When Promiscuity is Your Sacrament, and You're Terrified of Normalcy

I guess it's to be expected that those omalophobic souls who make a cult of despising virtue, or chastity, or even such a bourgeois habit as commitment, would be screaming on Those Interwebs about that strange, evil guy who, you know, does strange, evil things and set himself strange, evil rules of conduct, because he has these strange, evil notions about a strange, evil institution called marriage, and has this strange, evil superstition that there's such a thing as temptation, and he loves his strange, evil wife enough that he wants to avoid both it and the chance of giving people who delight in that sort of thing excuses to gossip, (not that the previously mentioned omalophobia sufferers have any particular affinity for dishing...)

Do you REALLY see in another person's fidelity or continence an inherent reproach to the way you've chosen to live your life?
Are ya maybe... projecting?

I wonder if there's the odd chance that any of such screamers read today's lectionary?

The wicked said among themselves, thinking not aright:"Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us;he sets himself against our doings,Reproaches us for transgressions of the lawand charges us with violations of our training.He professes to have knowledge of Godand styles himself a child of the LORD.To us he is the censure of our thoughts; merely to see him is a hardship for us,Because his life is not like that of others,and different are his ways.He judges us debased;he holds aloof from our paths as from things impure.

Profanation of the Eucharist, the Sanctity of Marriage, and "Venue Shopping"

I am, if it is not too glib to say so, a great "fan" of the Church's "annulment" process. (The scare quotes are in recognition that there is no such thing as annulment in the Church, rather, there is a process for discovering the nullity of a putative marriage.)
The gracious and generous manner in which the process is handled in this country, at least, has benefited me greatly.
I note this to admit upfront that I am hardly a disinterested party.
It is for this reason that while it seems wrong to me, I cannot oppose the Holy Father's reform of said process - I know that the American experience is not the universal expedience, and another discipline may be necessary in other parts of the Catholic, and catholic, world.
And the fact is, I also was slightly injured by the process in a specific case, that the Tribunal's office is to find the truth, not to kiss boo-boos and make them better.
As it happens, in the case I mention, there were 3 plausible defects, and two of them would have been evident to a blind pig.
Alas for me, a hotshot lawyer, (only newly canon lawyer, after half a lifetime of practicing civil law in his civilian life,) was fascinated by the less obvious one, and insisted upon arguing it, delaying the final decree by months, and moving us past a window of easy attendance by my immediate, far-flung, and fecund family.

All that being stipulated -  HOW  IS  IT  IN  ANYONE'S  BEST  INTEREST  TO  HAVE  BISHOPS'  CONFERENCE  IN THE CATHOLIC  CHURCH DECIDE  THESE MATTERS  LOCALLY?????
Patently, it is not.

One of the disgraces of the annulment process in the United States, (again, stipulating that I am eternally grateful to the process and to those who promulgated it, tho venue shopping didn't come in to it,) was the disparity in the application of Canon Law from diocese to diocese, and the practice of those who were aware of it, to venue shop.

Whatever one makes of the merits of the dispute, one conclusion seems ineluctable: Whether by design or not, what Pope Francis effectively has done is to opt for decentralization on one of the most contentious issues in Catholic life today.Barring some further clarification or decree from Rome, what we now have is individual bishops, or regional groupings of bishops, determining whether the answer is “yes” or “no” in the territory under their jurisdiction.

Yes, exactly - so what is to discourage venue shopping now on a global scale?
"Oh, no, I live here but I belong to the GERMAN/Roman Catholic Church so I'm allowed to...."
(I use the Germans as an example because I have little doubt that anyone willing to pay the tax will be admitted, parochial boundaries be damned.)

How would this possibility enhance the unity/fidelity/sanctity of the Body of Christ?

Please Stop Talking About "Changing Church Discipline"

A very worthwhile piece in the Catholic Herald on the Amorous Letitia wars...

... but this:

 "But the issue which grabbed most attention was the possibility that Pope Francis might change the discipline on Communion for the divorced and remarried,"

is compounding what I think is a terrible error in much of the reporting on the issue.

Is it merely Church "discipline" that sacramental marriage is indissoluble?
Is it merely Church "discipline" that for a married person to have sexual relations with a person other than ones sacramental spouse is adultery?
Is it merely Church "discipline" that adultery is a grave sin?
Is it merely Church "discipline" that receiving Communion when in state of grave sin endangers ones immortal soul even further, compounding the sin?
Is it merely Church "discipline" that those who are in a state of mortal sin with no intention of amendment of life can not be admitted to Communion?

"Discipline"?

Maine Restaurateur, Second Amendment Rights, and the Sin of Sodom?

