{"id":14264,"date":"2013-07-08T18:44:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-08T22:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/?p=14264"},"modified":"2013-07-08T18:44:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-08T22:44:40","slug":"i-want-to-go-to-a-catholic-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2013\/07\/i-want-to-go-to-a-catholic-church\/","title":{"rendered":"I want to go to a Catholic Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>On Wednesday, June 27, the United States Supreme Court handed down two decisions\u2014on Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Amendment \u2013that eviscerated legal marriage in the United States. The following Sunday thus offered Catholic priests a matchless opportunity to articulate the Church\u2019s definition of what marriage is, and what it is not. Indeed, since the decisions had such civilizational import, such articulation was less an opportunity than an absolute obligation.<\/p>\n<p>One priest did choose to address the issue. At San Francisco\u2019s St. Ignatius Church, the 9:30 AM Mass on Sunday, June 30 was celebrated by the church\u2019s pastor, Fr. Gregory R. Bonfiglio, SJ. But rather than presenting Church teaching to his audience, rather than, for instance, stating the simple truth that properly ordered sexuality leads to the creation of new life, while sodomitical relations lead, as San Franciscans know all too well, to physical death and to spiritual death, Fr. Bonfiglio chose to read a letter written by Fr. John D. Whitney, SJ, of St. Joseph\u2019s Church in Seattle. In the letter, which is titled \u201cWhy Am I In The Parade?\u201d and which runs to 1,098 words, Fr. Whitney justified his presence in Seattle\u2019s \u201cGay Pride\u201d parade. The letter was published in St. Joseph\u2019s June 23, 2013 parish bulletin. Given the content of the letter (Fr. Whitney absurdly equated Church teaching on homosexuality with Old Testament dietary restrictions, and ignorantly repeats the long-debunked assertion that the word \u201cfaggot\u201d derives from \u201cfaggots\u201d of wood), and the timing of Fr. Bonfiglio\u2019s homily, the Sunday immediately after the legalization of counterfeit \u201cmarriage,\u201d the homily can be seen as nothing less than support of homosexual \u201cmarriage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During Fr. Bonfiglio\u2019s reading of the letter, the Church was eerily quiet. At least one parishioner was seen leaving the church in tears. When queried she said \u201cIt\u2019s not his church! It\u2019s the Catholic church! I should be able to just go to Church! I want to go to a Catholic Church!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Via the <a href=\"http:\/\/cal-catholic.com\/wordpress\/2013\/07\/01\/gay-pride-sunday-parishioner-in-tears\/\">California Catholic Daily<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/johnmalloysdb.blogspot.com\/2013\/07\/following-prop-8-decision-st-ignatius.html\">A Shepherd\u2019s Voice<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This is a such a sad lament. Unfortunately not that rare of a lament.<\/p>\n<p>That it is in support of so-called \u201cgay pride\u201d also reflects that such a homily is also driven totally by pride. The arrogance of pride where the revisionist decides what is Church teaching and takes it on themselves to correct the Church.<\/p>\n<p>A rejection of the teaching authority of the Church the Magisterium. Instead we get the \u201cMe-gisterium\u201d and the effect common in Protestantism to decide on your own apart from any authority. You would think that those who exercise the office of the \u201cMe-gisterium\u201d would realize the individualist relativism this implies. That is you might think this if you had not observed reality and that those who dissent from the Church are very upset if you dissent from them. The vanity of the \u201cMe-gisterium\u201d is that they are prophetic and are correcting the Church. They consider themselves brave to be going with the secular flow, despite the fact that the true prophets always went against it. &lt;insert mandatory quote from Chesterton \u201cA dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.\u201d &gt; For the members of the \u201cMe-gisterium\u201d repentance is not really required, but it is the hierarchy of the Church that needs to repent. Sola Scriptura the error of Protestants has been one-upped by the revisionists and reduced to just \u201cSola\u201d &#8211; oneself. When appeals to Sacred Tradition or Sacred Scripture are made they are not to explain, but to explain away. Whether the topic is homosexual acts, abortion, contraception, women\u2019s ordination \u2013 it all has the common root of an arrogance filled pride.<\/p>\n<p>Want to learn what the Church teaches? Well don\u2019t pick up a Catechism but instead listen to a self-appointed member of the \u201cMe-gisterium.\u201d Yeah that\u2019s the ticket &#8211; or at least a toll pass on that infamous highway to warmer climes.<\/p>\n<p>Still the lament of this women tears at me:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cIt\u2019s not his church! It\u2019s the Catholic church! I should be able to just go to Church! I want to go to a Catholic Church!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>May the revisionists and members of the \u201cMe-gisterium\u201d hear her cry and the call to repentance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Wednesday, June 27, the United States Supreme Court handed down two decisions\u2014on Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Amendment \u2013that eviscerated legal marriage in the United States. The&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-punditry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14265,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14264\/revisions\/14265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}