I don’t find God’s prohibition of homosexual activity any harder to defend than I do the prohibition of any other sin. The problem I see is pointing out sexual behavior between two persons of the same sex, is omitting illicit sexual behavior between men and women, as being something lesser in importance. Why should gay men and lesbians refrain from sexual activity if we condone pre-marital, extra-marital and illicit sex within marriage, (yup just because you are married does not make anything you do in your bedroom legit). I’ve heard some of the most anti-gay bigots decry homosexuals, and homosexuality, yet they sleep around, are on their second or third wife, (or husband) engaged in pre-marital sex, etc. If we believe that sex is something sacred that we can only share in a legitimate manner when we are married, and (in the case of a married couple during their fertile years) that is open to cooperating with God in the formation of new life, then we should be condemning all behavior that does not conform to God’s plan.

It is far easier to live a life where we make compromises and excuses to hard situations. On a seemingly different subject, I have some friends who are willing to pray the rosary with me when they come to visit, or when I visit them. I also pray the rosary when I am walking my dogs, (sometimes I use a traditional rosary with beads, other times I use a penal or finger rosary.) All but one of these people will chat about anything under the sun when walking, but are afraid of praying the rosary in public even when we say the prayers in a lower tone of voice with few or no people around to hear or see us. Another “side effect” of praying the rosary when I walk my dogs, even when I’m feeling tired and my bones ache, I know that having set the example of being a Catholic, and I can’t ignore when my dogs leave a little gift on someone’s lawn, and I have to pick it up. I had one lady come out and yell at me one day, her neighbor yelled at her, “Don’t worry, I see him pray the rosary and pick up his dog’s poop all the time.” Since then when I go by the house the woman now runs out when she sees me waving her rosary at me and smiling. I do sometimes meet chatty neighbors, and note where I am on the rosary, put it away, have a conversation with them, and then pick up where I left off. I also smile and say hello to the local prostitutes and other people who are less “upstanding” members of society. They stop and pet the dogs, I stop and talk with them. Never once have the women offered their wares to me, but two have told me they where raised Catholic. I’ve offered to pray just one decade of the rosary with them as they pet the dogs. Both have done so, and both have told me they felt better afterward, have gone to confession, and no longer work as prostitutes. I did not “preach” to them about the moral teachings of the Church, I simply allowed them to join me in praying, as I would any Catholic friend who visits my house, and prays the rosary with me. (Nobody who visits is obliged to pray the rosary with me before they spend the night in my guest room, read here when the couch is unfolded *) If they don’t want to pray the rosary with me in the living room, I will pray is with the dogs as usual, or in my bedroom.) So someitmes, (to get back on track about Catholic Moral teaching) the best defense is not argument, but example.

* In keeping with the Moral teachings of the Church single males or married couples where both man and wife are present, (and kids in sleeping bags) are the only ones who get an inviation to sleep on the couch. Females or anyone else who may lead to scandal are given assistance in finding other lodgings.

I think first priority with an atheist is belief in God. What point is it to argue beliefs and teachings if he won’t accept the authority on which those beliefs and teachings are based?

What I find hardest to defend is priestly celibacy, especially after the sexual abuse scandals still rocking the Church.

The leadin is normally a statement to the fact that the speaker doesn’t agree with it and that all the problems of sexual misconduct would greatly diminish if this was done away with.

Most times I’ll give a non-response along the lines of, “You’re not going to convert me, I can’t convert you. So I don’t discuss things of this nature, it’s a waste of time for both of us.”

Not ideal but it’s the best I come up with. “Mind your own damned business would be the alternative.”

Up until recently almost all of the Protestant sects where against artificial birth control. So it was the Catholic Church that remained consistant, and others who changed their teachings. It is said that Pope Paul VI would have liked to have changed the position of the Church, but as it was the constant teaching of the Church he could not. This shows consistancy in the teaching authority of the Church.

