Friday, March 29, AD 2024 7:49am

Msgr. Pope on Gay Marriage

Every now and then as I begin to think about writing a post, I’ll see that someone has written on the very topic I was about to write about, taking the exact same view but expressing it in such a way that it would make any attempt on my part to add to it just plain futile. So when I saw Msgr. Pope’s blog post on gay marriage this morning, I realized he just saved me about an hour’s worth of writing.

Here’s the opening:

There is, among faithful Catholics, a dismay, and even an understandable anger at the events unfolding at the Supreme Court these past days related to to gay unions. And even if the court were to uphold traditional marriage (which does not seem likely), or merely return the matter to the States,  it seems quite clear where our culture is going regarding this matter, approving things once, not so long ago, considered unthinkable.

What then to do with our dismay and anger? It is too easy to vent anger, which is not only unproductive, but in the current state of “hyper-tolerance” for all things gay, angry denunciations are counter-productive.

Rather our anger should be directed to a wholehearted embrace and living out of the biblical vision of human sexuality and marriage. Our anger should be like an energy that fuels our zeal to live purity, and speak of its glory to a confused and out-of-control culture.

The fact is, traditional marriage has been in a disgraceful state for over 50 years, and heterosexual misbehavior has been off the hook in the same period. And, if we are honest, heterosexual misbehavior and confusion has been largely responsible for bringing forth the even deeper confusion and disorder of homosexual activity, and particularly the widespread approval of it.

We have sown the wind, and now reap the whirlwind (Hosea 8:7).

Our anger, dismay and sorrow are better directed inward toward our own conversion to greater purity as a individuals, families and parishes, than outward toward people who will only interpret it as “hate” and bigotry” anyway.

There’s much more at the link as he delves into how the contraceptive mentality has already degraded marriage. There’s been a domino affect, and gay marriage is really just the last domino.

I was attending a conference this week and heard a speaker who talked about generational differences in the workplace. Even though it was geared towards workforce issues, it applied to our culture more generally. The overwhelming support for gay marriage among millenials (generally those 30 and under) is easily explained when you examine the context of the culture and society they grew up in. Not only is mass media propagandizing to them, but many if not most of these kids have developed in an environment where marriage is not the institution it was for our grandparents. In other words, heterosexuals damaged the institution long before homosexuals did.

That’s an argument often made by people who support gay marriage, and so we have a tendency to dismiss it. They happen to be right – it’s just that the logical conclusion that flows from that analysis is not that we should further erode the institution of marriage, but that we need to re-examine all of the other elements that have broken it down through the years.

At any rate, please read the rest of Msgr. Pope’s fine blog.

On a related note, Bill O’Reilly is still a pinhead.

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Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Thursday, March 28, AD 2013 2:33pm

“And, if we are honest, heterosexual misbehavior and confusion has been largely responsible for bringing forth the even deeper confusion and disorder of homosexual activity, and particularly the widespread approval of it.”

I really do not think that is correct. Sexual immorality certainly has been rampant over the past 50 years, but so has it in other times over the past 2000 years. In England in the Eighteenth Century illegitimacy was not uncommon for example. Initially the Soviet Union attempted to largely do away with marriage. None of these prior periods however led to calls for equating homosexuality with heterosexuality. I think rather our current circumstance has been caused much more by a steady drumbeat of pro-homosexual propaganda, as you note, in the entertainment media, and a non-judgmental stance towards morality in the sexual realm that has permeated our society and reached Gospel status, along with a drive for (fake) egalitarianism uber alles. Additionally, many opponents of the movement to normalize homosexuality have been bullied into silence by the tendency of some homosexual activists to engage in massive assaults on any groups that stand in their way. Mormon groups used to be very active in this fight until the passage of Proposition 8 in California. The gay activists went berserk with fury and engaged in a non-stop war against the Mormons that is still under way. As a result the Mormons have become very quiet on this issue and the Mormon groups who used to fund anti-homosexual marriage groups no longer do so. Timid people rarely retain their freedom for long.

Phillip
Phillip
Thursday, March 28, AD 2013 2:34pm

“On a related note, Bill O’Reilly is still a pinhead.”

There was a question?

Matt
Matt
Thursday, March 28, AD 2013 2:45pm

Good commentary and also good point by Mr. McClarey. I agree that the difference between today and moral issues of the past is that it is now ideologically driven, and technologically enabled. That’s the one way to explain the rapid shift. But I still tend to view it as cumulative decline, building up speed as it reaches the bottom. Who helped redefine marriage? Henry VIII and his supporters, if you want to go back that far.