"The outcry against Bishop Galantino is so great, and his sin so grave, that I must go down and see whether or not his homily fully corresponds to the cry against him that comes to me. I mean to find out."
OK, not really. But this reading, the Sodom and Gomorrah one did come up recently. And if news blog?.... curmudgeon reports are to be believed, the head of the Italian bishops' conference is so ignorant of scripture, even by our Catholic standards, that he didn't realize that, gee, hate to break it to His Excellency, after all that... uhm, God does send down fire and brimstone and Will Ferrel movies and destroys the evil cities.
Is that a real school of thought, that Abraham schooled the Father in mercy the way at least some Jesuits think the Canaanite woman schooled the Son?

At any rate, anyone who discussed the little S & G incident found his combox inundated with Right-minded Persons making sure that everyone "knew" what they themselves professed to "know", (learn a new concept, "virtue signalling",) by hastening to announce, just a wee bit off topic, that oh and by the way, the Sin of Sodom was not what you prudes think is an attempt to force nasty sex on the disguised angelic individuals, but LACK  OF  HOSPITALITY.
Contrast that with the fact that  just a little before that in the cycle of readings, we learned that due to his hospitality Abraham was given a son, (and a nation, and all that.)

This was not really germane to the discussion at hand, the point of which was, nope, Bish, Sodom was NOT saved, and isn't necessarily true, but let's say for the mo it is --

I was just tickled at the NYTimes running a piece, (can't find it to link, because without subscription it would use up by limited access for the month, but this is another media outlet berating the Times for it,) about a liberal provider of public accommodation, who in her anti-gun zeal, (which I, full disclosure, share with her,) will not serve 2nd amendment supporters or certain types of gun owners in her diner.
I could be wrong, but food seems to me a more basic right than, oh, I dunno, wedding flowers? but the Times twisted itself into knots not to condemn the woman.

But isn't that, we don't serve your kind in here! the very definition of being inhospitable?

So the Down East restaurateur was guilty of the sin of Sodom, right?
At least, in the thinking of the New Church we've Sung Into Being, low these past few decades...

"Disagree"? I Think You Mean "Dissent" or More Possibly, "Disregard"

USCatholic has a piece about supporting the Girl Scouts by someone named Cait.

I was surprised to find that there are some who feel the Girl Scouts and its parent organization WAGGGS (World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts) don’t fall in line with Roman Catholic teachings. Specifically, they take issue with the inclusion of gay and transgender girls within troops and WAGGGS’ known advocacy for reproductive rights.
As a former Girl Scout, I choose to disagree.

"Disagree" with what?
Surely not the facts.
Would you deny that through the Girl Scouts it's members, leaders and donors, (including, yeah, those of us who purchase cookies at exorbitant prices,) contribute financially to WAGGGS? (as well as providing moral and p support, of course, making it possible to say "we serve/represent xxxxx gazillion girls internationally!")

Of course not.

Do you deny that WAGGGS advocates for reproductive rights? ("Reproductive rights" is a euphemism for abortion, artificial contraception and the freedom to engage in consensual fornication. Not making a moral judgment on those things, that is simply what is meant.)

I don't see how you can.

Are you denying that support for those "doesn’t fall in line" with what our Faith believes and has always taught?

Again, surely not.
So what you really mean is, the Girl Scouts do some good things and you benefitted from belonging to them and so you don't really care if you give aid and support to an organization that is a proponent of the deliberate destruction of innocent life, which you, as an educated and faithful Catholic, know to be vilely sinful.

You don't disagree at all, I'd imagine.

You just don't care.

Human Flourishing and the Mad Ukrainian Assassin

First off, let me assure my 2.3 readers that I am aware that characters on television are not real. (Someone tried to tell me that that hysterically funny Donald Trump fabrication was an actual, living, breathing businessman/politician !!! Go on, pull the other one!)

But Great Truths may subsist in Little Fictions, and Deep Thought in Shallow Pop Culture.

I know. Paradoxes. (Paradoces?)

Here's another one-  a murderous, voracious Slavic clone raised by religious fanatics who is totally fictional may have a greater soul and a more profound respect for the dignity of human life than....
oh, I dunno... a Catholic "theologian" who works in international philanthropy? who says, "We uphold the sanctity of all human life" but "we're not, like, all fanatic about it, I mean, sure, they're all 'holy' but some of them aren't holy enough that you need to treat them that way, you know, as if they were 'holy.' Which I do profess they are, but not....well, holy-holy." (I think that's a fair presentation of her beliefs.)

Whereas Helena, said mad, Ukrainian assassin, upon whom every kind of dehumanizing indignity has been visited, not just from her conception, but from the moment her conception was imagined and planned for and "designed"; whose very personhood was stolen from her again and again; whose identity as a human being as an individual is denied her over and over, says that,

Human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being’s right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death. 

Well, more or less, but she used fewer words.
As she solemnly and sadly and respectfully buries the cryo-tank in which the embryos created from eggs wrested from her very body by force, whose genetic twins she carries within her and loves unconditionally, (as all mothers ought their babies,) having been forced to "steal" the tank lest her torturers either kill them or subject them to what she has endured, she places a cross on their secret grave.
And how did she put it?

Little science babies, forgive me. I did not know to feed you liquid nitrogens. But your twins are in my belly. And when they are old, I will tell them all about you and our adventures.

