Category Archives: Theology

Cardinal, Modesty, Temperance, Theology of the Body, Virtue

What Is the teaching of the Catholic Church on tattoos and body piercing?

clothed with strength and dignity

-www.cuf.org, Catholics United for Faith

“Tattoos and acts of body piercing are not intrinsically evil. The Church offers principles by which Catholics can discern whether it is sinful to be tattooed or have one’s body pierced in particular situations.


PALAISEAU, France (Reuters) – A schoolteacher, Sylvain Helaine, aka “Freaky Hoody” whose body, face and tongue are covered in tattoos and who has had the whites of his eyes surgically turned black.

WHAT SACRED SCRIPTURE HAS TO SAY

Some Protestant authors have argued that the Bible forbids tattoos and body piercing. They typically cite the following verse: “You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh on account of the dead or tattoo any marks upon you: I am the Lord” (Lev. 19:28).

References to this verse are not present in important magisterial documents and in the principal writings of the Fathers of the Church. It is the consensus of Catholic biblical commentators that this prohibition is not part of the unchanging moral law, but part of the ritual law specific to the Old Testament. Many commentators believe that this prohibition was intended to separate Israel from its Canaanite neighbors; some believe that the cuttings in the flesh and tattoo marks to which the verse refers were part of idolatrous Canaanite worship. The context of the verse favors this interpretation. The preceding verse reads, “You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard” (Lev. 19:27)—this prohibition is certainly not applied to members of the Church.

The Church does not teach that Sacred Scripture forbids tattooing and body piercing, but the Church does offer principles by which to discern whether, in particular situations, it is sinful to be tattooed or have one’s body pierced.

RESPECT FOR HEALTH & BODILY INTEGRITY

The Fifth Commandment—”You shall not kill”—does not simply require respect for human life; it also compels Christians to respect the dignity of persons and to safeguard peace (see The Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 2258-2330). Respect for the dignity of persons includes, among other things, respect for the souls of others, for their health, and for their bodily integrity.

“Life and physical health,” the Church teaches, “are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good” (Catechism, no. 2288). Prudence dictates that persons considering tattoos or body piercing research any health risks that may be involved. If a particular act of tattooing or body piercing entails a likely risk to health, it would be more or less sinful depending upon the gravity of the risk. If a particular act involves mutilation—if the act renders a bodily organ unable to perform its function—the act is immoral (Catechism, no. 2297).

CHARITY AND RESPECT FOR THE SOULS OF OTHERS

Catholics must also consider the common good when they decide whether to be tattooed or have their bodies pierced. In certain instances—for example, in indigenous cultures in which tattooing is a rite of passage to adulthood—the common good practically demands that a person be tattooed.1

In the United States and other Western countries, however, considerations of the common good generally lead one away from being tattooed or having one’s body parts2 pierced (as they are commonly regarded as socially unacceptable.)

The question of whether an act of tattooing or body piercing hinders a Catholic’s evangelizing mission leads to the broader question of whether such an act harms the souls of others. Tattoos whose words and images celebrate the demonic, are unchaste, or otherwise offend against charity are immoral.

Even if a tattoo’s words and images are not uncharitable in themselves, the act of obtaining a tattoo can be rendered immoral if done so with an evil intention—for example, in order to spite one’s parents or society (cf. Catechism, no. 1752).

Persons considering body piercing should also be aware of the implicit messages that the particular act of piercing conveys in a particular time and place. Some acts of body piercing can imply approval for the immoral homosexual lifestyle. Other acts of body piercing can imply active participation in, or a desire to participate in, other unchaste acts. In such cases, the acts of body piercing are immoral because they appear to manifest an approval of sin and thus scandalize others (cf. Catechism, no. 1868, 2284).

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

Persons considering getting tattoos or having their bodies pierced may want to reflect on the following questions:

    • Does this particular act of tattooing or body piercing involve a risk to my health?
    • Would this act mutilate me—that is, would it inhibit the proper functioning of my skin or another organ of my body?
    • Is the explicit message of my tattoo compatible with love of God and neighbor?
    • Is the implicit message of my tattoo compatible with love of God and neighbor? Does it convey an implicitly unchaste message?
    • Why do I want to get a tattoo or have my body pierced?
    • If I am under the authority of my parents, would this act be an act of disobedience that would violate the Fourth Commandment?
    • Would this particular act needlessly offend my family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues, and thus hinder my ability to lead others to Christ and His Church?
    • Can the expense involved be justified in light of the needs of my family, the Church, and the poor?

In most cultural contexts in the United States, a woman’s decision to have her ears pierced is compatible with respect for health and bodily integrity, charity, and respect for the souls of others. Other acts of piercing and tattooing are more open to question.

The criteria above can help one come to a prayerful and prudent decision in one’s particular circumstances.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Mutilation

(CCC 2297) “Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.”

Modesty

(CCC 2521) “Purity requires modesty, an integral part of temperance. Modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden. It is ordered to chastity to whose sensitivity it bears witness. It guides how one looks at others and behaves toward them in conformity with the dignity of persons and their solidarity.”

(CCC 2522) “Modesty protects the mystery of persons and their love… Modesty is decency. It inspires one’s choice of clothing. It keeps silence or reserve where there is evident risk of unhealthy curiosity. It is discreet.”

(CCC 2523) “There is a modesty of the feelings as well as of the body. It protests, for example, against the voyeuristic explorations of the human body in certain advertisements, or against the solicitations of certain media that go too far in the exhibition of intimate things. Modesty inspires a way of life which makes it possible to resist the allurements of fashion and the pressures of prevailing ideologies.”

(CCC 2297) “Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.”


-“Christ Crowned with Thorns”, Dirk Bouts, 1470, oil with egg tempera on canvas backed onto board, transferred from wood 43.8 × 37.1 cm, The National Gallery, London, UK, please click on the image for greater detail

God’s tattoos = His wounds for us.

Love,
Matthew

(n.b.  customized and summarized for a Twitter interlocuter specifically inquiring regarding strangely coloring one’s hair.

