It was never about the cake

From an email blast sent to Helen Alvare's "Women Speak for Themselves" network of supporters yesterday afternoon: 

"Indiana has passed a law which balances religious freedom for citizens, groups and businesses, with the state’s “compelling interests” in requiring everybody to obey this or that particular law which might burden religion.  It is not a remarkable law. The same language was passed federally by a bipartisan Congress in 1993 and signed by President Clinton. About 31 states have such a law either by statute or state constitutional interpretation."

Probably you've heard once or fifteen times in the past 48 hours how the state of Indiana is trying to time travel back into the Middle Ages and start hunting down practicing homosexuals and publicly flogging them in the town square for their sins of the flesh.

At least that's the narrative our progressive mainstream media is broadcasting via every available channel, be they legitimate news sources or floundering, illogical op-eds by the very openly homosexual CEO's of very wealthy corporations who are therefore allowed to have  bigger and more important opinions than the average citizen.

And this, y'all? This is crazy.

This is the best example of how public opinion - cultivated public opinion carefully crafted and executed by liberal think tanks, billion dollar corporations, and academicians, is becoming the highest power in the land.

In short: laws need not be based in reason or reality, but must instead conform to popular public displays of outrage and emotion. 

But there's a catch.

Some people - let's call them Christians to simplify the discussion, believe that sex is sacred and, as God revealed in Scripture, is reserved for the exclusive marital relationship between one man and one woman.

Now, Christians believe this to be true because it is true, speaking from a natural law perspective.

God doesn't make arbitrary thou shalt nots: if He says not to do it, it's because it's objectively wrong. So murder. Lying. Stealing. Adultery (translation: sexual involvement with someone other than your spouse).

Do some Christians (and lots of other people) do these things anyway? Of course. Because human nature and original sin and lots and lots of falling down and repenting and getting back up.

But now we have this prevailing cultural trend of not only tolerating a formerly forbidden and immoral behavior - homosexuality - but of openly embracing and celebrating it. 

And I'm not speaking here of the person struggling with (or openly celebrating, as is more and more often the case) the disordered behavior and deviant attractions, but the very act of engaging in homosexual behavior. That's what we're being compelled to clap and cheer for.

And this bill in Indiana? All it is is the reiteration of an existing 20 year old federal law that 31 other states have some identical version of on the books that pledges protection for those individuals and businesses who don't choose to jump up and down and cheer. 

Does it say that you can discriminate against someone because you disagree with their lifestyle? No. Foolishness.

All it offers is the chance for businesses and individuals who are being compelled by prevailing public opinion and an increasingly invasive federal government to protect themselves from directly violating their own consciences by participating in immoral acts.

Because unless the gay couple coming to ask for a wedding cake is planning on entering into some kind of lifelong platonic union of mutual celibacy, that's exactly what forcing someone to cater a gay "wedding" is doing: coercing their participation in the public celebration of immoral behavior: homosexuality.

That's all this law is: an explicit protection for religious citizens who fear (and rightly so) the creeping encroachment of coercive government policies that directly contradict both reality and their deeply held moral beliefs.

But you won't hear that in the media. Because the gay agenda is powerful, purposeful, and intent upon winning hearts and minds, by force if necessary.

It was never about the wedding cake in the first place. It was always about - and will continue to be about - the systematic redefinition of our collective moral code.

Such a time as this

 From the Associated Press this morning:

"The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for same-sex weddings to start in Alabama, letting the number of gay-marriage states climb in advance of a constitutional showdown that may mean legalization nationwide.   

In a 7-2 order, the justices rejected Alabama’s bid to stop a federal trial judge’s legalization order from taking effect Monday. The state now will become the 37th where gays can marry."

At first glance, this perhaps doesn't look like much in terms of news. States' marriage laws have been crashing down left and right like felled timber over the past 2 years, and it's hardly shocking that Alabama has joined the ranks of the other 36 places in the U.S. where same sex couples can legally contract a "marriage."

No big deal, right?

Live and let live, and live the life you love, and you love who you love, and all the other platitudes that fill the airwaves and our ears in this modern cultural milieu.

I have some news for us Christians, and maybe it's going to come as a bit of a shock, but it may well be that none of those clever turns of phrase are going to apply to us before too long.

Make no mistake, this has never been about simply leveling the playing field so that all may freely participate in the institution of marriage; what it is about - what it has always been about - is redefining and recreating marriage into something else entirely.

And when something gets redefined, the old definition is, by necessity, destroyed. Retired into the annals of history, if you will. Marked down as a tried-and-failed social experiment, and abandoned in the name of Progress.

If you believe that Christians, Jews, progressive Muslims, people of other faiths who practice monogamous, heterosexual life-long fidelity within the context of a religious sacrament are going to be allowed to continue to teach, preach, and contract said marriages in peace once gay "marriage" is enshrined as the law of the land, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise.

Maybe not immediately, but highly likely in the not-too-distant future

If you think you're going to be able to teach your publicly-schooled fourth grader that sex is sacred and reserved for the intimate communion of marriage between husband and wife, you may have another think coming. (And possibly a visit from CPS, to boot.)

Once gay "marriage" becomes the law of the land, it will no longer be possible to hold a competing worldview and still be viewed, either professionally or legally, as a person of good will.

You will be a bigot, first and foremost. A menace to the pluralistic good of a society unshackled from the burdensome moral code of the past. And your kind - our kind - may not be tolerated.

Oh, it might not be a matter of legal troubles, at least not yet. It will probably be a quieter persecution. Passed over for a promotion. Let go from a job. Denied entry to a committee or school organization. Little things like that, white martyrdoms in varying shades of grey.

Because you see, it's not really possible to live and let live when life trajectories are fundamentally opposed. Something has to give, someone has to yield.

We can't all be right.

Relativism only works on paper. In real life it plays out like this: someone is right, and someone else is a bigot who is breaking the law.

Marriage can't be both a monogamous, permanent, life-long commitment between a man and a woman and an open-ended sexual relationship configured by any two consenting adults. The two definitions are fundamentally contradictory.

And while I may be perfectly capable of ignoring the antics and goings-on behind my neighbor's bedroom doors right now, when I am forced to publicly endorse their lifestyle by the laws of the land, my reality is altered.