That is how human beings, that is how mothers think about their children.
Well done, Orphan Black.

Speaking of the Irony, Listen to a Pro-Abortion "Theologian"

The woman, the Episcopal priest mentioned in that other post?
She'll grant that what is may have greater rights than what might be:

As moral theologians.... we believe that, in general, the value of that actual life outweighs the value of the potential.

Except  if the "actual" is the baby in a womb, now, and the "potential" is a career sometime in the future?

"Disordered Affections" and the Politics of Victimhood and What's Wrong With Me?

So far as I have been able to determine, no nearby church, (we are a one-car household in an area with minimal public transportation, so "nearby" is not a commendation to be dismissed lightly,) is offering special Adoration for the "23 Hours of Mercy," or even confession at any other than the regular times.
So during Mass this morning, I was considering engaging in that... thing? I don't want to dignify it by calling it a "practice" ...... where I don't focus on anything much intellectually, but let the Liturgy kinda wash over me. (This can be very spiritually rewarding, don't knock it till you've tried it.)
Sometimes a word or a phrase will suddenly be illuminated so that it is thrown into relief, and observed from a slightly different angle, there may be some insight to be gained.
But strangely, especially for Lent, it wasn't penitence and mercy that called out to me, per se - it was solidarity with other sinners, [good, so far!] and yes, a great, big helping of, "oh, for the love of pete, stop whining, you particular bunch of sinners, everyone else has to deal with that too, me and everyone else, YOU'RE NOT SO SPECIAL, [bad.]

It's odd, because such an attitude as I have is, the exact opposite of what we call "compassion," right?
The ability to willingly suffer with someone else?
And yet my actual thoughts are, don't you get it, you idiots? we all experience the exact same thing, so if you really believe that's somehow "suffering," we're all already suffering with you!

What in the liturgy prompted such unChristian thought?
It started early.
Opening collect....
We pray, O Lord, that we may be constantly drawn away from unruly desires...

"Unruly"? As in "boisterous"? Who're you callin'..... Oh, wait, no, as in requiring some effort to get them in line, subdue them, be their master rather than lave. Oh, good. I'll use that at Sunday school - we all have temptations to tame. Lions, animal analogies appeal to this bunch, I'll -
And my thought are off to the races and instead of contemplating and being in the moment and letting, or at least hoping for something holy to "wash" over me, I am elsewhere. Get your head back in the game, Scelata, at least TRY to listen to -
Preface....
You have given Your children a sacred time for the renewing and purifying of their hearts, that, freed from disordered affections...
Yes.
YES. 
We all have affections, attractions, desires, temptations - not "needs" but "wants" that are "disordered."
And some of them are objectively so.
But I know it's the D word, not the O word that's giving the Professionally Aggrieved and the Highly Ranked Amateur Umbrage Takers a hissy, so that's what I'm dealing with.
Nobody's looking for a special way to insult you, LGBTQDW activist, I promise....

And by the time my thoughts get this far, I am dropping to my knees, having barely regained mindful consciousness in time to join in the sanctus....

I just wish.... I just wish before people began wearing their offendedness like a backstage pass, especially as it regards language, they would actually examine that which has them miffed, what its context is, how else and how fairly it is applied, and what its usage is in the realm where they find it.

One advantage a "dead" language has for official utterance is that something precise and completely lacking in opprobrium is not easily going to suddenly drift into "you can't say that anymore!" territory.
(I'm looking at you, "thug," "handicapped," and "whore.")

Denying People the Eucharist Because They Defy Their Bishop's Notions of Morality Is WRONG! ... Right?

Or is it?

Initiates and the Uninitiated

When I as a young whipper-snapper, the catechesis of callow Catholics was in a dormant stage, at least in my neck of the American woods.
We painted rocks and sang along with a guitar wielding high school girl from red plastic books, (the red plastic books may be a false memory, as Glory and Praise had not yet blighted the landscape - on the other hand, the girl in question, a friend of our family, was a world traveller, very sophisticated, she may have brought it back from somewhere exotic, like France. I'm just remembering, she was also the one who explained the meaning of "to sleep with." At a drive-in, us little ones tumbling in the back of the station wagon like pajamed puppies, adults and semi-adults in the two bench seats, there was a "coming attraction" touted which I now think must have been the Cardinal, while we waited to see something like 3 Lives of Thomasina. In it, a woman in a confessional said, "I slept with a man." I asked her later how sleeping could be a sin, and she explained that not much sleeping often occurred during the act of "sleeping with.")
Until Confirmation class virtually anything I learned about the Faith was from the way people behaved in church, which was very powerful, and from my parents, both by osmosis and deliberately.
As is only right.
But I digress.)
In any case, until I was an adult I never heard the specific phrase "sacraments of initiation." (My own confirmation was a good long ways after what we now know should have been the final of the three, I had skipped a grade and was allowed to make my Communion with my older class-mates, but according to the diocese, IIRC, had to wait for the Seven Gifts until I was the "right age." Although I was lucky, very lucky, suddenly, after years of strum and hum and craft projects, they wheeled an ancient nun with a hair-sprouting mole out of the back, wearing a mask like Hannibal Lecter, who TAUGHT us actual THINGS. You know, facts, and precepts and principles and doctrines. I shall be forever grateful to Sister Clare Cornelius.)
Another digression, sorry.