“(Strangely coloring one’s hair) is not intrinsically evil…The Fifth Commandment—”You shall not kill”—does not simply require respect for human life; it also compels Christians to respect the dignity of persons and to safeguard peace (see The Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 2258-2330). Respect for the dignity of persons includes, among other things, respect for the souls of others, for their health, and for their bodily integrity…Catholics must also consider the common good when they decide whether (to have strangely colored hair)…The question of whether an act of (strangely coloring one’s hair) hinders a Catholic’s evangelizing mission leads to the broader question of whether such an act harms the souls of others…or otherwise offend against charity are immoral…Even if (strangely coloring one’s hair) are not uncharitable in themselves, the act of (strangely coloring one’s hair) can be rendered immoral if done so with an evil intention—for example, in order to spite one’s parents or society (cf. Catechism, no. 1752)….Is the explicit message of (strangely coloring one’s hair) compatible with love of God and neighbor?…Is the implicit message of (strangely coloring one’s hair) compatible with love of God and neighbor?…If I am under the authority (let’s say parents, or others) would this act be an act of disobedience that would violate the Fourth Commandment?…Would this particular act needlessly offend my family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues, and thus hinder my ability to lead others to Christ and His Church?

Can the expense involved be justified in light of the needs of my family, the Church, and the poor?…In most cultural contexts in the United States, a woman’s decision to have her ears pierced is compatible with respect for health and bodily integrity, charity, and respect for the souls of others. Other acts (such as strangely coloring one’s hair) are more open to question.

The criteria above can help one come to a prayerful and prudent decision in one’s particular circumstances.”

“Another obvious way of committing scandal is by giving bad example, without necessarily intending to lead others into sin. This can include (strangely coloring one’s hair) This is what we mean by scandalous behavior. A person who dresses or behaves immodestly can be guilty of the sins of all those who look at them (and therefore be led to believe the customs of moderate society are therefore void, and can be flouted. Again, respect and charity for others).””

1 In People on the Move (December 2003, pp. 281-88),a publication of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, Fr. Mathias Bhuriya has written about the role of tattooing in the Adi-Vasi Bhalai nomadic Indian culture.

2 i.e., Obviously, not referring here to women’s pierced ears.

Modesty, Theology of the Body

Body Graffitti/Vandalism vs Christian Modesty

modesty

For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery (of sin) (Gal 5:1)

On Mother’s Day, honoring those women who gave us our bodies, the vehicles of our lives and our respective resurrections unto eternity, it seems appropriate to reflect on the miraculous gift of the body. Modesty makes beauty. Modest is hottest. Otherwise, what is there to look forward to, where is wonder, where is mystery, if all is thrust in your face, pushed up your nose immediately, or in a repulsive way?  Meaning to shock others can never be understood as an intentional polite first impression, nor for subsequent encounters. Dissing others, I thought, was to be avoided?  In the Christian mind, it is never about ourselves, whatever the matter.  It is always about others.  Immodesty is a form of rudeness, provocation.  It cannot be understood otherwise.  Immodesty is neither flattering to men nor to women, nor to God, nor if honestly answered, such rudeness is truly never desired by any of them.

from http://patrickmadrid.com/wpcontent/uploads/2011/10/bodyart.pdf

– by the Rev. Mr. Robert S. Lukosh, Deacon, Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon.

“Every day across the United States — indeed, throughout the world — men and women, boys and girls, get themselves tattooed and pierced. And not just their ears. They are participating in the modern fad of “body art,” which has its origins in antiquity, but which in recent decades as developed into some extreme forms1 that are often quite disturbing.

The intentional marking or mutilation of the human body under the guise of “body art” goes beyond simple tattoos or ear-piercing as adornment for women. For many, it is a personal expression of solidarity with a social cause, a trend that attracts predominately young people, driving them to ever wilder and more shocking expressions of what some term “personal mutilation” that includes: total-body tattoos, pierced eyelids, lips, noses, tongues, foreheads, and even disfigurement of the genitalia, in a never-ending quest for the most “outrageous” form of self-expression through what is commonly known as “body art.”

These forms of personal exhibition have spread rapidly throughout contemporary Western society, resulting in a secondary wave of participants… are disfiguring their own bodies irrevocably, claiming as their justification “personal freedom” and a right to unlimited self-expression.

In earlier generations, garish tattoos and unusual piercings were found almost exclusively only among members of social groups and subcultures that lurked at the fringes of mainstream society.  Look around today and you will see a massive number of people — especially young people — who have become enamored of extreme tattoos and unusual piercings. This modern fad of body art permeates American society, affecting virtually every industry, age group, race, sex, and religion. Since many of these people occupy leadership and mentoring roles in the lives of children and young adults, such overt displays have an additional rebound effect by providing tacit justification sufficient to overcome the doubts of those who are unsure if they want to dabble in the body art fad themselves, resulting in yet a third generation of pierced and tattooed bodies.

Although this increasing tendency to radically disfigure oneself seems, from a personal and subjective perspective, to be a willful distortion of what John Paul II calls in Veritatis Splendor2 the “truth about man as a creature and the image of God,” it is insufficient and unwise to let popular opinion alone determine the moral value of the modern phenomenon of “body art.”

To properly understand the moral character of extreme “body art” and recognize the implications it holds for Catholic family life and for society as a whole, it’s first necessary to explore the nature of the act in the eyes of its supporters. Then one can better evaluate it, based on Scripture and Tradition and the teachings of the Catholic Church.3

Assisted by Divine Revelation, the guidance of the Church established by Christ, and our own gift of reason, we are called by God to be public witnesses to the supreme truth about man and his vocation to holiness, which is rooted in the dignity of the human person. This witness, through the power of the Holy Spirit, has the ability to enlighten others so that they may formulate “judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the Creator” (CCC 1783), regarding complicated moral issues, such as body art. By consciously choosing, and encouraging others to choose, to exercise this genuine freedom as “an outstanding manifestation of the divine image in man,”4 men and women will find their true identity in Christ, “so that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28).

Jump off a bridge?

“But, people have always done it.” Among the first justifications cited by supporters of the body art movement is the appeal to historical evidence. The “people-have-always-done-it” argument does, of course, contain an element of truth. One need not search far amid the records of ancient civilizations to find ample evidence of a nearly universal acceptance of body adornment by paint, jewelry, and body modifications including piercing, stretching of the lips, neck, and ears, and, of course, tattoos.

These body art practices in ancient cultures often provides archaeologists and anthropologists with important clues distinguishing various social strata within a society. This is applicable today in the study of primitive societies still extant today in remote regions of the globe. In Art in Primitive Societies,5 Richard L. Anderson explains that, from cave dwellers to ancient Egyptians, the early Han people of China to Native Americans, a wide body of evidence exists showing that primitive humans consistently adorned themselves as part of their life in community.

“Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body & spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God.”-2 Cor. 7:1

Anderson writes that although scholars disagree as to the particular range of motives and meanings surrounding such primal body art (differing in their specifics from culture to culture), certain commonalities and trends can be discerned in the body art customs of primitive cultures.  Self-mutilation in antiquity was usually, though not always, practiced as an act of devotion to or repudiation of a god or elemental power (e.g., the sun). Another striking pattern revealed by anthropological research is that body art usually tends to be observed in primitive, not advanced, societies (whether in antiquity or today).

Anderson points out that even in modern times, those cultures actively participating on a wide scale in radical body art (e.g., self-mutilation) tend to be developmentally stagnant and isolated from the industrialized world.6 Anderson says that those peoples who have intentionally bridged the gap between ancient and modern customs and rituals often experience a certain “acculturation” on the economic, social, cultural, and artistic levels, largely emptying body art of its former religious, educational and aesthetic content.7

Thus, in appealing to the historical evidence, modern supporters of radical body art (e.g., piercing and tattoos) must either admit the religious and antiquated nature of their practice, or they must confirm it as an essentially arbitrary appropriation of external expression that is largely foreign to modern society.

“The Church Has No Business Telling Me What I Can Do With My Own Body!”

A second common argument employed by proponents of the body art movement is that the Church should mind its own business and stop telling people what they can do with their own bodies and in the privacy of their own bedrooms, etc. This attitude, in addition to exhibiting a profound ignorance of the role of the Church in our life, is a kind of self-righteous, defiant demand for an “autonomy,” which is misunderstood to be mere freedom from coercion, rather than authentic freedom to choose objective truth and do what is good.8  see Freedom for Excellence.

Particularly in America, this argument, at least at first glance, seems justifiable given the intense popular aversion to authority and the general hostility that reigns toward the notion of there being an “absolute, objective truth” by which everyone is obligated to live. Ironically, it’s precisely because of this insistence on supremacy of personal authority and moral relativism that the Church must tirelessly remind all people to realize the efficacy of CHRIST as “the voice of the truth about good and evil,” as He is “the only one who can answer in the fullness of truth, in all situations, in the most varied of circumstances.”9  In the words of the Second Vatican Council, the Church “cannot cease from reproving . . . those harmful teachings and ways of acting which are in conflict with reason and with common human experience, and which cast man down from the noble state to which he is born (in Christ).”10

When the Council Fathers recoil against all forms of mutilation per se, whether self-afflicted or imposed on others, it’s because such acts “violate the integrity of the human person” and “poison human society” through intentional violation of the moral law as given by the Creator and accessible through reason and Revelation.11 This supreme respect for bodily integrity must, in the case of personal adornment, be balanced against the honor given various forms of art as “distinctively human form of expression” which, “when inspired by truth and love of beings . . . bears a certain likeness to God’s activity in what he has created.” 12 One of the direct by-products of many — if not most — forms of modern body art is vanity: an inordinate self-love related to the sin of pride. This is one reason why the Church warns us against the incipient moral danger associated with extreme forms of body art.

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?” -1 Corinthians 6:9-20

And there is another issue to consider. While a good intention cannot make an evil act good, bad intention can render a good or neutral act evil. When confronted with this self-evident principle, some people attempt to justify personal mutilation with various relativistic theories that distort morality, such as “proportionalism,” “physicalism,” and the so-called “fundamental option” theory.

According to the first theory, overall good and bad effects of mutilation on the individual and society must be weighed or proportioned to determine if the act is itself good or evil, regardless of the intrinsic evil the act represents. This denies the possibility of objective evil and, as Pope John Paul II wrote in Veritatis Splendor, it supports an “end justifies the means” mentality contrary to reason and Revelation. The second theory denies the very nature of the human person by suggesting that bodily mutilation isn’t integrally determinative of personal morality, in a manner reminiscent of ancient gnosticism (i.e. basic dualism, “matter is evil”, not the creation God called “good”, makes God a liar) This approach regards the body as a mere object, devoid of any intrinsic meaning of its own (cannot be overstated, the body, in Catholic theology, and all created matter is good, because God created it, and called it “good”, it therefore is intrinsically good, full of intrinsic meaning, the Catholic Church wants you to have AWESOME sex!) and dissociates “the moral act from the bodily dimensions of its exercise” contrary to the fundamental unity of the human person.13 (The heresy here is that there is no moral implication to the use, misuse, or abuse to the body = heresy.  How the intrinsically good body is used through free will ALWAYS has tremendous moral implications!  And, ALWAYS will!!)

The final distortion, the “fundamental option” theory, holds that so long as a person’s “inner core” is oriented toward the good and true, specific and particular acts, such as body art involving personal mutilation, would be incapable of materially changing that “fundamental option.” In other words, if you’re basically a “good person” who usually chooses to do what is right, if you happen to do something sinful, it’s not in itself an enough to cause you to be seriously estranged from God. Why? Because you’re “basically a good person.”

The error here, as Pope John Paul II clearly explains in Veritatis Splendor, is in thinking that no particular immoral act can affect your core being, i.e., your “substantial integrity [and] personal unity,” as the Pope described it. Thus, while the Magisterium of the Catholic Church has continually and consistently taught that all people are bound through genuine freedom to follow the judgment of conscience in determining their actions,14 this directive must be viewed in light of accurate understanding of both freedom and conscience. The freedom referred to here is the authentic freedom of an individual exercising personal free will and political autonomy that is oriented toward the good of all, as “an outstanding manifestation of the divine image in man.”15

Body art as a form of adornment that is ordered to the ultimate good of the person and to humanity, if it observes modesty and avoids vanity, and if it respects the fundamental integrity of the human person — including the integrity of the body — that kind of body art can be morally permissible. But this is quite distinct from personal mutilation that many of today’s extreme tattoos and piercings entail.

For Christians, the guideline we should follow is aptly expressed in Sacred Scripture: “Your adornment should not be an external one . . . but rather the hidden character of the heart . . . which is precious in the sight of God” (1 Peter 3:3-4). To apply this principle is to build up the Body of Christ, so that all people may “grow up in every way into Him who is the head, Christ” (Eph. 4:15). And in applying it, we can discern between harmful (and even sinful) forms of body art versus acceptable and morally neutral forms. Never forget what St. Paul had to say about the sacredness of your body: “Shun immorality. Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body”-1 Corinthians 6:9-20.