Then it's no longer live and let live, but becomes instead applaud what we do and accept what we teach, because you are now legally bound.

It's time for us to wake up. Authentic Christian charity doesn't mean turning a blind eye to social ills and harmful behavior just because they're fashionable, trending heavily on Twitter, and popular in Hollywood.

I can love my gay brother or sister - and indeed, true love is willing the good of the other - without endorsing the institution of gay "marriage."

But I may not have that option forever.

One day in the not-too-distant future, it might not be okay to say that in public. It may be something we whisper in private: "oh, we still believe in the Sacrament of Marriage personally, but we can't talk about it here."

And you know what? That's on us. We have been hand-picked, each one of us, to occupy this unique space in this place and time in history. So what witness are you prepared to give, and what defense for the faith you have?

We ought to be praying, fasting, working like crazy to share the goodness and the truth and the beauty of married love. Not sticking our heads in the sand and pulling our kids, our voices, our potential to be influencers and world changers, out of the public square.

We have to be fearless. St. John Paul II said to us, over and over again, "be not afraid." This is the heart of the Gospel: perfect love that casts out all fear.

I won't let my fear of what somebody may think of me prevent me from speaking the truth. And so long as we have the freedom to do so, we ought to be speaking it boldly, humbly, inviting people in to the Faith, not cowering in church doorways, bracing ourselves for disaster.

Be not afraid. Over and over again, I have to remind myself. Be not afraid.

Gay "marriage" isn't going to satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart; only the one Who created us can do that. Let's invite as many people as we can to experience the truth of that firsthand. Jesus is what this sad, suffering culture of ours seeks, whether or not they know Him by name. And if we center our lives and our marriages on Him, we cannot lose.

Marriage is a beautiful vocation, and it is worthy of being defended. But it is our lived example that speaks volumes to a visually distracted and chaotic culture starved for beauty.
So that awkward encounter with a fellow commuter holding a matching newspaper early in the morning? Be not afraid.

A hard conversation with a beloved friend or college roommate who champions an alternate view of marriage? Be not afraid.

An unpopular stance with your child's school administration for the sake of your impressionable 5th grader who won't be participating in the sex-ed program? Be not afraid.

"For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Esther 4:14

Catholics, sex, and marriage: the elevator pitch

Man, has it been a month or what? 

I told you guys when I started writing this series that I had some serious resistance going on, but I had no way to prepare for the all out spiritual warfare that this venture would trigger. I'm not actually even being facetious. 

It.has.been.real.

Which has me even more convinced that these conversations, virtual though they may be, are so deeply necessary. 

And the point is not that they remain virtual, you know? I'm fully aware of the limitations of the internet as means for evangelization. I get it. Things don't always translate, and layers of complexity and nuance are all too often lost amidst the keystrokes and the fiery rage of the combox.

But the internet is a great place for sharing information. Which, in turn, is good for facilitating communication. It's up to us to do the actual communicating on a one-to-one level though, got it?

So, to wrap things up, here's a tidy 2 minute overview of what Catholics believe about sex and marriage, and why.

Sex is good. It isn't dirty or naughty or some kind of half-hearted concession to our fallen animalistic nature...it is good, just as it was good in the beginning. Be fruitful and multiply, He said. And so we are, and we do. 

And we absolutely have to teach our kids that. Early and often. There's no such thing as "the talk" in good Christian parenting; rather, it must be a series of talks, spanning childhood into early adulthood, continually drawing children into the beauty and the truth of human sexuality. If you're waiting until your little snowflake starts middle school to say anything positive or informative about sex and the human person, well, I'm sorry to say it, but you're about 3 years too late.

We live in a sexually saturated culture, and our children's eyes and brains are bathed in provocative, violent, and sadistic images of a sexual nature at every turn. It's our job to combat that with beauty, and goodness, and above all, the truth of who and why they were "created, male and female." 

Marriage is also good. For the majority of people, it's not only good, but it's the means of our salvation. If you are called to the Sacrament of Marriage, it is through those graces (and crosses) that you'll make your way to heaven, leading and alternately being led by the spouse you choose. 

Marriage and sex go together. You might even say that attempting to separate them is at the root of almost every problem facing our society. We reserve sex for marriage not out of prudishness or repression, but for the same reason you wouldn't build a nuclear bomb in the garage: that kind of power demands respect. Mishandle plutonium and you're going to have a disaster, because you are violating the stuff's nature. You can't change nature. You can ignore it, or deny it, or repackage it as something of your own creation, but the stuff is still radioactive.

That's the reason the Church will never change her position on marriage: she doesn't have the power to. Marriage is the union between one man and one woman, designed by the Creator of plutonium, etc. to produce brand spanking new humans. We can tinker with the definition and broaden and rewrite all we want...but we can't alter nature. Even if the State does. Even if every country on earth proclaims marriage to be "an open ended living arrangement featuring a rotating cast of 4 or more adults featuring occasional collaborations with domesticated animals." Or something. Even then, the Church will not alter her stance on what marriage is, because it isn't hers to alter.

The Catholic Church's teachings on sex and marriage are profoundly freeing, which is a shocking claim to make on a libertine, pleasure-worshiping culture. But it's true! There is such freedom in chastity and fidelity and wild abandonment and trust. And while there's never a guarantee for happiness, it sure makes sense to stack the deck in your favor when it comes to matters of the heart.

If you think you know what the Catholic Church teaches about sex and marriage, make sure you've actually read and learned what the Catholic Church teaches about sex and marriage.

Humanae Vitae

Evangelium Vitae

Letter to Women

Theology of the Body

Sex is good. Marriage is good. Life is very, very good. Now let's go live it like we believe it.

As a guy I really like was fond of saying,

"Be not afraid."

Click to read the rest of the month-long series on the Catholic Church's teachings on sex and marriage.

The link between contraception and homosexuality (and it's not what you'd think)

Sometimes God just throws you a big 'ol softball and you can't help but take a swing at it.

I had the unexpected privilege today to interview Fr. Paul Check, executive director of Courage International, for a forthcoming episode of Heroic Media (it's slated to air Nov. 1st on EWTN) and he said something profound. Actually he said about a dozen things that were profound, but one sentence stuck with me, because I've been reflecting on it for years. It was, loosely paraphrased,

"50 years ago as a culture, we severed the connection between sex and babies, and ever since, we've distanced ourselves further and further from the reality of sex."