ANYWAY.

Since I am now in possession of this expression, the sacrament of initiation,  I was struck rather forcefully by a snippet I read.
"Family Day" in Italy was apparently an enormous outpouring of popular support for the Traditional, might I say Normal? notion of "family," despite possible neglect by, or at least ambiguity from the Pope and outright hostility on the part of some Italian bishops.
In following links to see what manner of man was head of the bishops' conference, I came across this from some time ago. It was,

reported that he said the Eucharist “is and must remain a ‘universal assembly’”, and that it must also be an “eloquent sign of the divine and his free gift for the ‘uninitiated’.”

I have nothing to say.
That was kind of a long way to go, I suppose for nothing to say.
Maybe I AM the Dutiful Brother.
But I want my prodigal brother to come home, I want him to!
But not to pop in for dinner, drop off his laundry for Mom or the servants to do and take off again, after pawning the finest robe and ring and sandals so he could squander the proceeds by resuming his life of dissipation.

Is that just me being selfish? Or is it me remembering that the spiritual acts of mercy are "not a devotion," they are required of us who dare to bear the name of Christian?

“When in the evening of life, we are asked if we fed the hungry and gave drink to the thirsty, we will also be asked if we helped persons come out of doubt, if we were committed to receive sinners, admonishing and correcting them, if we were capable of combatting ignorance, especially that concerning the Christian faith and the good life. This attention to the works of mercy is important: they are not a devotion. It is the concreteness of how Christians must carry forward the spirit of mercy.”

Equal Rights, Equal Healthcare, and a Modest Proposal

I admit, I'd never read this before, (h/t to Lifesite CORRECTION, h/t to Catholic World Report,) - the Affordable Healthcare Act? Life is not that long!!!!

Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities Proposed Rule

Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act

[seriously, 1557 sections?]

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a proposed rule to advance health equity and reduce disparities in health care. The proposed rule, Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities, will assist some of the populations that have been most vulnerable to discrimination and will help provide those populations equal access to health care and health coverage....individuals cannot be subject to discrimination based on their race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability....

I have a cunning plan!

The proposed rule requires that women have equal access to the health care they receive and the insurance they obtain. Moreover, the rule makes clear that sex discrimination includes discrimination based on gender identity. For example -

• Individuals cannot be denied health care or health coverage based on their sex, including their gender identity.
• Individuals must be treated consistent with their gender identity, including in access to facilities.
• Sex-specific health care cannot be denied or limited just because the person seeking such services identifies as belonging to another gender. For example, a provider may not deny an individual treatment for ovarian cancer, based on the individual’s identification as a transgender man, where the treatment is medically indicated.

Don't you think every pro-life guy you know should trot on over to the nearest Planned Parenthood and ask for a pregnancy test? Demand one! And maybe insist on being given an abortion? after all, it's zir* body. Ze* should say that ze's been doing the backstroke in the gender fluidity pool and today woke up feeling all womanish.
Com'on, it'll be fun.
-----------------------
I should make plain, unlike many who are pro-life, I was in favor of healthcare reform. But I thought it should have gone much further than it did, I think socialized medicine is the only civilized set-up. The trouble is, we didn't get healthcare reform, we got health INSURANCE reform, it still costs a bloody fortune and it's still making the medical establishment, the insurance establishment and the pharmaceutical establishment filthy rich with the scams they have set up amongst themselves.
And the way the whole thing fell out, it made clear, it made it undeniable, the fetishization of abortion and contraception that sends tingles up the spine in certain quarters of what used to be called with some justification, the liberal movement.
Let's be honest, there are plenty of common and necessary heathcare services and drugs that are not required to be covered under ALL plans, (adult eye exams? foot care? weightloss surgery?) but contraceptives, some of which are abortefacient, was a hill the Obama administration was willing to die on - despite the knowledge that compromising on that would have allowed them to form a coalition with the USCCB which would have guaranteed success. But nope, they were going to punish those whose very refusal to embrace skankdom themselves feels, even without a word being spoken**, like such a reproach to those who revel in it  - they were going to insist that those puritanical types pay for it. Because make no mistake, this was never about healthcare, it was about silencing, driving from the public square those who don't espouse the notion that the only wrong or unhealthy sexual activity or attitude is continence.
Your body's working as it was intended? Great, you can get drugs that will stop that!
Oh, your body's NOT working as intended, you're infertile? Nope, probably not gonna give you any help with that...
----------------
* Not making this up. Anyone else worried that irony and satire are becoming redundnat?
** I, of course, am not such a one - I'm always ready to speak, or type a word. And "skankdom" is a pejorative that applies at least as much to men (whatever their "gender," she added sarcastically,) as to women. What can I say, I think sluts should be ashamed...