“May the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit & soul & body be kept sound & blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
-I Thess: 5:23

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience…And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” -Col 3:12, 14

Love,
Matthew

1 As opposed to what has long been considered to be socially acceptable, non-extreme, forms of adornment such as women’s pierced ears, military tattoos, etc.
2 Available electronically in English and other languages at the Vatican
Web site: www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor_en.html.
3 I.e., the authoritative guidelines for the morality of human actions,
intended for reflection, instruction, correction and “training in righteousness”
(c.f. 2 Timothy 3:16).
4 Veritatis Splendor, 34.
5 Art in Primitive Societies(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,
1979). 36-37.
6 Ibid., 165.
7 C.f., ibid., 180.
8 C.f., Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, 32.
9 Ibid., 117.
10 Austin Flannery, ed., Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post
Conciliar Documents; (Collegeville, IN: The Liturgical Press, 1992),
volume 1; Gaudiumet Spes, 21.
11 Ibid., 27.
12 CCC 250.
13 Veritatis Splendor, 49.
14 C.f. Patrick Madrid, “Follow Your Conscience,” Does the Bible Really
say That? Discovering Catholic Teaching in Scripture (Cincinnati :
Servant Books, 2006), pages 82-85.
15 Veritatis Splendor, 34.

Moral, Theodicy, Theology

Catholic requirement to fight evil!!! Put on the armor of salvation!!

overcome_evil_with_good

“Finally, let the mighty strength of the Lord make you strong.   Put on all the armor that God gives, so you can defend yourself against the devil’s tricks.   We are not fighting against humans. We are fighting against forces and authorities and against rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world.   So put on all the armor that God gives. Then when that evil day comes, you will be able to defend yourself. And when the battle is over, you will still be standing firm.

Be ready! Let the truth be like a belt around your waist, and let God’s justice protect you like armor.   Your desire to tell the good news about peace should be like shoes on your feet.   Let your faith be like a shield, and you will be able to stop all the flaming arrows of the evil one.   Let God’s saving power be like a helmet, and for a sword use God’s message that comes from the Spirit.

 Never stop praying, especially for others. Always pray by the power of the Spirit. Stay alert and keep praying for God’s people.   Pray that I will be given the message to speak and that I may fearlessly explain the mystery about the good news.   I was sent to do this work, and that’s the reason I am in jail. So pray that I will be brave and will speak as I should.”

-Eph 6:10-20

Trains of thought are a lovely thing!  I LOVE where they take me, perhaps even if those who love me most are not as enthralled?  🙂  Please especially pray for Kelly, Mara, and Nora.  Bless them.  🙂

Asking questions is one of the characteristically Catholic things I love MOST about being Catholic!  Maybe you have noticed?  No?  It is.  It’s true.  I do.

“There’s a deeper war we must fight, all of us! This deep war against evil!” – Pope Francis

The Holy Father’s Angelus address for Sept 8
September 08, 2013 01:51 EST
-Catherine Harmon

“Below is the partial text of Pope Francis’ Angelus address for September 8, delivered this morning in Rome to the assembled crowd in St. Peter’s Square, the morning after the Holy Father led a prayer vigil for peace in Syria in that same space. Translation via Vatican Radio.

***

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

In the Gospel for today, Jesus reiterates the conditions for being His disciples: not putting anything before your love for Him, carrying your cross, and following Him. Many people came up to Jesus, wanted to be one of His followers; and this would happen especially in the wake of some prodigious dream, that indicated Him as the Messiah, the King of Israel. But Jesus doesn’t want to create illusions for anyone. He knows full well what awaits Him in Jerusalem, the road that the Father is asking Him to take: it’s the road of the cross, of sacrificing Himself for the redemption of our sins. Following Jesus doesn’t mean taking part in a triumphal parade! It means sharing in His merciful love, becoming part of His great mission of mercy towards each and every man. The mission of Jesus is precisely a mission of mercy, of forgiveness, of love! Jesus is so merciful! And this universal forgiveness, this mercy, comes through the cross.

Jesus doesn’t want to carry out this mission alone: He wants to involve us too, in the mission that the Father entrusted to Him. After the resurrection, He will say to His disciples. “As the Father sent me, so am I sending you… If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven” (John 20, 21.22). A disciple of Jesus gives up all his or her goods, because he or she has found in Him the greatest Good, within which every other good receives its true worth and meaning: family relations, other relationships, work, cultural and economic wealth, and so forth… A Christian detaches from everything, and then finds everything in the logic of the Gospel, the logic of love and service.

To explain this requirement, Jesus uses two parables: the one of the tower to be built, and the one of the king who goes to war. The second parable goes like this: “What king, marching to war against another king, would not first sit down and consider whether with ten thousand men he could stand up to the other, who was advancing against him with twenty thousand? If not, then while the other king was still a long way off, he would send envoys to sue for peace” (Luke 14, 31-32). Here Jesus doesn’t want to discuss war, it’s only a parable. But at this moment in time, when we’re strongly praying for peace, this Word of the Lord affects us closely, and fundamentally it says: there’s a deeper war we must fight, all of us! It’s the strong and brave decision to renounce evil and its seductions, and to choose good, fully prepared to pay personally: that’s following Christ, that’s taking up our cross! This deep war against evil!

What’s the point of fighting wars, many wars, if you’re not capable of fighting this deep war against evil? There’s no point! It’s no good… This means, among other things, this war against evil means saying no to fratricidal hatred, and to the lies that it uses; saying no to violence in all its forms; saying no to the proliferation of arms and their sale on the black market. There are so many of them! There are so many of them! And the doubt always remains: this war over there, this other war over there – because there are wars everywhere – is it really a war over problems, or is it a commercial war, to sell these arms on the black market? These are the enemies we must fight, united and coherent, following no other interests but those of peace and of the common good…”

“His will be done; His Kingdom come, on earth as it is in Heaven!”

St_Michael_the_Archangel

St. Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,
and do thou,
O Prince of the heavenly hosts,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan,
and all the evil spirits,
who prowl about the world
seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

O glorious prince St. Michael,
chief and commander of the heavenly hosts,
guardian of souls, vanquisher of rebel spirits,
servant in the house of the Divine King
and our admirable conductor,
you who shine with excellence
and superhuman virtue deliver us from all evil,
who turn to you with confidence
and enable us by your gracious protection
to serve God more and more faithfully every day.

Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.
-1 Peter 5:8–9

“‘Spiritual combat’ is another element of life which needs to be taught anew and proposed once more to all Christians today. It is a secret and interior art, an invisible struggle in which we engage every day against the temptations, the evil suggestions that the demon tries to plant in our hearts.”
-Saint Pope John Paul II, May 25, 2002

“This generation, and many others, have been led to believe that the devil is a myth, a figure, an idea, the idea of evil… But the devil exists and we must fight against him.”
-Pope Francis, Halloween 2014

Love,
Matthew

Kreeft, Moral, Protection of Youth

Marie Collins, Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors

I wish I could tell you, over the past eight years, Marie’s story is unique.  It is not.  It is all too, too tragically familiar.  Dealing with evil is difficult.  But, as disciples, it is required.  The Catholic Church is an institution with a 400 year cycle time.

http://www.mariecollinsfoundation.org.uk/who-we-are/board-of-trustees/marie-collins

kreeft21

-by Peter Kreeft, PhD

“The problem of evil is the most serious problem in the world. It is also the one serious objection to the existence of God. No sane person wants hell to exist.

When Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote his great Summa Theologica, he could find only two objections to the existence of God, even though he tried to list at least three objections to every one of the thousands of theses he tried to prove in that great work. One of the two objections is the apparent ability of natural science to explain everything in our experience without God; and the other is the problem of evil.

More people have abandoned their faith because of the problem of evil than for any other reason. It is certainly the greatest test of faith, the greatest temptation to unbelief. And it’s not just an intellectual objection. We feel it. We live it. That’s why the Book of Job is so arresting.

The problem can be stated very simply: If God is so good, why is His world so bad? If an all-good, all-wise, all-loving, all-just, and all-powerful God is running the show, why does He seem to be doing such a miserable job of it? Why do bad things happen to good people?…

If God is the Creator of all things and evil is a thing, then God is the Creator of evil, and He is to blame for its existence. No, evil is not a thing but a wrong choice, or the damage done by a wrong choice. Evil is no more a positive thing than blindness is. But it is just as real. It is not a thing, but it is not an illusion..

Second, the origin of evil is not the Creator but the creature’s freely choosing sin and selfishness. Take away all sin and selfishness and you would have heaven on earth. Even the remaining physical evils would no longer rankle and embitter us. Saints endure and even embrace suffering and death as lovers embrace heroic challenges. But they do not embrace sin.

…The cause of suffering is sin. …

We are single creatures, not double: we are not even body and soul as much as we are embodied soul, or ensouled body. So the body must share in the soul’s inevitable punishment, a punishment as natural and unavoidable as broken bones from jumping off a cliff or a sick stomach from eating rotten food rather than a punishment as artificial and external as a grade for a course or a slap on the hands for taking the cookies…

If the origin of evil is free will, and God is the origin of free will, isn’t God then the origin of evil? Only as parents are the origin of the misdeeds their children commit by being the origin of their children. The all-powerful God gave us a share in his power to choose freely. Would we prefer he had not and had made us robots rather than human beings?…

The worst aspect of the problem of evil is eternal evil, hell. Does hell not contradict a loving and omnipotent God? No, for hell is the consequence of free will. We freely choose hell for ourselves; God does not cast anyone into hell against his will. If a creature is really free to say yes or no to the Creator’s offer of love and spiritual marriage, then it must be possible for the creature to say no. And that is what hell is, essentially. Free will, in turn, was created out of God’s love. Therefore hell is a result of God’s love. Everything is.

No sane person wants hell to exist. No sane person wants evil to exist. But hell is just evil eternalized. If there is evil and if there is eternity, there can be hell. If it is intellectually dishonest to disbelieve in evil just because it is shocking and uncomfortable, it is the same with hell. Reality has hard corners, surprises, and terrible dangers in it. We desperately need a true road map, not nice feelings, if we are to get home. It is true, as people often say, that hell just feels unreal, impossible. Yes. So does Auschwitz. So does Calvary.”

Please pray and ACT for the safety of ALL children!!!! Lord, be merciful to us ALL!!!!  Our Lady of Knock, Queen of Ireland, Mother of the Church, Mother of Christian Families, pray for us!!!

“…He shall come to judge the living and the dead…”

Love,
Matthew

Christology

The Answer Who searches for us

Planetary Nebula NGC 2818, Hubble Space Telescope

Heb 13:14

JPKern

-by Br John Paul Kern, OP (Br John Paul converted to the Catholic faith while studying mechanical & nuclear engineering at Penn State)

““Why?”

It’s probably the most frequently asked question of all time.
Children can’t stop asking it.

In education, asking “why” is frequently encouraged. Some say that you should ask at least five whys to get to the root of an issue.

Asking why is the starting point for philosophy and its wildly popular offspring, the modern scientific method, which seek to answer why things are the way they are, by means of rational arguments or empirically testing hypotheses. Asking why extends to all areas of life. Why is something right or wrong? Why do I exist?

St. Thomas Aquinas agreed with Aristotle, who famously enumerated four types of causality (quinque viae), which correspond to the four ways in which one can answer the question why.

Aristotle wrote, “We do not have knowledge of a thing until we have grasped its why, that is to say, its cause,” and the fullest knowledge of a thing is knowledge according to each and every cause that makes a thing what it is.

I was therefore rather surprised to hear Richard Dawkins (aka, a leading atheist, one of the Four Horsemen of the non-apocalypse) , a leading biologist, boldly state during a televised dialogue with Cardinal Pell that it was silly to try to pursue knowledge of a thing through certain types of causality. The cardinal then explained that different methods are needed for exploring different types of causality. Their dialogue follows:

Cardinal Pell: “[Modern empirical] science tells us how [and by what mechanisms certain] things happened [in terms of material and proximate efficient causality]. Science tells us nothing about [final causality or purpose, such as] why there was a big bang or why there was a transition from inanimate matter to living matter… [or] why be good?”

Dawkins: “Why, in the sense of purpose [end, or final cause]… is not a meaningful question. . . . What you can say is what are the [material and efficient] causal factors that lead to the existence of mountains, the same with life, the same with the universe.”

Cardinal Pell: “It’s part of being human to ask why we exist. Questioning distinguishes us from the animals, to ask why we’re here. Science has nothing to say about that. Whatever it might say about mountains it can’t say what is the purpose of human life.”

Dawkins: “It may be a part of human nature but that doesn’t make it a valid question [audience laughs]. What’s funny about that? The question why is not necessarily a question that deserves to be answered. . . . Why is a silly question. . . . ‘What is the purpose of the universe’ is a silly question, it has no meaning.”

“Why” is a silly question which has no meaning? I would argue that “why,” in this sense of purpose, is the most important question of our lives!

But for people like Dawkins who embrace scientism, because the scientific method doesn’t address questions of purpose or final causality, purpose and final causality must not exist! So, they say, stop asking such questions!

In addition to pointing out that lack of sufficient time, effort, methods, or tools in a discipline has never caused anything not to exist, I must note that without understanding the purpose of our existence, our lives seem to become pointless, meaningless, and valueless, drifting to nihilism.