Basically, with the advent of commercially available birth control, once it became permissible for some couples to engage in sterile sex, it was only a matter of time before other couples came clamoring for their own perceived "rights" in the sexual arena.

If you think about it it makes a lot of sense. If married couples can have sex without babies, and indeed, if sex has nothing to do with babies (until and unless we tell it to) then who's to say what constitutes "sex," anyway?

Maybe sex is just mutual masturbation. Maybe sex is any genital contact in any configuration, as determined by the participating parties. Maybe there can be more than 2 parties involved. Maybe there are no rules at all, because we've remade sex in our own image and to our own liking, forgetting that we were made in His image and likeness.

When society accepted contraception as commonplace and replaced the expectation that children might reasonably result from sexual activity with the promise that sex could be "freed" from any consequence, we got more than we bargained for.

What we've got, in short, is a civilization in sexual free fall, and a society that is struggling to piece together some kind of new normal. And meanwhile there are victims everywhere, the walking wounded who've bought the lie and who've been burned by the reality that sex is much, much more powerful than we give it credit for.

Homosexual couples, within this modern sexual construct, have every right to the same kind of sterile, self-centered sex that heterosexual couples are practicing. 

Because if sex doesn't lead to babies, and if marriage isn't ordered towards procreation and the mutual good of the spouses (laymen terms: getting each other to heaven), then we can pretty much reinterpret marriage through whatever lens suits our particular world view. And really, we ought to, from an egalitarian perspective. Fair's fair.

But it's not really possibly to separate sex from its life-giving potential.

Deny it, yes. Suppress it, sure. But the reality of sex is that it was meant to do this thing, to bond two people together in such a profound and lasting way that, in the words of my favorite professor, "9 months later you might have to give it a name."

Homosexual sex can never do that.

Even a surgically sterilized, contracepting, post-menopausal married couple was, at one point, fundamentally capable of bringing forth new life by the very nature of their creations as male and female.

We are intentionally designed, and in the design we see the potential for participation in the creative heart of God, in His own divine life. Life which begets love, from love.

This is in no way an attack on the dignity of the human person who struggles with same sex attraction. And it's not a judgement on people who engage in a homosexual relationships.

The Church has always taught, and will always teach, that although contraception and homosexual activity are immoral and gravely disordered activities, those persons practicing them are worthy of the same love and respect of every other person on this planet.

I hope you know that. The Church does not condemn you. She is mother. She is the place where you are unconditionally loved and accepted.

But like any good mother, the Church desires what is best for her children, and what will serve their ultimate happiness.

There is freedom here.

For further reading on what the Church teaches on homosexuality check out Courage's website.

And you know I'm going to end this post by telling you to read Humanae Vitae again.

Click here to read the rest of the series.

I've made a mistake. Now what?

One thing I'm realizing in writing my way through the month of October, unpacking the Catholic Church's teachings on sex and marriage, is how many people out there have found themselves in the oh-so-familiar position of begin on the wrong side of those teachings.

In other words, having sinned.

First off the good news: YOU AND EVERYBODY ELSE WHO EVER INHABITED THE PLANET, the Blessed Mother excluded.

Including me.

Oh, how very much I belong in this camp. The camp of regret and heartache and anger and remorse and resentment toward God and a Church that would ask me to not do the thing which I had just done, because it would hurt me. And then it did hurt me. And so I was doubly mad.

So where does that leave someone who has sinned?

Well, hopefully, in line for confession.

Honestly, it's that simple. And it's that difficult.

The practice of reconciliation is essential for the health and wellbeing of any successful relationship. How much more essential is it to our relationship with God? And how much more effective?

Catholics go to confession to repair the relationship between the Creator and the creature. We go to admit (and this takes humility) "I screwed up. I did the thing you warned me against. And I'm sorry. I'll try not to do it again. But You have to help me."

And you know what God says, every time?

I forgive you.

Read the account of the prodigal son in Luke's gospel and you'll get a perfect, simple and profound explanation of the Sacrament of Confession.

But, but, you might be thinking...my sin is too great. God can't handle the magnitude of my screw up.

Yes, He can. The same way He's handled it for every other sinner and saint (often one and the same) who've roamed this earth. There's nothing He can't handle.

God can handle abortion.

God can handle a sexual homosexual relationship.

God can handle an extramarital affair.

God can handle prostitution.

God can handle vasectomies and tubal ligations.

God can handle an IUD.

God can handle the Morning After pill.

God can handle sex trafficking.

God can handle a pornography addiction.

God can handle abuse.

God can handle divorce.

God can handle murder.

And God can handle you.

There's nothing you've done He can't (and won't) forgive, if you are willing to come to Him and ask for it. And that's the entire premise of the Gospel right there, isn't it.

He died for you. And He rose again for you. And He founded His Church to help carry you to Him. And He entrusted the Church with His laws, with His best plan for your life. And every time you stray from that plan, He's ready to welcome you back.

Every time.

So if you've had an abortion, do not despair.

If you've cheated on your spouse, do not give up and walk away.

If you're addicted to pornography and want so badly to believe the cultural lie that it's harmless and healthy and completely normal...listen to the small, still voice in the back of your mind that's telling you differently. And come to Jesus. He longs to rescue us from our sins.

The reason the Church teaches anything about anything at all is out of love. That includes in a particularly powerful way Her teachings about sex and marriage.

The "rules" and the "restrictions" are all there to protect us, and to call us back into relationship with God when we fall short.

And we all do. All.of.us.

That doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

Pornography reaching epidemic proportions doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

Birth control being practiced both in the pews and by the culture at large doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

Abortion on demand available in most places and for any reason doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

Homosexual relationships being recognized as marriages in 31 out of 50 states in the US doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

And the idea that you did x or y or z or even all three together and you might as well just accept yourself as "that kind of person" and walk away from Jesus because He doesn't want you and He doesn't accept you and His Church sure as hell doesn't want you around...

That's dead wrong.

The Church is your home. Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected is your savior.

And if you've screwed up a hundred times, He is all the more your savior.

Sometimes the more a soul has suffered, the more a soul is capable of loving. And the more profound the conversion to holiness. Think of St. Paul. Think of St. Augustine.