Voting and Self-Interest

My TwitFace, or Facer, or LockdIn or whatever they call it, friends and 'quaintances, with increasing frequency seem to be deriding other people for being "stupid" enough to consistently vote against their own self-interest.

Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't any decent person regularly do things against his own self-interest?

Isn't one, as a Christian, or an enlightened secularist, supposed to do the right thing, not the thing that is most salutary for ones bank account or social standing or comfort?

It's a sad argument to be making, and it says more about the critic than the person casting the vote.

"Jesus Betrays His People"

(I know this is grossly out of date, blame Facebook's algorithms, which somehow decided this should be linked to something current I was reading today.)

As the Lord concludes his meeting with His apostles this week, He reveals Himself as grossly out of touch with both grassroots Judaism and with the Sanhedrin. While there were certainly some who objected, He set forth an agenda that has little to do with the Huffington Post's wishes, and is opposed by the majority of Huffington Pot's readers.

I realize poor Miss Duddy-Burke supports certain sins, perhaps because she herself is unable to resist their temptation, or from mistaken notions of mercy toward others who are drawn to them.
And it is undoubtedly true that many sins are almost universally committed.
But where would anyone with even the most tenuous grasp of what Jesus and His Bride teach get the idea that the morality or immorality of an act or attitude,  of, yes, its fidelity to the Gospel of Jesus, is determined by majority vote?
Most people lie, for instance - is that evidence that it isn't wrong?

What about that survey, (probably deeply flawed and inaccurate,) that purported to show that one third of college men would commit rape given a consequence-free opportunity?
HAD the number been higher - would that have somehow made rape a morally permissible choice, and signal a "betrayal" by those who were still ag'n' it?

Use your brains, people, if you won't use your souls, at least use your brains!

Girl Scouts and Catholic Values

As it happens, I am allergic to Girl Scout cookies.
That said,
Each year [the Girl Scouts]

contribute over one million unrestricted dollars in membership dues to the [World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts]. ...WAGGGS has indicated to GSUSA that less than 3% of its budget is allocated towards advocacy efforts which cover a number of topics, including basic education and health care.
The [US bishops] recognized that both GSUSA and WAGGGS have been responsive to particular concerns. However, GSUSA’s limited purview to address particular positions within WAGGGS that are objectionable based on Catholic teaching and the natural moral law (e.g., “sexual and reproductive health/rights”) is a concern. [ya think?]In addition, with regard to the unrestricted membership dues, any monetary amount applied to advocacy or educational efforts deemed problematic is still a concern. [Because, say it with me boys and girls, MONEY IS A FUNGIBLE COMMODITY.]
In sum, GSUSA’s relationship with WAGGGS over the years is understandable ["understandable" as, "permitting of comprehension", or "understandable" as in "deserving of our understanding"?] given the history and purpose of the organizations; however, the current relationship remains a concern due to WAGGGS’ problematic promotion of “sexual and reproductive health/rights” and other matters.

The USCCB LMFLY, as far too often, says the right thing, but says it in Catholish, so that the take away can be whatever you want it to be.

"Reproductive rights" doesn't mean anything other than access to contraception and abortion on demand any more than "states rights" in the 19th century meant anything other than legal chattel slavery.

Yeah, Planned Parenthood Really Did Say Something That Stupid and That Evil

I'm not a very trusting person.
I read something, or I hear something, particularly on a polarizing issue, even from someone with whom I generally agree, and wonder, really? you're not exaggerating a bit? or okay, maybe so, but what's the context? That sort of thing.
I have trouble, from time to time, because when he says something on certain contentious topics I tend to ask Himself, how do you know? and he always hears, implicit in my question, I don't trust you, when I mean, I might not trust your sources.
Because, you know, Those Interwebs.

Anyway, Lifesite, a very strong advocate of the right to life, (as well as of other issues, some of which are only peripherally connected to their main goal,) naturally takes a very adversarial position regarding the chief purveyor of private murder of the unborn in this country.
And, like most advocacy journalists, they may not reveal all the shades in an issue on which they report.
An example would be claims that so-and-so "supports" thus-and-such, when in reality he has just declined to criminalize it, (e.g., I am not in favor of drunkenness if I don't think all drunks should be thrown in the hoosegow.)
Anyway, forgive me for my scepticism when I read something like, Planned Parenthood says a law requiring those who are HIV to inform their sexual partners of the fact somehow violates their civil rights.
But no, that's exactly, and expressly what PP said:

Some countries have laws that say people living with HIV must tell their sexual partner(s) about their status before having sex, even if they use condoms or only engage in sexual activity with a low risk of giving HIV to someone else. These laws violate the rights of people living with HIV by forcing them to disclose or face the possibility of criminal charges.