Dawkins mentions the consolation he tries to find in a life without a given purpose. “We therefore have to make up our own meaning in life. We have to find our own purposes in life.” Dawkins imagines such a life as a choose your own adventure story, which is free and fun.

In addition to noting the many people with seemingly unlimited resources who have come to utter ruin by this approach to life, the monstrous consequences of ideologies and organizations that choose the wrong purpose, and the universal human experience of questioning in the midst of suffering, I would point out that Dawkins himself can’t help looking for a purpose for life: “We have to make this planet as good as we possibly can.”

But what makes a planet, person, life, society, or the universe good? I must ask what the nature and purpose of a thing is in order to judge whether it or my intended action for it is good. One doesn’t help a fish by leaving it out of water, or help a plant grow by keeping it “safe” indoors away from sunlight.

The things we most desire in life—freedom, love, and happiness—also require a knowledge of nature, which includes purpose. If I want to love someone, which is to intend what is good for them, I must understand what is good for them. If I want to be free to be truly happy, I must know what human flourishing is.

Major challenges in our society, such as confusion over what marriage is and a great deal of unhappiness, stem from a failure to understand the purpose of human life. Dawkins and others who refuse to acknowledge that anything has purpose seem doomed to fail in finding the answer to the most important questions in life, society, and the universe.

Fortunately, on the first anniversary of his canonization, St. John Paul II reminds us of a key passage from the Second Vatican Council’s Gaudium et spes: “The truth is that only in the mystery of the Incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light… Christ the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling” (§ 22). The Pope immediately identifies this Christ as “the Redeemer of man” (Redemptor hominis § 8).

Jesus is the answer to our deepest questions, even the questions we are afraid of or refuse to ask. And in this, despite our weakness and ignorance, lies our hope: Jesus Christ, the Way to God the Father, the Truth Who gives us true freedom, and the Life in Whom we find our ultimate happiness, does not wait for us to ask the question but instead He, The Answer, seeks us.

Jesus Christ, Redeemer of Man, save us!

St. John Paul II, pray for us!”

Love,
Matthew

Gender Identity, Moral, Theology of the Body

What is Catholic teaching on transgenderism?

gender-hero

Each capable moral actor, each sane human being, performs the actions proper to its nature. This performing actions according to each’s nature makes them moral. The natural law defines each creature’s nature.

To the Catholic mind, the disorder of transgenderism is really a crisis of faith, doubting the wisdom and purpose of the Creator.  The Church views gender dysphoria as a mental illness. Intentional mutilation is always immoral.  Recent medical evidence suggests that in a majority of cases the procedure (gender reassignment surgery) increases the likelihood of depression and psychic disturbance.

A transgender individual is a person who experiences sustained Gender Identity Disorder (a.k.a. GID, Gender Dysphoria, BID, etc.). Their genetic gender is different from their perceived gender. Some describe themselves as a woman trapped in a man’s body, or vice versa. Others view themselves as having a male brain in a female body, or vice versa.

“Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his bodily composition he gathers to himself the elements of the material world; thus they reach their crown through him, and through him raise their voice in free praise of the Creator… For this reason man is not allowed to despise his bodily life, rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and honorable since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. Nevertheless, wounded by sin, man experiences rebellious stirrings in his body. But the very dignity of man postulates that man glorify God in his body and forbid it to serve the evil inclinations of his heart.” -Gaudium et Spes, 14.1

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
PART ONE
THE PROFESSION OF FAITH

SECTION TWO
THE PROFESSION OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

CHAPTER ONE
I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER

ARTICLE I
“I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, CREATOR OF HEAVEN AND EARTH”

Paragraph 6. Man

355 “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.”-Gen 1:27.  Man occupies a unique place in creation: (I) he is “in the image of God”; (II) in his own nature he unites the spiritual and material worlds; (III) he is created “male and female”; (IV) God established him in his friendship.

* III. “MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM”

Equality and difference willed by God

369 Man and woman have been created, which is to say, willed by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. “Being man” or “being woman” is a reality which is good and willed by God: man and woman possess an inalienable dignity which comes to them immediately from God their Creator…. Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity “in the image of God”. In their “being-man” and “being-woman”, they reflect the Creator’s wisdom and goodness.

PART THREE
LIFE IN CHRIST

SECTION TWO
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

CHAPTER TWO
“YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF”

ARTICLE 6
THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT

* I. “MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM . . .”

2331 “God is love and in Himself He lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in His own image . . .. God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion.”…

2332 Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others.

2333 Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life…

“…individuals suffering from gender dysphoria syndrome must be treated with compassion. They need spiritual counseling which will help them realize the great love of God Who loves them as individuals who have been created in His image and likeness. They need proper psychotherapy which will help them to face realistically their human situation and the world, and the consequences of their actions on themselves and their relationships with family and friends. Such counseling will also direct them to spiritual, intellectual and social pursuits to realize their self-worth and divert their preoccupation with sexual identity.” – Rev. William P. Saunders, CatholicHerald.com, Arlington, VA, 2001.

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/report-pope-francis-meets-hugs-transgender-man

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/30/living/pope-transgender-man/

http://ncronline.org/news/vatican-says-sex-change-operation-does-not-change-persons-gender

Love,
Matthew

Family Life, Marriage, Sacraments, Theology of the Body

Why is Catholic Marriage different?

WeddingKneelingBeforeEucharist

In my experience trying to understand Catholic teaching on marriage, the language is more like love poetry than a practical, utilitarian assembling of rights and functions.  See Song of Songs.  WIFM = What’s In It For Me? is definitely NOT the Catholic understanding of the sacrament of marriage, quite the contrary, quite;  even though, culturally, we may use the same word to describe a dramatically different understood reality.  If our current crisis causes this greater clarity to come more fully into focus, grace doth abound.  Rom 5:20.

In this season of marriage ceremony, let us pray for those who take on this most solemn vocation.  I have recently begun attending a secular support group to offer support to divorced men and fathers as they bear the cross of divorce and separation from their children and the torture of the family court system, biased against men.  Please pray for all who suffer this most desperate of crosses, regardless of their sins.


-by A. David Anders, PhD

Catholic teaching on marriage elicits more practical opposition and misunderstanding than perhaps any other Catholic doctrine. When I ask people what is keeping them from full communion with the Catholic church, Catholic teaching and the canon law on marriage rank high on the list.

