"'You will be like God, knowing good and evil', in other words, you yourselves will decide what is good and evil." - John Paul II: Memory and Identity
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Found on another blog: I was directed to an essay by Mark D. Jordan, a fantasy speculating upon the need for the Catholic Church to be converted and correct it's teaching on homosexuality. (Mark D. Jordan is a Guggenheim Fellowship Recipient and Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Religion at Emory University.)
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"Imagine this. Overnight, God changes the hearts of the majority of officials in the Vatican. They awake in the morning convinced that the Roman Catholic Church’s condemnations of “homosexual acts” are both untrue and unjust. They resolve to revoke them. What would they have to revise in church doctrine or practice in order to correct the teachings about gays and lesbians? To give this question any force, we have to picture the Holy Spirit bestowing courage as well as insight." - Source
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What the author ignores, or simply refuses to accept is this: "The Church can never change its position on the immorality of homosexual behavior and therefore will never apologize" or 'convert'. "Homosexual behavior is a moral issue, and the Church is infallible when it speaks authoritatively on matters of faith and morals.
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Homosexuality has been condemned in the Scripture, by constant tradition, and by the Church hierarchy, and constitutes the regular teaching of the Church’s Magisterium.
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Scripture condemns homosexuality in no uncertain terms in several places. Those who attack the Church’s position on this matter are taking issue with Scripture itself."* - Source
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Despite the sins and failings of Her ministers, as well as those of the laity, the Church cannot contradict Herself in matters of faith and morals.
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The Church’s teaching on homosexuality is firmly established in Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium. It is part of her constant teaching, part of the depositum fidei, and as such cannot be dissented from without committing the grave sin of heresy. This teaching on the immorality of homosexual activity is irrevocable.
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Therefore, Jordan's accusations leveled against the Church regarding closeted clergy and or openly homosexual clergy does not mean a history of "Catholic" homosexuality exists as in some DaVinci Code conspiracy theory. However, even if that was true, that fact would not alter anything with regards to Catholic teaching on homosexuality. The Church is a refuge for sinners, it's members subject to human frailty, but this doesn't mean that her moral teachings are false. Christ has promised "that the Church’s moral and theological teachings will always be sound".
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Therefore, the desire to rehabilitate the sin of homosexual behavior is not based on sound history or sound theology, and is merely a self-serving attempt to re-name or re-identify an evil as good, and to demand acceptance of a disordered disposition rather than attempting to combat it and seek the proper remedies to heal it.
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Therefore, the desire to rehabilitate the sin of homosexual behavior is not based on sound history or sound theology, and is merely a self-serving attempt to re-name or re-identify an evil as good, and to demand acceptance of a disordered disposition rather than attempting to combat it and seek the proper remedies to heal it.
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*Many thanks to Boniface at Unam Sanctam for his excellent outline refuting the challenges posed by gay-activists.
the magisterium's making unchallengeable new laws or affirmed old ones for believers to be led by is against the new covenant.
ReplyDeletein the new covenant believers are led by and serve of the one who lives in them directly, not thru reg as in deut 28.
paul also says that the 2nd commandment is the summation of all new covenant law.(love your neighbor.....)
ReplyDeleteif the essence of all new covenant law is embodied in the 2nd commandment, that means that all sin in regards to the law, would be that which opposes the second commandment.
that being the case, what is it in being gay that makes it come against that commandment? do not homosexuals bond out of the same spirit as heterosexuals, namely mutual love, respect, devotion, affection and trust for a shared committed life together. is it not true that homosexuals have never been found lacking in any secter of society compared to heterosexuals? that they are not less a father, friend, attorney, counselor, physician, neighbor, brother, etc.
it appears that the dialogue about homosexuality is really not about homosexuality per se, but instead about whether under the the new covenant the 2nd commandment really is the summation of all new covenant law, are we really led and do we really serve of the holy spirit, and are we really under grace rather than under the law(ephesians), and is our relationship to god really directly to the one who lives in us or thru regulation as in deut. 28.