It's never too late.

I hope you'll read everything I've written so far this month with that in mind, and everything else I'm going to write for the remainder of the month.

"Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground." -G.K. Chesterton

Click here to read the rest of the series.

Why No Gay Marriage?

(Mea culpa, I'm one day behind in my commitment to post daily in October, but I promise I've got plenty of excuses. Moving on...)

The issue de jour (well, one of the big ones, anyway): why won't the Catholic Church relax about gay marriage? And how can we claim to be purveyors of mercy and love while simultaneously denying a subset of the population their shot at happily every after?

This is not an easy teaching in our present cultural climate, but it is a simple one, I promise. The bottom line is thus: the Catholic Church will never recognize gay marriage because there is no such thing as a gay marriage.

Are there same sex couples who love each other and are attracted to each other and who desire to build a shared life together? Absolutely. But what they have cannot be called marriage, because it does not meet the necessary criteria: marriage is a life long, covenanted commitment between two persons of the opposite sex ordered toward the mutual good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children. 

I know the arguments and I'm sure you do too, but I'll just go ahead and highlight the usual suspects: what about couples who get divorced? What about couples who are biologically incapable of having children? What about couples who cheat/beat/lie/steal/hurt one another? How can those marriages be called such while loving, committed same-sex couples are denied the dignity of the title?

Simply put, because even though human beings are inevitably going to fall short of the glory to which each of us are called, God and His Church are never going to lower the standards in order to wallow with us in our misery. He will, however, lower His arms in order to lift us up to the life He desires for us.

Marriage is a higher calling, a natural attempt to live out a supernatural reality. We're all incapable of answering that call without the sacramental graces God provides. And even then, we still screw it up. Over and over again. But that's not an argument for altering the terms on the designer's part, is it?

Marriage, the big-M sacramental kind, is not primarily ordered toward personal fulfillment or entertainment or even happiness. All those things are (hopefully) wrapped up in the larger experience of the marriage relationship, but they're not guaranteed, and they're actually not the point. The twofold end of marriage is the mutual good of the spouses (and sometimes what's good for you isn't necessarily pleasant) and the procreation and education of children. So a marriage can never be, from the outset, intentionally damaging to one or both spouses or closed to life. That's actually not "marriage" at all.

Gay marriage is a misnomer because homosexual relationships are not ordered toward the good of the other, and because they are fundamentally sterile. So right off the bat, neither of the twofold "goods" of marriage are present. Basically put, the raw material is missing from the start. Think of it like baking a cake without sugar, flour, or eggs. You can certainly attempt something cake-shaped and perhaps even vaguely reminiscent of cake in flavor (and I speak from sad, paleo experience here) but you're not really eating cake. The ingredients are wrong.

Human beings are more complex than baked goods, and the issue of who should be allowed to marry is a touchy one, but keep this in mind going forward: every adult human person has, by nature of their inalienable dignity, the right to pursue marriage if they are so called. But nobody has the right to redefine or reconstruct marriage in order to suit their own tastes or preferences. So while we are all extended the invitation to enter into the Sacrament of marriage, we are not permitted to alter its essence.

More the point, we're not actually capable of altering its essence. Marriage "is" something deeper than human eyes can see: it's a re-imaging of the love of the Trinity, and a participation in God's own nature of self-giving and life-producing love. And in His design we're welcome to participate, but we're not able to change the terms.

This is a tough sell to a culture largely incapable of philosophical or metaphysical reasoning, but the truth of it isn't diminished by our inability to grasp it.

In a culture such as ours which has embraced contraception, abortion, divorce and a whole host of other evils, this is a particularly difficult concept. Because how high and mighty do you have to be to say that I can do all kinds of crazy sh*t in the name of freedom and autonomy but that poor slob over there can't marry his boyfriend, because sin.

Yeah, it's a tough sell for sure. But it's all a piece. Those other touchy issues we'll surely touch upon this month? The Church will never alter her position on those, either, and for the same reason: She only has our best interests at heart. And She will never sell us short, even when we fail to recognize our own dignity. Especially when we fail to recognize our own dignity.

Here's your takeaway lesson from today's post: the Church will never recognize gay marriage because there is no such thing as gay marriage. There's also no such thing as consecrated Oreos standing in for the Eucharist. Right form, wrong matter.

Is this going to facilitate amicable water cooler discussions between coworkers or pleasant Thanksgiving dinners? Probably not. But in a culture fixated on the physical world to the ignorance of the spiritual, it's a good starting point for reawakening the eyes of the soul.

Catholics Do What? (31 Days to Understanding the Catholic Church's Teachings on Sex and Marriage)

I've been toying with the idea of joining the Nester for her annual 31 day writing challenge and now that October 1 has arrived, I can think of at least 23 reasons why committing to a project of this magnitude is a horrible idea, but I keep circling back to the notion of 'resistance,' which I believe Jen Fulwiler first introduced me to, and I can't help but think the fact that my mother's helper is awol for half the month, both my sons fell (separately) down the basement stairs today and Evie has the diaper rash/ear infection/teething trifecta to end all baby ailments simultaneously might just be a little bit of satanic static trying to slow my roll.

So I'm saying yes. This is my gift to the Church for the occasion of the extraordinary synod on the family, convening in Rome one week from today and lasting for 14 remarkable days, where the bishops of the universal Church will discuss "The pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelization." They'll be covering everything from divorce and remarriage to annulments to reproductive technologies and infertility to homosexuality. And of course, everybody's favorite Catholic stepchild, contraception. 

Each day of October I'll be writing on a different topic within that larger theme, with the hope that someone out there needs to hear the clear, concise truth of what the Church teaches about: (insert stumbling block here.)

So stay tuned, you're going to be hearing from me a lot this month. And pray for my poor kids, because I'm not even joking, somebody fell backwards off the couch while I was typing these 4 paragraphs. So many toddler heads to bang on so many hard surfaces...

Day 1 

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4 

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Day 12

Day 13

Day 14

Day 15

Day 16

Day 17

Day 18

Day 19

Day 20

Day 21

Day 22

Day 23

Day 24

Day 25

Day 26

Day 27

A Little Homework

Yes yes yes...times a million.

And that wraps up my last post about Papa F, at least for this week.