The reason for the opposition is easily understood.  Christ calls married couples to lifelong fidelity, no matter what. A valid sacramental marriage cannot be dissolved for any reason by any power on earth. “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” (Matthew 19:6) This teaching seems so difficult that the apostles themselves could hardly believe it. “If this is the situation between a husband and wife,” they said, “it is better not to marry.” (Matthew 19:10)  Christ himself admitted that the teaching was impossible without grace: “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.” (Matthew 19:11)

Some Protestant denominations wish to make an exception to this law in cases of adultery or abandonment. They base this exception in the so-called “exception clause” of Matthew 19:9. But St. Paul explains Christ’s teaching very clearly in 1 Corinthians 7:10: “To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord):  A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.”  For this reason, the Church allows for the “separation of bed and board” in cases of abuse and neglect, but in no way countenances the remarriage of those separated while the true spouse is still living.

Why? Why does Christ call Christian couples to such a high standard of fidelity, even to the point of embracing the cross of suffering? The reason is that Christian marriage is no mere human contract. It is a mystical participation in the sacrificial, self-giving love of Christ for his Church. (Ephesians 5) It is a special vocation to holiness, an ecclesial state in the same way that priesthood or religious life is an ecclesial state. Christian marriage participates in the sacramental mission of the Church to bring Christ to the world. St. John Paul II wrote that “Spouses are therefore the permanent reminder to the Church of what happened on the Cross; they are for one another and for the children witnesses to the salvation in which the sacrament makes them sharers.” (Familiaris Consortio)

The really glorious news is that God never calls us to a task without giving us the means to accomplish it. For this reason, the sacrament of marriage is accompanied by astonishing graces that are unique to the married state. The Second Vatican Council (Gaudium et Spes) put the matter quite beautifully:

“Authentic married love is caught up into divine love and is governed and enriched by Christ’s redeeming power and the saving activity of the Church, so that this love may lead the spouses to God with powerful effect and may aid and strengthen them in sublime office of being a father or a mother. For this reason Christian spouses have a special sacrament by which they are fortified and receive a kind of consecration in the duties and dignity of their state. By virtue of this sacrament, as spouses fulfil their conjugal and family obligation, they are penetrated with the spirit of Christ, which suffuses their whole lives with faith, hope and charity. Thus they increasingly advance the perfection of their own personalities, as well as their mutual sanctification, and hence contribute jointly to the glory of God.”

To be sure, not all married couples experience or enjoy the full benefit of these graces. The increase of sanctifying grace in the sacraments calls forth our willing cooperation. Pope Pius XI explains: “[since] men do not reap the full fruit of the Sacraments . . . unless they cooperate with grace, the grace of matrimony will remain for the most part an unused talent hidden in the field.” (Casti Connubii)

In order to reap the full benefits of sacramental marriage, one must live a sincere, faithful and generous Catholic life. St. John Paul II explains:  “There is no doubt that these conditions must include persistence and patience, humility and strength of mind, filial trust in God and in His grace, and frequent recourse to prayer and to the sacraments of the Eucharist and of Reconciliation. Thus strengthened, Christian husbands and wives will be able to keep alive their awareness of the unique influence that the grace of the sacrament of marriage has on every aspect of married life.” (Familiaris Consortio).

Christian marriage is an awesome calling. Like all the sacraments, it is “a mystery,” but a mystery of astonishing fruitfulness. The law on Christian marriage is arduous because the end of Christian marriage is so sublime. Through it we are “caught up into divine love.”  The Council teaches: “Parents should regard as their proper mission the task of transmitting human life and educating those to whom it has been transmitted. They should realize that they are thereby cooperators with the love of God the Creator, and are, so to speak, the interpreters of that love.” (Gaudium et Spes)”

“…Thy Kingdom come!  Thy will be done!  On earth, as it is in heaven.”

Love,
Matthew

Grace, Theology

Grace Hurts

grace

Like Dietrich Boenhoffer, I hate cheap grace. I do. I despise it.  It’s a sham, a phony, a charlatan, a hypocrite – like me.

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, (it is) baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.  Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”  { p. 43-4}, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Boenhoffer, 1937.

“All my requests seem to melt down to one for grace,” -Flannery O’Connor, 1962

What did Flannery O’Connor know about suffering and grace? At the age of twenty-six, Flannery would be diagnosed (like her father before her) with systemic lupus erythematosus (“lupus”), a disabling rheumatologic condition. Through chronic pain, recurrent illnesses and medication side effects, Flannery would write with keen insight, acerbic wit and devout Catholic faith. Thirteen years later, she would die. She was only thirty-nine years old. Flannery O’Connor knew suffering and she knew grace – a mean grace.

“All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.”― Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor, 1948-1964.

“I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened. A faith that just accepts is a child’s faith and all right for children, but eventually you have to grow religiously as every other way, though some never do. What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe. If you feel you can’t believe, you must at least do this: keep an open mind. Keep it open toward faith, keep wanting it, keep asking for it, and leave the rest to God.”

“This notion that grace is healing omits the fact that before it heals, it cuts with the sword Christ said He came to bring.”

“[The trendy “beat” writers] call themselves holy but holiness costs and so far as I can see they pay nothing. It’s true that grace is the free gift of God but in order to put yourself in the way of being receptive to it you have to practice self-denial.”

Mt 16:24

Love,
Matthew

Homosexuality, Moral, Natural Law, Philosophy, Theology of the Body

Why does the Catholic Church teach homosexual acts are intrinsically evil?

keep-faith-in-jesus-christ

“Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.” -CCC 2357

2012-09_LT-CatholicsLoveGays1

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WANTS YOU TO HAVE AWESOME SEX!!!!  It’s true.  It does.  But, let’s define some terms.  You could say the Catholic Church holds sexual union as sacred.  So sacred it places it within and confines it to a sacrament.  In Catholic theology, sacraments are “efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us.”

This is easier if you have had some philosophy, literally the “love of wisdom”.  Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.

Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. In more casual speech, by extension, “philosophy” can refer to “the most basic beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group”.

The Church, from the beginning, has understood the world has an implied rational order due to the nature of creation itself.  The Church “holds these truths to be self-evident”, so to speak, when reflected upon.  Truth cannot contradict truth.

But, humans being sinful beings, can and do and have always and will always pervert the rational truth distilled from philosophy and revelation to fit their own agendas, to fit their own definitions of their “truths”.

The Church does not believe there are many “truths”.  Rather, it holds there is only One Truth, Jesus Christ, and it strives, under the guidance and protection of the Holy Spirit, to come to an ever more full understanding of that Truth.

