Another Catholic Voice in the Public Square – January 2018 edition

Veritas Splendor was St. John Paul’s attempt to rescue the conservative doctrines of Bl. Paul IX and Saint Pius X from irrelevance.  It is true that we don’t create truth, however every generation creates its understanding of truth in the language of the time.  Truth is certainly not preserved for all time just because a Roman Pontiff in history does not like how doctrine continues to develop. 

One area where both Popes Pius endeavored to stop the march of understanding was the Eden myth.  There are those who claim that Darwin’s Origin of the Species cannot be true because it requires that we change how we understand the Eden story, which was not taught to Abraham as family history or proclaimed by God to Moses but adapted from the Sumeric Myth (which had multiple gods, each defeating the god before in the seven days of creation). The Church’s current response is to say that the Eden story happened to our first homo sapiens parents, whomever they were.  This attempt is probably the lamest thing to come out of Rome since 1950. 

The Declaration of Independence was based on natural rights in the Deistic/Enlightenment sense, not a Romanist Natural Law Sense.  Any attempt to introduce the latter is pure fiction and an abominable lie.

The Eden story is not about disobedience, as St.  Augustine taught.  It was,  and is, a story of blame.  The serpent convinced Eve to blame God for not letting her know the sins of others (the knowledge of their evil that would make them like gods). Adam then blamed Eve for giving him the apple and Eve blamed the serpent.  The Crucifixion of our Lord is operative not because it satisfies an act of disobedience but because God feels the emptiness of human sin and blame and replaces it with empathy and forgiveness. Our salvation is realizing that God took on being us because we could not take on being Him.

Sadly, the popes have not had the courage to take on a new paradigm for either Eden or Calvary, but it must happen because it is a true discovery.

Human complementariness comes as part of nature. Homosexuality is also found there, so referring to creation myths in an evolutionary world is simply adding story to a search for truth.  The Male and Female passage is fine for heterosexual weddings and to argue for a much larger child tax credit, say one that matches what the USDA says is required to raise a child, or $1000 per month with pay.  Anyone who says that parents must take responsibility for paying to raise their children without support should be drummed out of the Pro-Life movement. Now that would require courage from the Voice of Truth.

Gay weddings could also continue the promise of being open to raising children.  Indeed, many gays and lesbians entering gay marital unions already have children from marriages that were a lie because they were based on giving the other a sexuality they did not have.  Gay couples and individuals often have the burden of raising children, or potentially do, as tragedy requires them to raise the children of family members or love has them seek adoption. (It is Calumny to assume they would be abuse parents, by the way). For lesbians, there is even a scientific way to become a mother (one or both partners), regardless of the fears of the CDF in Dignitas Personae that such actions are unnatural and even elitist (which they are not if everyone has the same health care).  To say that this is not true is an insult to step-parents and adoptive parents everywhere.  May St. Joseph forgive you.

The fashionable thing among Catholic reactionaries is to repeat what then-Cardinal Ratzinger said about homosexuality being against the natural order.  He said that because if homosexuals were differently ordered, there would be no justification for not celebrating gay weddings in the Catholic Church, and in that time there was a movement going that way full speed ahead.  Of course, his Natural Order is a sophistry created as a sin eater to absorb the guilt or even the harmful effects of sin because God, it His perfection, cannot be harmed by anything.  There is no natural order, there are individual acts which hurt or do not hurt individual people, alone or in groups. 

Ratzinger’s conception ignores two sets of facts, one, that homosexuals have unique biology, from their affectations to the size of the hypothalamus to the discovery that an epigenetic event may occur in the first trimester of pregnancy that produces homosexuality in men.  The other facts can be gathered by just asking gay people what made them gay or whether they always were? It will not take many conversations to discover that the latter is the case and that it is the height of pride and arrogance for us to tell them what they need to do for salvation when we will not believe them when they state this basic fact.  At a human level, the anti-gay movement is guilty of much bad and sinful behavior, but this instance is the worst of all.  Shame on you.

There are a great many teachings on sexual continence that apply as equally to gay and straight people. Appetites should be restrained. Fornication should be avoided, both not because they offend God, or even because they offend others, but because they harm the self. Individuals know whether pre-marital cohabitation and sex are common law trial marriage or promiscuity.  Indeed, they have a better handle on this than more conservative Catholics and an asexual clergy with its own set of attachment disorders (who should no longer be the last word in Catholic sexuality). 

If we are serious about helping gays with promiscuity, we will make the Sacrament of Matrimony publicly available to them as society has (and as some priests probably have or will in private).  Marriage is a joining of families and the opposition to gay Catholic Weddings deprives families of this opportunity to celebrate two people promising fidelity before God (the priest is but the witness), confident that they will function sexually with each other and raise and children sent their way. If that does not sound like a definition of sacramental marriage, consider retaking marriage preparation.

Worrying about the sexuality of others takes us back to the Eden myth and wanting to desire to know the evil done by others and judge it.  Don’t.  The relevant part of the Gospel is the procedure for Fraternal Correction.  It is invoked when someone harms YOU, not your sense of propriety, which is not based on love.

Abortion existed in great numbers before 1973.  Only economic means can stop it. Pray for conversion by pro-lifers that they may see that and abandon the worship of Mammon.

I doubt that only PPUSA sells research tissue.  I suspect most hospitals ask mothers to donate in the case of miscarriage as well.
Marylanders don’t select Democrats for abortion or gay marriage, but because we are the most aware voters on economic justice issues due to our educations in preparation for government service.  Using abortion as a wedge issue, especially Roe, is perpetuating the fraud that Roe can be overturned if we elect people like Donald Trump or George W. Bush president.  The reality is that both Bush appointees and one of his father’s voted against overturning Roe when they had a chance.

The race will be happy when we end the desire for the knowledge of Evil and let others live in peace.