Be sure to check out CNA's nuanced exploration of the "controversial" comments here (written by my dear friend Alan Holdren, who is one Roman I really miss) and Kathryn Jean Lopez' excellent-beyond-words summary of the whole thing.

And then pray...for our Holy Father, for the Church, and for conversion in your own heart. God knows I need more of it in mine. God knows we all do.

A Church for Gay People

Hint: it's also a church for alcoholics. And for recovering bulimics. And for former (or current) pornography addicts. For liars, cheaters, shoplifters, and drug users. In short: it's a church for humanity.

Pope Francis made an unexpected gift of his time and did a little Q & A with the lucky group of journalists accompanying him home on the papal flight from World Youth Day in Rio this morning, and inevitably, the question of homosexuality came up.

The Pope reiterated the Church's teaching on homosexuality, clearly stated and lovingly (one hopes in all cases) implemented:

If someone is gay, who searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge? The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well. It says they should not be marginalized because of this (orientation) but that they must be integrated into society." 

Did you catch that? The Pope isn't judging gay people. The Pope isn't judging any of the rest of us poor, sinning schmucks either, people who are trying - and failing - day after day to live a Christlike life and do His will in our lives. 

Did the Holy Father invite people to practice homosexuality? By no means. Did he infer that gay 'marriages' would soon be performed in Catholic parishes around the globe? Nope. He simply stated the eternal Christian truth which is preached for all people and for all time: if you are searching for the Lord in earnest, you will find him. And you will be welcomed. 

Too many Christians have been branded by a media eager to demonize and divide as 'intolerant' or 'bigoted' because of their rejection of homosexuality. But the rejection of homosexuality must never be confused with the rejection of homosexual persons. No person is unwelcome to Christ, or to His Church. We are all of us sinners, found wanting, and in need of His mercy.

Does this mean the Church will ever stop calling people to repentance? Definitely not.

Will the same Church ever embrace sinful behaviors in her children in order to assuage their misguided notions  of happiness? Never. 

The Church does not dictate morality; she reveals what is inherently true, good, and beautiful. 

Homosexual behavior is not deemed 'sinful' because the Church says so; the Church says so because the behavior is inherently damaging to the human person. As is all sin. The teachings of Jesus Christ are not arbitrary, but are rather deeply informed with the most intimate knowledge of the human person. He knows what makes us tick, because He made us. And neither He nor his Bride are ever, ever going to recommend a behavior that is harmful to us. 

That's why the Church will never change Her teachings on contraception. She'll never jump on board with Planned Parenthood and endorse the concept of 'therapeutic abortions.' And there are never going to be a special set of readings for use at 'same sex wedding' Masses. 

Because He loves us too much.

And because homosexual behavior, for all the noise being made by Hollywood and the media, is fundamentally damaging to the human person.

The Pope was not speaking some sort of secret code and green lighting gay 'marriage' with his statement to the press today. Though it will surely be misconstrued in many circles as such. He was simply reiterating the words of Christ, spoken 2,000 years ago, and spoken still today. 

Come to me, you who are burdened, I will give you rest. Forget what you've done, where you've been, what you've seen...and come to me. And be at peace. I made you. I alone know what can fulfill the desires of your heart. Do not seek the world's happiness; the world did not make you, and cannot know what you are made for. Only I can tell you that.

7 Quick Takes

Why yes, I have been reduced to posting exclusively when link-ups are involved. And just when this lovely little blog was starting to heat up.

C'est la pregnancy.

1.

Morning sickness. It's over, and not a moment or 11-weeks too soon. I will take bone-crushing fatigue and cravings for baked potatoes over all-day nausea in a heartbeat. And speaking of hearts, mine doth go out to expectant mamas who truly suffer. Especially the HG varietal. I was starting to think for a minute that I was riding that horse, but the clouds have parted, the sun is once again shining, and I don't run screaming and gagging past the seafood stall in the market most mornings.

2. 

Houseguests. My husband's best friend (who is a brand new,13-day old priest!) has been staying with us this week, and what a joy it has been. Mass in St. Peter's basilica on the altar of Bl. John Paul II, Mass in our home, served by my somewhat enthusiastic 2-year-old who only wandered off to play with trucks 2 or 6 times during the liturgy, and countless moments of consolation and joy after 5 long, arid months alone in this city. So very blessed. 

Every new priest's dream. And not a shabby morning for our family, either.

3.

Chipotle. Super Target. A car to drive around in. Oh, I mean my family and friends, in 20 short days. Oh America, I am longing to be home again, and all that stands between us is 3 short weeks and an 11 hour red-eye from London to Denver. Should be relaxing, rejuvenating, peace-filled, etc. 

4. 

This piece I wrote for the Heroic News blog got picked up a couple different places. And normally when I write 'controversial' I'm filled with comment-dread and holding my e-breath for the comments to start rolling in rough and dirty...but now I don't read them! Weeee! Such a simple, stupid epiphany that has saved me so much e-grief. Because non-blog related pieces aren't meant to be dialogues between the writer and the world.

5.
Can I just say, being pregnant in Italy is a biiiiiig change from being pregnant in the US of A. Or maybe it's just that every pregnancy is different, etc. etc. But I've lost 6 lbs so far (beer weight? Am I a frat guy?), and I'm still not showing at 11 weeks. (Due to, I don't know...All the walking? No processed foods? Eating a loaf of bread a day?) Both boys had me in maternity fat pants by now, and I have to say my relief is immense as I contemplate walking down someone else's aisle in 4 short weeks in a gorgeous bridesmaid dress and having the optimistically-sized-last-December beauty zip right up. Fingers crossed.

Also, stuff like encounter number two in Steph's post never, ever happens here. Or if it does, the language barrier is such that I don't know when it's happening. Which makes me feel...normal. And even though Italy has the lowest birthrate in all of Europe and there are no babies here and there will be no native-born Italians in another two generations if they continue in this fashion...well, these people love babies. Not enough to actually have any of their own, mind you, but oh my goodness do they like to love on mine. And sometimes take them out of my arms in public places...

6.
Joey and JP kissing 'baby' over and over again and talking to my stomach and making big plans for 'baby Jesus coming at Christmas time' and 'playing trucks all together' and 'drink hot milk.' Okay, son, whatever you say. Also, Joey insists that bambino numero tres is a 'he' named Tonio.
'Baby has a penis, Mommy.' Over and over again. Hopefully never in public, but there's always that 11 hour plane ride on the horizon...