The Anglicans where the first to change their teachings, at a semi-regular meeting they have called the Lambeth Confrence. (Lambeth is the palace given to the Archbishop of Cantebury to live in during his time in office, in the Anglican Church most of the Abps. of Cantebury retire after a period of time, allowing someone else to take the office.) At one of the Lambeth Confrences, (either just before or after WWII, I’ll have to check up on the year,) Anglicanism made the move to change the prohibition on BC.

Now some may ask isn’t BC something new, so how could the Church just come up with something. A glance through Archeology Magazine, (about 10 years back) and other books from historians who have done their homework, (and if Ron is lurking still, these where not exclucivly nor even a majority Catholic Scholars, and not supported or denied by the Catholic Church.) Found that ancient Romans and Greeks, as well as other Mediterranian cultures had herbal solutions to both prevent pregnancy, and devices much like our “modern” forms of BC, as well as knew of herbal preparations that would cause abortions. So BC is nothing new. While writings are scarce on the subject among the writings of the early Church, as they where more concerned with staying alive during persecutions than expanding and explaining the Faith and Moral teaching of the Church in the public arena, the early writers have the same message as the Church teaches today. It would make a good research project for someone who has the time, as I don’t have the issue of Arch. Digest any more.

As for priestly remaining celibate, it is really not that hard to defend. First not all Catholic priests are required to remain celibate. Eastern Rite Catholic (and their Orthodox counterpart) priests, (those ordained in Eastern and Western Europe but not the USA) are allowed to marry before ordination to the diaconate. If they are single when they are ordained a deacon, they as a rule may not marry after their ordination. So Eastern Rite priests and deacons can be married men. For over 1500 years bishops in the Eastern Rites have either been widowers or come from a monastic setting, Monks and Nuns obviously are not married. Some Protestant ministers who have converted to the Catholic Church who are married have been given special permission to be ordained and keep their wives. Another rare case is where a husband and wife who either have no children or grown children have been allowed to separate, she entering a convent and he into Relgious life or into the priesthood.

What needs to be distinguished is dogma vs custom. Dogma cannot be changed, even the Pope cannot change dogma. Dogma is something that is revealed by God and one must believe or one is not a Catholic, included in the area of dogma are such things as the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, that Mary was a human, a creature of God wha was given the unique privilige of being concieved without sin, by and in anticipation of the Cross of Christ. Church custom or discipline of the Church is something we follow because Christ gave the Church, especially the office held by Peter and his successors the authority to bind and loose, or to enact laws and relax laws in areas that do not require absolute faith, like the dogmas mentioned above. So when the Church had problems with wives and children of priests who needed to be supported, during the lives of those priests, and after they died, when priests and bishops where promoted to the ranks of the clergy because their father held the post, and not because they where called by God etc, the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church imposed cleibacy on anyone in “Major Orders” which now are deacons, priests and bishops, but at one time (and in some places still) consisted of Sub-Deacons.

As far as pedophilia, there is a higher rate among Protestant sects than among Catholic Clergy, (per the Christian Science Monitor article published within the past 12 mos. and posted on a dfferent thread here.) Jewish Clergy, Orthodox clergy, Judges, teachers and others, most of them married have commited the same sins. So priests (at least the few who have tainted the names of the many) are not alone in this crime. St. Paul endorsed celibacy as a superior lifestyle for those who have the grace to live that life. A celibate priest can give himself entirely to the sheep entrusted to his care. While Protestant ministers, Eastern Priests, Doctors and others can serve their people while being married, a priest has an advantage in that he is not encumbered with these obligations. This is a rule that the Church can change, but it is not up to a popular vote.