Just to be clear, this is a publication of Planned Parenthood International and dates from 2010, but it is still being offered as a resource.

Evil.
Just plain evil.

Doe God Hate Sin? Should We?

Honestly, I had no idea this was even a question, but I keep stumbling across people saying, more or less, that we are not to hate sin.

The cliche of "loving the sinner but hating the sin," is described as a mischaracterization, bastardization, an embarrassment, a sin and a total abomination.
It is damned as "flying in the face of everything Jesus said."
And most thrillingly, its usefulness is called into question -- because really, isn't process, utility, pragmatism the really meat and potatoes of our faith? -- as we are told that “the distinction between sin and sinner no longer works.”
(In all honesty, that link is to a quote of a translation of an overheard.... well, you get the idea.)

God hates, or so we're told, and I don't mean by vile wretches like the preacher from Westboro Baptist.

We're actually told in the Bible, that there are sins God hates.
Shouldn't we as well?

In all honesty, the anti-LTSHTS crowd seem fixated on certain sins. That claim that those who are pro-LTSHTS types are fixated on those same sins.

Maybe it's just me, but I have a sneaking suspicion the real source of division is that the antis don't really think those sins are sins.
(I was going to say "deep down," but their incredulity is pretty much bubbling up right there on the surface.)
Yeah, the conversations on "sin" always seem to end up dancing around what some call "pelvic issues."

There's a good reason for this, and it's not that the pros are obsessed with them, is that they're the only sins, if sins they be, that have people campaigning in favor of them!
Nobody presents for communion wearing a sash proclaiming his fealty to the Embezzlers' Agenda.
No one is seeking equal rights for Cannibals.

Fr Hunwicke had a good idea, that if you are trying to get down to brass tacks, to really see what your actual principles are, as opposed to warm-fuzzies, regarding sin, (you know, gradualism, use of the Internal Forum to resolve questions about whether you are in a state of grace, and here, whether you need to stop hating the sin if you really love that sinner,) substitute for whatever you pet sin is, "paedophilia."

We love the paedophiliac, must we therefore love the paedophilia?

I'm guessing not.

So in that case, what the anti-LTSHTS should admit, is that they are saying that they don't have to hate the sin because it's not a sin.

Come to think of it,what about people like the, (now defunct,) preacher from Westboro Baptist?

I think his campaign, his activities, his words, all were utterly, unquestionably sinful.
I try not to hate such cruel people, I try to hope he did not condemn himself to eternal separation from the Father in a hell of his own design and choice.

So, if I succeed, if I don't hate him...

Am I also not supposed to hate his sins?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Communion, Unworthiness, Trendy Sins, Zizzania and the Sorrows of Post-lapsarian Humanity

Fr Ray Blake has a deeply thoughtful essay that should be read by everyone.

EVERYONE.

No perfunctory condemnations, no glib solutions - just thoughtfulness.(And fascinating anecdotes and erudition. Who knew? Cockles.)

What have we come to? I had a letter recently from a parishioner telling me he had fallen in love with another man and therefore wasn't going to be coming to Mass anymore!

The Gospel yesterday in the Old Rite was the wheat harvest sown with zizzania (translated as cockle), the owner tells the servants that rather than weeding out the weeds, to leave them until harvest time, 'lest the wheat also is lost'. The Second Vatican Council spoke about a 'universal call to holiness', what we seem to have difficulty with is coping with the fact that not everyone wants 'holiness', or at least wants to delay it until the last moment, or simply feels they are incapable of it

In the past we dealt with this by accepting people were at different places in their spiritual pilgrimage. Now I wonder if we have lost that flexibility. Chesterton's remark about the possibility of leaving an umbrella safely in any church, of any denomination, except a Catholic church, because in a Catholic church it was bound to be stolen, because Catholic churches are full of sinners, once contained a lot of truth. I remember certain London churches and certain continental churches that seemed to be full of ladies of certain character and men of  certain 'exotic' tendencies, all at the back or behind pillars or in side chapels praying with intensity, and slightly more reflectively 'pray for us sinners, now and the hour of death'.

One of our parishioners remembers as a young boy being told by the Parish Priest not to accept sweets from the then rather elderly Lord Alfred Douglas and another, now dead, told me that his mother didn't think it "safe", presumably in the modern sense of 'safeguarding', for children to come here on their own "because of the strange people who go to 'Mad Mary Mags'". If their parents didn't come with them they were sent to the posher and safer Sacred Heart Church next door in more select Hove. Graham Greene used to come here when he stayed in Brighton, he was friends, along with Belloc and Chesterton. with Mgr Wallis, who was Rector here until his death in 1950. I can well imagine that on a Sunday not only Rose but most of the characters from Brighton Rock turning up here at Mass. Maybe even Pinky came here at Christmas and Easter.