7.
Baked potatoes for lunch, every single day this week. Slathered in Heinz ketchup, imported from a specialty store across town and enjoyed with inappropriate gusto. And did you know, Italian Heinz has no artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives? It's basically health food, people. I only do the very best for my babies.Weirdest pregnancy craving ever? Nah, with Joey I couldn't get enough of salt and vinegar chips paired with salami and cheese, and I hunted green chile like it was my job. I fatefully and regretfully consumed a super-hot varietal on the eve before labor, and, well, Yolo.

Go forth to Jen, and visit all my e-friends.

Same Sex 'Marriage' And The Trouble With Words

Here's the thing about redefining marriage to suit cultural trends; it's never going to stop.

What I mean by that is not necessarily that in the year 2045 people will be wedding their golden retrievers, (though they may be, in Boulder) but that in seeking to redefine a traditional (aka long-held) understanding of what something is, we unhinge our little corner of existence from the rest of human history and push off for some unknown shore, secure in our chronological snobbery that we have at last 'gotten it right' where thousands of years and millions of minds of human history have failed.

Because that's realistic, right? To believe that here, today, we are somehow smarter/faster/stronger/more moral/more enlightened than the entire mass of humanity upon whose bones we stand.

I beg to differ.

Redefining marriage as something other than 'one man, one woman, one lifetime' is to attempt fundamentally alter the very thing which we collectively understand and recognize marriage to be.

Proponents of gay 'marriage' and the like will argue that it is precisely a poverty of understanding which prevents people from being 'open minded' enough to recognize marriages between two members of the same sex. But they fail to recognize that fundamental truths are not arrived at by unanimous consensus. Rather, the consensus follows the recognition of reality.

It's like this. Even if some state or country or local municipality unanimously votes to change the tiresome name of the color 'red' to the more pleasing moniker 'dusty granola shimmer,' that doesn't mean folks pulling up at stoplights will begin to see 'dusty granola shimmer' and hit the brakes. It may over time start to be called another thing, but its essential redness remains intact. It is red in its essence, and we can re-name it and re-title it a thousand times, but it won't change the way light hits the retina and reflects a message of fiery brightness to the brain.

Maybe that analogy was terrible, but so is the logic behind the effort to 'redefine' marriage as some kind of lifelong slumber party with health benefits.

I don't mean to be flippant here. I know there are people who struggle with same sex attraction, who don't struggle with same sex attraction and believe with every fiber of their being that they are gay and were made to be in relationship with a person of their same sex. But that individual belief, that personal experience should not - does not - have the power to alter reality.

For decades, the culture at large has been desperately trying to alter and ignore this reality. The reality that men and women are made to be in relation with one another, to bring forth life together, and to parent and educate that life into adulthood. Enter contraception, abortion, broken and abandoned families and no fault divorce, and is it any wonder that the very mention of the 'sanctity' of marriage in a culture such as ours is greeted with guffaws and incredulous laughter.

Are all these things linked?  Maybe it isn't apparent. But it seems to me that when the majority of a culture rejects the divinely inspired and ordained order and meaning of a thing, namely, marriage, then those who would defend it from subsequent attacks have little left to stand on.

Why shouldn't gay people have the right to sign a contract, throw a party, and pledge their lives to another person and call it marriage? Will their union ever be capable of producing love so incarnate it needs to be named 9 months later?

Well, no.

But there are so many sterilized 'straight' marriages out there now that the argument falls on deaf ears.

Why wouldn't a person vote to allow two people who love each other to call one another 'spouse' on legal documents and hospital paperwork? If spousal love is no longer understood to be a reflection of the life-giving, self-immolating and re-creating fire of the Trinity, then why not let everyone with the inclination claim it as such?

They're just words, aren't they?

Or are we defending something more than words here...are we defending reality itself from the decline and decay of a language - and with it, a civilization?

Just some food for thought on this Election Day.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make myself a big plate of nachos dripping in cheese and call it a salad. Because that feels right to me, and very true. No matter what the scale tells me tomorrow morning.

Gay 'marriage:' what's the Christian response?

So a couple of friends have appeared from the mists of time (aka high school) and engaged me via facebook in the same sex 'marriage' debate. Besides being pleasantly surprised by the ensuing civility on all sides, I've come away with a renewed interest in educating other Christians on the Church's teaching on homosexual attraction - namely, on why it is far and away the most compassionate voice in a clamoring crowd of opinions on the matter.

I read a fantastic book a year ago that hit it out of the park and really, really helped me to refine and convey my own opinions and arguments on the matter. It's called "Born to Love" by John R. Weiss and is written as a kind of dialogue (think Screwtape Letters or Between Heaven and Hell) between a priest, a young dating couple, and their homosexual friend.

I don't think there's any reason that we as Christians - and Catholics especially - can't be engaging the culture more directly on this issue. It isn't going away any time soon, and it's only going to become more polarized and more hostile if the Church doesn't speak clearly in love.

Read it, lend it, make your voice heard. You never know who might be listening.

Picking Rotten Fruit

What do contraception, pedophiles and gay 'marriage' all have in common?  (Besides the ability to make one's stomach churn.)

I'll give you a hint: trees.

Three different species of rotting fruit, all plucked from the same evil tree of selfishness. 

Three wildly variant forms of sexual deviance, one root sin:

Pride.

Pride that asserts one's subjective reality over objective reality.  Pride that places personal happiness and 'fulfillment' ahead of the good of the other.  Pride that seeks to subvert, destroy and remake truth for the sake of an imagined personal 'good' at the cost of real goodness.

At first blush, predators who seek sexual encounters with children and homosexual adults who seek to enter into 'marriages' with same sex partners might not seem to have too much in common besides an uncommon sexual appetite, but an honest examination of the motivation behind both behaviors reveals an uncomfortable truth.

When we attempt to redefine reality, we have to expect that others will do the same.  Gay 'marriage' may be promoted as all about tolerance and love... but in some circles, (widening circles, I might add) so is the notion of 'love' between an innocent child and an adult. 