In Catholicism, a “mystery” is not something unknowable, it is something infinitely knowable.  We are only limited by our own humanity as to why God had pre-ordained such things, and things as such.

We may NOT make ourselves gods, and make our own “truths”.  We do, therefore, have free will, as God’s gift, and, frankly, also the inherent challenge and responsibility to use or to abuse the created world as we do, even contrary to the Creator’s will.  We have the freedom to cure terrible diseases, to feed the starving, to free slaves, but also to commit genocide, to enslave, to exploit, to oppress, to make war, to annihilate.  We also have the freedom to use our sexual gifts, our ability to participate in the creation of beautiful life, and the freedom to abuse them towards selfish and unproductive ends.

There is no genuine love of the Creator nor anything else without free will.  The realization of the gift of free will means, as with any freedom or authority we may possess, that there is also the intrinsic freedom to abuse our free will, to choose wrongly, to act against the intentions and the will of the Creator.  This is a heavy responsibility.  We must choose wisely.  Our choices have consequences here, in this life, and in eternity.

The Natural Law

Very simply put, the natural law is that moral behavior which can be determined through reason by its architecture, form, function, and effects.  The end NEVER justifies the means.  The Catholic Church understands human beings to consist of body and mind, the physical and the non-physical (soul), and that the two are inextricably linked. Humans are capable, but only proper moral formation inclines them to judge rightly, of discerning the difference between good and evil because they have a conscience, and the divinely mandated obligation to do so.

The Divine Law

Gen. 19:8-9,13, Jude 7, Ezek. 16:49-50, Lev. 18:22, 20:13, 1 Cor 6:9-10, Romans 1:27, provoking the wrath of the Almighty.  Prov 1:7.

Love must be fruitful

The Catholic definition of “love” is very specific.  It MUST, NO exceptions, comport to the the natural moral law.  It MUST, same deal, comport to the Divine law.  It MUST be open to life.  It MUST be open to fecundity, and fruitfulness.  It MUST occur within the Sacrament of Marital Union.

  1. Because homosexual acts violate the natural law as implied by the sexual “complementarity”, or sexual differences, between male and female, both in biology, and in the total complementarity of a person’s personal identity in  their masculinity or femininity,
  2. Because they violate the Divine law,
  3. Because, by definition, they cannot be naturally fecund, ever, and are inherently closed to natural procreation,
  4. Because of the above, homosexual acts cannot, ever, be blessed in the Sacrament of Marriage,
  5. Because of all these, homosexual acts can never be approved.

This position is objectively determined as a consequence of faith in Jesus Christ.  It has nothing to do with “liking” or “disliking” anyone.   It has nothing to do with subjective preferences, conditions, opinions, or agendas.  Nothing.  It has been the Church’s consistent teaching.  Those who object are just waking up to the Church’s teaching in greater clarity, which cannot be a bad thing.  “Truth is not determined by a majority.” – BXVI

All are called to chastity in their particular state of life.  Homosexual persons must be accepted with respect, compassion, dignity, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives.

Love,
Matthew

Cross, Ecclesiology, Heresy, SBNR

SBNR: “I tell you, you are Peter, and upon this I will build…politically neutral universally nice feelings!” :) Look, Ma! No Cross!!!!

St_Albertus_Catholic_Church_Detroit_Interior

“I can love Jesus without going to Church.”  -any wishy-washy, spineless, pseudo-Christian teenager, adult, etc.


-by Fr. Dwight Longnecker, a former Evangelical Protestant, graduate of Bob Jones University, turned Anglican priest, turned Catholic priest.

Fr. Dwight enjoys movies, blogging, books, riding his motorcycle and visiting Benedictine monasteries. He’s married to Alison. They have four children, named Benedict, Madeleine, Theodore and Elias. They live in Greenville, South Carolina with a black Labrador named Anna, a chocolate Lab named Felicity, a cat named James and various other pets.

“No. Because the Lord Jesus Christ–the only begotten Son of the Father–took human flesh. He therefore sanctified the physical realm. Because He took human flesh; human flesh matters. Because He took on physical matter; matter matters. My body matters for it is the temple of the Holy Spirit. My Church matters. The physical church building matters. The One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church–the Catholic Church with all her institutions and history and paperwork and bureaucracy and canon law and dogma–all of it matters. The incense and the candles and the books and the bells. They all matter.

The saints and their suffering matters. My rosary and my books of theology and my Infant of Prague and my plaster St Therese and my Our Lady of Lourdes–soiled and with a hole in her head because a nun from the convent where I got her dropped her once–that matters, and so does my starving neighbor and my friend with a headache and my child who needs a hug and a listening ear. They matter.

And so does the Blessed Sacrament which is the focus of the presence of God in the physical.

…and because of this I kneel to adore.”

To connect and correct

Servant of God, Fr. Isaac Hecker, CSP, was a 19th-century convert to Catholicism who became a priest and founded the American religious order known as the Paulists.  He summed it up best. Religion, said Hecker, helps you to “connect and correct.” You are invited into a community to connect with one another and with a tradition. At the same time, you are corrected when you need to be. And you may be called to correct your own community — though a special kind of discernment and humility is required in those cases.

Endurance: A Hecker Reflection

“Jesus our Saviour fell oftentimes with the excessive weight of His cross, in order to show us that He has not called us to enjoy success but to support adversity; to show us that as long as our cross does not exceed our strength, self-centeredness will always find room to conceal itself and live. It is in the death of our self-centeredness that gives rise to God’s love in our hearts. As Blessed John of Avila writes, “for it is its (love-of-self’s) life that has given death to the love of God.”

Jesus Christ not only enjoined upon us to sell all that we have and give it to the poor, if we would be His disciples, but He said also, “take up your cross and follow Me.” Everyone is therefore supposed to have a cross. To get rid of it is not what the Saviour asks, but to take it up and follow Him. Ah My Lord, it is not the work of a moment, not that of a child to take up your cross the weight of which surpasses our strength; to bear it and fall under it, and bear it again, and finally to be mercifully crucified on it. This is what God asks us to do, for this is what Jesus did and to follow Jesus is to accept God’s invitation to do the same. It requires much more courage to follow Jesus Christ to the conquest of heaven than to follow Caesar to the conquest of the entire universe.”

Our crosses MUST exceed our own strength.  It is God’s will.  To show us how utterly dependent we are on Him.  Yes, Lord, yes.  Thank you for my sweet crushing crosses.  They that show me how much I NEED YOU!!!!  Amen.  Amen.  Praise Him!!!!

Love,
Matthew