We have always taken it that the God 'tolerates' sin in the Church, and sin in its members. It hates sin but loves sinners and yet is formed of men and women who are sinners. In the inter and post-war Catholic novels of the great age of Catholic literary converts, who often had an ambiguous relationship with God themselves, there is a deep sense of the divided self, Sebastian Flyte deeply in love with his German lover and yet ultimately finding a relationship with God, that is quite saintly but which occasionally falls disastrously apart but he he always returns again and again, to care for the sick and to live alongside the brothers in the monastery that have taken him in. It seems typical of the light and dark motifs of Catholic literature and spirituality of those years, and tells the true story of Catholic pastoral care of those years.....

The older idea, still prevalent in Orthodoxy and certain declining branches of Protestantism, and amongst more ultra Traditionalists, that people should receive Communion only rarely, and then only after confession and a period of intensified fasting and penance, was the norm up until Pius X. In pre-Reformation England the norm was for Communion once a year, following Lateran IV's precept of reception at 'Easter or there abouts'. The confession, penance, prayer and rigorous fasting of Lent was the period of preparation....

if everyone is to receive the Eucharist, does it means that there is no room for the prostitute or the gay man or adulterer unable to control his sexual desires or the alcoholic or the wife beater or the paedophile or the murderous God hating gangster, or the simply confused, or just plain ordinary sinner with a divided soul who loves the idea of God but is too damaged to fully embrace him.

We are indeed all called to holiness but yet whilst virtue might indeed be growing in us like a rich crop of wheat, the zizzania flourishes too and maybe, until harvest time, it dominates. The problem is we see the weeds and God sees virtue. We are not the best judges in our own cause....[emphasis supplied]

we have never been a 'holiness cult' but a Church of sinners....

Is there a place in today's Church for the man who washes the wounds of the diseased and lights copious candles, faithfully tells his beads, yet has a penchant for a particular vice and then goes on a bender, throws his beads in the dustbin and a few weeks later, horrified is found kneeling outside the confessional or weeping before the statue of Our Lady? Is there place for the priest addicted to drink, or maybe nowadays porn, who claims he has lost his faith, yet is actually heroic in his fidelity? Is there a place for Saint Mark Ji Tianxiang, the opium addict, forbidden the sacraments for thirty years, yet had the courage to die for Christ.

Not certain what I think of any of this - do I receive the Blessed Sacrament too casually?
I had forgotten until just now, when I was younger there was a parish at which my Mother sang, my younger brother and I sometimes joined her with the choir.
She pointed out to me once a young couple, 2 very lovely men, boys, really. She told me they were there every week, arrived early, (like the musicians,) very devout, knelt in prayer for a long time, participated devoutly in Mass and never presented for Communion.
And then she smiled sadly.
That was all she said about them, I was never quite sure why - thought perhaps at the time she was trying to tell me something about many of my friends, (as if i didn't know....)

"Do as I do: trust in God and yourself."

I don't know much about the politics of the '60s, or '70s... even, admittedly of the '80s, (when I had an obligation to pay attention. Mea culpa.) Himself is a current events, history and politics junkie, on the other hand.

We were watching someone, politician or would-be politician, say something horrible and ugly on the news, and bemoaning the polarization of current political discourse in the country, and he said something to the effect that it didn't use to be like this, and he mused about pinpointing the change to a particular event or person.

As I said, I don't know much about it, but it occurred to me that from what little I did pay attention to, it seems to me that when I was young and when I was younger, there could be open disagreement between people of good will on the subject of fiscal philosophy.
There was discordance on the best way to keep our nation safe, and therefore war.

But other than lingering institutional and codified racism, (and that is no small sin against morality,) there was consensus on matters of simple decency.

One did not fornicate in the governor's mansion, one did not mock the elderly while cheating them of their life savings, one did not proudly murder the baby in the womb, one did not brag about acquiring a trophy to replace the older model spouse one was dumping, one did not smirk about or bashfully admit to paying prostitutes, one did not present filth as art in serious venues.

Oh, people did these things, they got away with doing them, and probably profited from them.
But they had the decency, frankly, to be hypocrites, and at least try to keep them on the down-low.

There were, across religious denominations and political parties and ethnic groups, some small areas of consensus.
There are still people who hold to these standards, but one has very little faith that even ones friends and colleagues share them.
And I think that is the factionalism at the root of the incivility of modern politics and intellectual discourse.

I like to quote her, but Jane Eyre's moral strength would make her a laughing stock were there to be a faithful adaptation of Bronte's work for popular consumption, wouldn't it?
What used to be called "common" decency is high comedy now.

I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth—so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane—quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.  

 And in answer to a "Catholic" magazine which had inquired, as if chastity were some Sisyphean task, What should a gay Catholic do? I had imagined her answering,

Do as I do: trust in God and yourself. Believe in heaven... I advise you to live sinless, and I wish you to die tranquil.... We were born to strive and endure -- you as well as I.

O the times, O the mores... I am feeling old.

Inviolability of the Conscience? Help Me Out Here....

I'm not a theologian or a philosopher, heck I'm not even a very good or very smart or very industrious person --
But my understanding of the concept of the inviolability of conscience was essentially that a person must not be compelled to do something he, after sufficient formation and study and prayer, believes is wrong.