In a disturbing report issued earlier this week, a reporter shed light on a curious conference taking place outside our nation's capital right now.  Pedophiles are seeking to destigmatize their deviant, criminal sexual behavior by lobbying the American Psychological Association to declassify pedophilia as a mental illness in the forthcoming edition of the DSM - the 'bible,' if you will, of the mental health world.

This is relevant because it is the same path homosexual activists started down in the late 70's when they lobbied to have homosexuality removed from the third edition of the DSM as an identified psychological condition.

And where exactly does birth control factor into this all?

Well it turns out that everyone is after their own version of 'no strings attached' sex.  And if straight, married couples can go on the Pill - which many did for the first time starting in the 1950's and '60's - then why not straight, unmarried couples?  Sex, no longer prudishly bound to the constraining, tired and traditional 'construct' of marriage was now fair game for anyone, provided they were 'in love.' (I am well aware that the invention of modern contraception did not single-handedly fuel the sexual revolution.  People have been sexually active outside of marriage from time immemorial.  The difference is, now it's openly acknowledged and even applauded by a global majority)

Once sex was effectively divorced from marriage by its sterilization, homosexuality - nothing new except in its growing social acceptability - began to creep from the shadows.  If sterile, fruitless sex made sense for straight people, than why not for two men?  Or two women?  Sex, no longer inextricably linked to the possibility of bringing forth new life (in addition to pleasure), became just another method for communication between companions.  And who are we to tell anyone with whom they may or may not communicate?

When sex ceases to be primarily about the gift of self, (and, consequently, the gift of life) it becomes primarily a means to self-gratification.  And everyone deserves to be gratified.  To be satisfied.  To be happy.  It's one of the last remaining 'virtues' we seem able to agree upon as a culture: happiness.  Except sometimes one person's version of 'happiness' turns out to be tantamount to another person's version of 'hell.' 

The young girl whose body is used by an older cousin for unspeakable acts of sexual abuse.  The toddler whose two 'mommies' special ordered her using hand-picked sperm and cutting edge IVF technology, but who will never know her father.  The teenager whose parents divorced during his freshman year of high school, dumping him with relatives while they set out on solo journeys of self discovery to 'find themselves' at a time when he is poised on the precipice of adulthood and in crying need of parental guidance and support.  Each of these are the unwilling victim of someone else's pursuit of happiness.  

So where does it end?

I would imagine that bestiality and incest will be coming down the pike as the next agenda items in our glorious cultural pursuit of equality.  Because if anything goes, then everything goes.  And who are we to say otherwise? 

As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
Bl. John Paul II

Pray for us.

Worth a Repost

What does the Church really say about homosexuality?

(In response to a reader's comment):

Too many Christians - including many Catholics - put the cart before the horse and insist that Biblical reference is the standard of truth ... yes, it is... but what is true was true before it's inclusion in Sacred Scripture, and not only because of it's inclusion - make sense?

Your questions about homosexuality are quite valid too, in our society which teaches that tolerance is actually acceptance, and which dismisses the idea of absolutes - in the moral realm or elsewhere - as archaic.

The Church's stance on homosexual behavior (note: the behavior, or the action, being the locus of the sin, and not the desire itself, nor the person suffering the attraction) stems from the reality that we as human persons are created in God's image to love as He loves: totally, faithfully and fruitfully.

All moral and theological arguments aside, the stark biological reality is this: homosexual "love" can never be fruitful, and so it cannot rightly be called love.

The Church isn't trying to prevent people who struggle with same sex attraction from finding fulfillment/happiness/companionship ... she (the Church) is simply unable to teach something that is false. She will never recognize the validity of homosexual "marriage" because no such thing exists.

Marriage is, by nature, the permanent, fruitful union of two persons: a man and a woman, united in sacramental purpose for the begetting and education of God's children and for the mutual sanctification of each other. The Church won't change her stance on this because she can't. She didn't create it - He did.

We exist to be in communion with one another - to give and receive love so fully, so completely, that in the giving and receiving an entire other person may come into existence... much the way the Holy Spirit, though co eternal with the Father and the Son, is nonetheless an outpouring of the Father's love for the Son, received and returned with such perfection that the love, in essence, becomes an "Other." This Trinitarian exchange of love is mirrored - dimly - in the conjugal act between husband and wife, whose love can also incarnate, or make physical, the reality of their spousal love.

Kinda heady stuff for a comments section, but it is what we profess to believe as Catholics, and not simply because it is in the Bible or because it is socially acceptable at some juncture in history. 

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing

Surprising and accurate coverage from ... CNN.  Reeeeeeally? 

Check it out.

Selectively Tolarant

"Either you are with me, or you are my enemy." - Anakin Skywalker 

Ever notice how the concepts of "rights" and "freedom of speech" get tossed around like so many other buzzwords of our time, only to be rescinded the moment you say something with which the champion of said concepts takes offense to/disagrees with?

Such is the state of our cultural and political milieu.  In a society which publicly extols tolerance as virtue and relativism as the only absolute truth... it's absolutely mind boggling to watch what happens when one tries to carry either to its logical conclusion.

Because when those persons who claim to champion choice and acceptance as universal entitlements are faced with an idea, circumstance or individual they find unsavory, they do what comes naturally to the human mind: they make a judgment of their own, and do indeed beg to differ.

If you don't believe me, examine with an unbiased eye (if you can) the cultural showdown issue of the moment, Christianity vs. homosexuality.  It would appear that the Church, on the one side, is considered hopelessly outdated, hypocritical and hateful in her opposition to homosexual behavior, and in her refusal to officially condone or sanction such behavior, despite pressures to do just that.

On the other hand, the champions of the homosexual agenda, gay activists and the media, are portrayed as heroic and somehow revolutionary in their attempts to bully the Church into doing exactly that: changing.  The very thing they claim they cannot - or will not - do, they are demanding of their perceived adversary.  The irony is stark and might even be entertaining, were the stakes not so high.

Because it's not enough, it turns out, to live and let live.  When someone believes something to be true, holds it as dogma, extols it as reality ... they can't stand to be contradicted or disagreed with.  Besides shaking the foundation of certainty upon which their knowledge rests, it irks them that someone should beg to differ on something so dear and so true for them.  Despite every protest that "what's true for them isn't true for me... they won't rest until they reverse the adage and make it so, force it to be so.