Here I’d like to consider what the office of the priest really is. We must always remember that when we speak respectfully of any priest, it is not his humanity that demands respect but the priesthood that he has been intrusted with that demands the respect. He is still a man, but the priesthood he is entrusted with is the priesthood of Christ, our Lord shares that priesthood with the man so that Christ Himself can offer Himself in the Mass through the ministry of His priests, so that Christ can absolve sinners through the ministry of His priests, so that Christ Himself can be present to comfort a soul as each of us breaths our last. It is also well to point out that a minister (in the sense of a priest ministering to the Body of Christ) is one who is authorized to do something in the name of a person of authority who sends him to do what he is comissioned to do. To act on behalf of that person of Authority. Priests are authorized to minister or are comissioned with the responsiblity to bring Christ to the people in a special way, to dispense the Sacraments which Christ Jesus gave the Church in His Name and by His authority, we must remember it is Christ’s prieshood, not the posession of a priest that is at work here. It is truly Christ who acts in the sacraments, through His priest, not the priest’s actions or merits that bring the grace of the Sacrament.

A very good book, recently reprinted is Abp. Sheen’s “The priest is not his own” Priests who read and take it to heart will become better priests, and laymen and women who read it will know what they should expect from a priest who wishes to serve Christ Jesus.

More later…..(Abp. Sheens book can be found here, [url:t6l5jiru]http://www.ignatius.com/ViewProduct.aspx?SID=1&Product_ID=2364&SKU=PNHO-P&Category_ID=23[/url:t6l5jiru]

Hmmmm…I feel a bit uneasy about certain relics of saints.

Seems like we should leave the dead buried in peace.

.

[quote:2kys0td4]Hmmmm…I feel a bit uneasy about certain relics of saints.

Seems like we should leave the dead buried in peace. [/quote:2kys0td4]

It is repugnant to our modern day sensibilites, just as it was in the early Church. There where cases in the earlly church where Eastern Bishops wrote to Rome asking for parts of the bodies of saints to be sent to them. The Pope wrote back, saying that to the Western mind the removal of parts of the bodies was repugnant and he sent cloths laid on the bodies instead. Later with the rapid growth of the Church the decision came to be made that portions of the bodies of saints could be sent to keep the practice of offering Holy Mass on the tombs of the saints. It was not popular everywhere at first, but it is the Church that has the authority to allow such things, and not personal taste. While many of the modernist bishops and priests want to do away with the veneration of relics, and the distribution of them, it is a long standing practice of the Church.

This brings up the authentication of relics. Any relic that does not have a document (called in english and Authentic) which describes the relic the theca (or case) that it is in, and have the seal of one authorized to issue it on the papers, and (usually attached by red thread or ribbon) a wax or lead seal affixed to the relic, cannot be held as an authentic relic (first class relics only) and may not be venerated in public. There have in history been many relics that have been forged. Take for example in the 1970’s when someone got hold of the papers for the relics of then Blessed John Neumann of Philidelphia. Someone obtained a seal that looked like the seal of Nicolas Ferrante, the postulator of (now) St. John Neumann and was able to fabricate relics issuing false papers and began trafficing in false relics, sometimes selling them for ten to twenty times more than the donation asked for the theca (case) that the relic is enclosed in by those who are authorized to distribute relics. Any relic or alleged relic of Ferrante is at least suspect if not absolutly false except those that are printed on authentics of superior quality, (the fakes are poorly copied and are not printed on the quality of card stock paper that is trimmed and nicely produced) and if it is a relic of anyone other than Blessed (now saint) John Neumann. As Nicolas Ferrante did not ever authenticate relics of anyone else, nor of St. John Neumann after he was canonized a saint, any other relics cannot be trusted to be anything other than fakes.

[quote:mj2sua7r][quote:mj2sua7r]I think one of the hardest ones for me is Mary. It seems like most things we teach about Mary are derived from other teachings and not direct. Some of it also seems contrived.[/quote:mj2sua7r]
[color=darkblue:mj2sua7r]Like what?[/color:mj2sua7r][/quote:mj2sua7r]
lol…I remember my opinions better than I remember why I formed that opinion.

Perhaps I am thinking of some of the devotions and such. Now you’re forcing me to really think about this! I’ll get back to you.

[quote:2w537nyf][color=blue:2w537nyf]Back in the OLD days there was a saying “keep the women bare foot and pregnant”[/color:2w537nyf][/quote:2w537nyf]
Of course, that was then… ” title=”Wink” />