NOT that every person is entitled do anything he thinks is right.

“If people come to a decision in good conscience [i.e. that something the Church teaches is sinful is not sinful] then our job is to help them move forward and to respect that."

 The Church's job is to respect a decision to do something sinful? Her JOB?

Not just get out of the way, (well, he thinks it's okay so it's okay for him,) but help them to persevere in that sin.

(I knew I shoulda gone to seminary so I could understand episcospeak.)

Conscience can remain in ignorance or make erroneous judgments. Such ignorance and errors are not always free of guilt.

And what about the conscince of him who helps the sinner to move forward, respects the sinful decision, enables the sin? 
(The story the good bishop tells is beautiful and touching but not really to the point - the woman in question did not come to any decision. Or rather, she seemed to have come to a decision that she knew what the Church's practice was, and at least in that one instance, she would obey Her.)

"But at least this pope guy isn't like that awful one he replaced..."

(Ooops.
I put that heading in quotes, and no one actually said that.
Well, I said it, but I was being sarcastic, mocking the position taken by... never mind.)
But.....
Seriously?

On one fringe of the Catholic cloth, and one side of the political divide, I believe, on very little evidence, a writer puts a particular construction on an event.
On another, a different slant is put on that event, by means of putting a particular construction on words from an unnamed source, some of which may or may not have supported that construction, since after using direct quotes, we lapsed into free indirect speech, a style much beloved of writers of fiction or those wishing to put their own slant on matters that actual quotes would not support.
On the basis of that, still others claim that one person involved in the event is a liar. 
Which may be, but it would be unfair, actually impossible to say so with no more evidence than someone else's misconstruction, and I don't see anywhere that any particular thing the woman so accused said is contradicted by anyone in a position to know.
The only "official" statement actually speaks more to the various construction various partisans are putting on the event rather than anything the woman in question said.
A semi-official spokesman who previously admitted he knew nothing about it, was nonetheless bravely willing to go on record of how it "would" have been, how it must have happened even though, um... he wasn't told and wasn't there.

 the pope would have been given a list of people who were invited to bid him farewell as he departed Washington, but was unaware of the details of the... case or any possible implications of the meeting.

Furthermore, this semi-official, rumored-to-be-litigious, spokesperson,

"believed the pope would have been given a list of names of the several dozen people who were invited to the embassy to bid farewell as he left Washington, but was unaware of the details of [the]case or any possible implications of the meeting."

But he was glad to,

"hypothesize that the reception amounted to a receiving line-type event, with people in various rooms [hm, how many in each room?] on the first floor of the embassy to greet the pope and receive a rosary from him.

And while in the official statement we read only,

The only real audience granted by the Pope at the nunciature was with one of his former students and his family.

... everyone upset about right-wingers making too much of this other meet-and-greet are dancing with glee and putting up billboards at the Vatican's thereby affirming... um, former students, (that's all anyone not "reading into" it would get from the official statement.)

But apparently besides being a "former student" (is that the pc term for such people?) this person engages in homosexual activity.

The Rev. James Martin, editor at large of the Jesuit magazine America, had cautioned in an article this week that the pope meets many well-wishers on his trips, and that news of the meeting... had been manipulated.

“I was very disappointed to see the pope having been used that way, and that his willingness to be friendly to someone was turned against him,” Father Martin said in an interview on Friday. “What may originally have prevented them from issuing a statement was the desire not to give this story too much air. But what they eventually came to realize was that they needed to correct some gross misrepresentations of what had happened. It shows that Pope Francis met with many people on the trip, and that she was simply another person who he tried to be kind to.”

Not sure if he's talking about the gay guy here or the other dealio, (do the young folk still say that?) but I assume his principles apply equally.

And let me see, has Pope Francis ever said any little thing that his handlers and spokespeople have had to, I dunno, "walk back" a bit?

Maybe once or twice.

Oh, dear, I have gone on....

Because what I really asked, SERIOUSLY???!?!??? about, was this piece of idiocy, which provoked my title -

"Nobody in the Catholic Church wants another Regensburg,” said [some assistant professor at some college.] He was referring to the backlash after Pope Benedict XVI, Francis’ predecessor, gave a speech in Regensburg, Germany, that appeared to denigrate Islam.

“This was not as serious as Regensburg, when Benedict read his own speech,”[the sometime writer for HuffPo and America]  said about the meeting ... “But the pope has to be able to rely on his own system, and in this case the system failed him. The question is, was it a mistake, or was it done with full knowledge of how toxic she was?”

What's the Italian for nincompoop?

The meeting ... was clearly a misstep, [the Italian professor] said, “because the whole trip to the United States he very carefully didn’t want to give the impression that he was being politicized by any side.”

He added, “And this thing is the most politicized thing that you can imagine.”

Let's see, what can I say, without using inappropriate language?

Oh, I know...

"______ "