the conviction of Catholics. And that Vicar has made it radiantly clear that sodomy is contrary to God’s will and that marriage is effected between, and only between, a man and a woman.

I would be interested to know if Fr. Martin feels that what was quoted is an accurate assessment of what he said. Diogenes makes some excellent points that Jesus is alive and acts through the Church. The Church is reaching out to those who suffer with same-sex attraction. Groups like Courage help those with same-sex attraction lead lives of holiness and to be chaste as we are all called to be chaste. But too many people equate reaching out with rubber-stamping approval of homosexual acts. Calling someone to repentance is a spiritual act of mercy and they do no favors by going along with the culture and denying that homosexual acts are sinful.

If someone actually did try to use Psalm 139 to relate to as a defense for homosexuality then if it proves anything it proves too much. You can just as well say those with a wandering eye and who commit lust in their hearts or even pursue their lusts are also wonderfully made. That all of us sinners are wonderfully made. We are truly “beautifully made” yet through the sin of Adam, sin came into the world. We all suffer with the concupiscence of the heart and can choose sin despite being made in the image and likeness of God. The Blessed Virgin Mary was Immaculately Conceived and as Fr. Pacwa jokingly points out “God doesn’t make that model anymore.”

When Newsweek does scriptural exegesis you know it is going to be a laugh riot. This time it is to lambaste religious conservatives for using scripture to defend marriage.

You can just about guess the approach they will take. Yes they went the polygamy route. As if the Old Testament had glowing support of polygamy, when in actuality scripture showed how it always lead to problems. Yes the stories of Jacob’s wives and how Solomon’s wives lead him to sin are endorsement of a scriptural view of polygamy.

They even go on to say that Jesus never defined marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Matthew 19:3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?" He answered, "Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, `For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." They said to him, "Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?" He said to them, "For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery." The disciples said to him, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry."

I guess referring to Adam and Eve as the original intent of marriage is too hard to grasp or that male and female are always the related terms. Funny how in all of salvation history there are zero examples of homosexual relationships portrayed positively. Rather strange if homosexual acts are part of God’s plan.

But Sola Scriptura used by secular reporters will go just as stray as when used by Protestants. They can cherry pick verses or just give different interpretations to verses harder to ignore and say such nonsense as:

… condemnation of men who "were inflamed with lust for one another" (which he calls "a perversion") is really a critique of the worst kind of wickedness: self-delusion, violence, promiscuity and debauchery.

This from a person they call a "progressive theologian." Of course a progressive theologian is one that explains away scripture instead of explaining it.

Though the whole article with their use of scripture and quoting only those who agree with their premise means zero to Catholics anyway. It is scripture and apostolic tradition as interpreted by the magisterium that is the key to Catholics anyway, or at least for Catholics that understand the nature of the Church. Opposition to homosexual acts and same-sex marriage is something that can be learned from the natural law without resorting to scripture.

But this type of article from Newsweek Religion Editor Lisa Miller is nothing new, just more of the same.