Hence the push for curriculum overhaul and revision in our school systems.  Hence the agenda-driven entertainment programming on the big and small screens.  Hence the inability to rest until rights are not simply guaranteed for those who believe as they do, but the rights of those who disagree are eradicated.

How's that for tolerance? 

It begs the question really, quo veritas?  And whether or not true veritas can be discovered, if we're all operating from subjective positions of experience and personal belief.

Sigh.

What's a post-modern, globally-minded citizen to do?  If only there were some, I don't know, higher Truth to check our beliefs against, some immovable yardstick agaisnt which we might measure the assumptions and certainties of our age. 

If only...

Gay As I Wanna Be ...

Between Boulder and Mississippi (there's an unnatural pairing if ever there was one), the debate over "gay rights" is raging hot and heavy in the national and local press right now, leaving many wondering what all the fuss is about.

The Catholic Church's teachings on homosexuality, scarcely explored and oft-misrepresented, have come under particularly heavy fire in my neck of the woods in light of Archbishop Charles Chaput's affirmation of the archdiocese of Denver's - and the Church's - enrollment policies for Catholic schools.  In a press release given earlier this week, the Archdiocese eloquently and firmly stated that:

To preserve the mission of our schools, and to respect the faith of wider Catholic community, we expect all families who enroll students to live in accord with Catholic teaching.  Our admission policy states clearly, “No person shall be admitted as a student in any Catholic school unless that person and his/her parent(s) subscribe to the school’s philosophy and agree to abide by the educational policies and regulations of the school and Archdiocese.”

Parents living in open discord with Catholic teaching in areas of faith and morals unfortunately choose by their actions to disqualify their children from enrollment. To allow children in these circumstances to continue in our school would be a cause of confusion for the student in that what they are being taught in school conflicts with what they experience in the home.

 Accusations of hatred, bigotry, intolerance and slander have been sent flying, and GLBT activists in Boulder - and nationwide - have been stirred into a frenzy, but is there cause for such distress?

Let's examine the reasoning behind the decision to refuse re-enrollment to these kids.  According to the above statement, prospective parents are fully aware of the implicit adherence to Catholic teachings upon enrollment of their offspring in a Catholic institution.  I suppose that Jewish, Muslim and heck, even Montessori schools have some kind of "code of conduct" or "system of belief" to which they ascribe, and from which they inform their academic curriculum.  If not, then what would be the point of attending  a specific type of school?

Catholic teaching, however difficult to swallow in a multicultural milieu such as ours, has remained consistent, if nothing else, over the millennium.  Why then all the shock and disbelief over the school enforcing their own clearly stated policy?

Because it's "intolerant."  Of course, that same argument could be turned against the parents in this situation, seeking to enforce and superimpose their beliefs upon the Catholic Church... but I don't suppose that's going to be a popular argument.

Because the Church is one of the last remaining scapegoats of our time.  It is perfectly acceptable - laudable even - to demonstrate the most outrageous anti-Catholic bigotry in the media and in common conversation at cocktail parties.  It's acceptable to advocate for the advancement of anti-Catholic legislation in our government.  And it's becoming increasingly popular to pressure Catholics into abandoning their practices of faith in public... in short, it's the last acceptable form of discrimination.

But isn't that precisely what the Church is attempting to do to gays?

In a word, no.

The Church views the practice of  homosexuality as just one disorder in a long list of conditions which afflict the human person.  (Consequently, until recent decades, so too did the American Psychological Association, but you'll have to score a copy of DSM-II if you don't believe me.)

Let me be quite clear in stating that the Church does not - nor has she ever - condemned the homosexual person.  Partly because she staunchly refuses to identify the person by the disorder from which he suffers.  A person is never just an alcoholic or just a cancer sufferer... the condition does not the man make.

I'm sure blood pressures are spiking at this point because, yes, I just drew the analogy between homosexuality and disease.  But hear me out.  Or rather, hear us out.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church states in paragraph 2357:

Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,¹⁴¹ tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."¹⁴² 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.

Hard words, those.  But read on.  Paragraph 2358 concludes:

The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, 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 and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.(emphasis mine)

 Respect.  Compassion.  Sensitivity.  Three values that any human person - however he or she might identify sexually - longs to be viewed in light of.

Do I contradict myself, then?  Am I foolishly advocating for an archaic institution which is in regular violation of all three of the aforementioned values?

Again, no.  It is not the Catholic Church who commits the grave sin of giving the suffering person over to their difficulty, to their compulsion... it is our culture.

Study after study has revealed the loneliness, depression, hopelessness, and instability which mark the homosexual lifestyle... but we now advocate for it as a "civil right," insisting that it is intolerance of the behavior - not the behavior itself - which is causing such anguish.  It's funny though, because in the Netherlands, arguably one of the most pro-gay places on the planet, a place where the practice of homosexuality has been widely and unquestioningly embraced, the suicide rate among individuals identifying as gay is 8 times that of men in heterosexual marriages.

I return then to the Denver Archdioceses' statement, focusing now on the closing paragraph: "To allow children in these circumstances to continue in our school would be a cause of confusion for the student in that what they are being taught in school conflicts with what they experience in the home."

Odd that the Church, the very "cause" of such suffering in persons identifying as homosexual, would base a decision upon the purported well being of the students.  I'd wager many would argue that's not at all the case.  But it is, much as our confused and troubled world would like to deny it.

The Church recognizes the grave disservice done to a child who is being taught one thing at home and another in school... and with that, the autonomy of the parent.  Now, does this mean the Church should cow to the beliefs of the individual and adjust her doctrine accordingly to suit the will of the people?  Again, no.  It doesn't work that way.  I've said it before, but "man does not his own reality construct."  Well, except on reality TV.  But that's really another matter.

What this couple is essentially asking of the Church is a renouncement of belief on the Church's part.  Notice that the Church does not respond in kind, does not demand from the couple that they renounce their beliefs.  It is quite simply a difference of opinions ... on the nature of sin.

Our role as Catholics, as Christians, is to preach the Gospel, not to enforce it.  I know a million people would argue that this is precisely the Church's policy ... but they misunderstand the nature of sin and of the human person.  The Gospel, after all, speaks for itself through Christ and His disciples, through their lived witness, and much of what is contained "is a hard teaching... who can bear it?"

Who indeed?

More to follow...