Pinky
Pinky
Thursday, March 28, AD 2013 3:05pm

Pope is dead-on right. I’ve been spending time lately on a mostly-libertarian chat board, and people go nuts when I criticize divorce. Gay marriage, they think I’m a bigot. Contraception, they roll their eyes. But say anything critical of divorce and people hyperventilate. The fact is, while it’s right to oppose gay marriage, it’s only going to affect a few hundred people directly. No-fault divorce is a catastrophe that’s harmed what, a hundred million people maybe in the US alone.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Thursday, March 28, AD 2013 3:29pm

“On a related note, Bill O’Reilly is still a pinhead.”

I have rarely seen a more profoundly ignorant man be more clueless about his ignorance that O’Reilly. Something that can unite Left and Right in this country!

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Thursday, March 28, AD 2013 3:41pm

Romans 1:28-30

“They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil.”

Pinky
Pinky
Thursday, March 28, AD 2013 3:42pm

But angels can dance on the head of a pin. O’Reilly’s head, on the other hand, what’s it good for? Absolutely nothing.

Lisa
Lisa
Thursday, March 28, AD 2013 4:01pm

A huge “yes” to Donald. I’m tired of people blaming the increasing acceptance of gay marriage and homosexual behavior on heterosexual behavior. Heterosexuals have always screwed up and heterosexual marriages have always been fraught. People just dealt with it different ways: they didn’t get divorced, but they lived separate lives, which was much easier in cultures in which men and women generally lived separate lives anyway. Men used prostitutes. That’s why it’s called “the world’s oldest profession.” Most marriages were not about love (in the beginning) and soulmates anyway. They were arranged and it was clearly understood that marriage was at the service of society and culture.

BUT it was always understood that male-female relations and relationship were the normative base of all human behavior and society. Homosexuality (or..sodomy, as they used to call it) was an outlier.

Even – and this is key – in cultures where homosexuality was more accepted and visible – ancient Rome or Greece – you would have been laughed out of the Forum if you’d suggested that what men did with other men had anything to do with marriage.

As long as Christians persist in their implied acceptance of homosexual behavior, gay marriage will stay on the table. What’s been lost is the truth about maleness, femaleness and sexuality.

JDP
JDP
Thursday, March 28, AD 2013 4:37pm

“No-fault divorce is a catastrophe that’s harmed what, a hundred million people maybe in the US alone.”

if SSM becomes a constitutional right it will be impossible to strike down no-fault divorce anywhere, because marriage is no longer seen as related to procreation

any attempts to do so will be found unconstitutional

JDP
JDP
Thursday, March 28, AD 2013 4:45pm

“And, if we are honest, heterosexual misbehavior and confusion has been largely responsible for bringing forth the even deeper confusion and disorder of homosexual activity”

this really doesn’t make sense to me. Doesn’t the Church take the position that it’s innate for the most part? Is he arguing it’s a recent phenomenon just cuz it’s more visible these days?

I think it’s good to understand the underlying nature of something, regardless of your judgments on it, and this kinda reads like fitting things into a particular narrative.

JDP
JDP
Thursday, March 28, AD 2013 4:48pm

ah sorry, “activity.” Still though.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Thursday, March 28, AD 2013 4:57pm

In England in the Eighteenth Century illegitimacy was not uncommon for example. Initially the Soviet Union attempted to largely do away with marriage. None of these prior periods however led to calls for equating homosexuality with heterosexuality.

Eighteenth Century England and Soviet Russia had more cultural capital to draw upon than we presently have.

Donald R. McClarey
Reply to  Ernst Schreiber
Thursday, March 28, AD 2013 5:02pm

Perhaps in regard to England, although in many ways Eighteenth Century England reminds me of our own time with its promiscuity, drunkeness and widespread irreligion. However, not a chance in regard to Soviet Russia. The Communists were in active war against most of that cultural capital, at least initially,

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Thursday, March 28, AD 2013 7:44pm

Then let me try to phrase it differently. Eighteenth Century England and Soviet Russia had greater reserves of cultural capital to burn through. The latter more thoroughly and completely than the former.

Whose reserves of cultural capital do our reserves more closely approximate? Eighteenth Century England’s, or Soviet Russia’s?

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Thursday, March 28, AD 2013 11:28pm

Rampant homosexual behavior and now, equally rampant approval of it on the part of much of heterosexual society indicate one thing above all. And that is a lack of what human sexuality is at the most fundamental level: our sexuality is primarily who we are: male and female, not something we do. Of course, heterosxuality is the only orientation that naturally flows from this. Any behavioral scientist who dals with this issue in an honest scientifically coherent way say that same sex attraction is at root a sexual gender idenitity disorder. Heck, even Sigmund Freud believed homosexuality was a perversion from a psycho-analytical perspective.

Donald, did 18th century England give widespread public approval to such behavior or was it just that they preached a different standard than that which they lived? Today, not only is such behavior on the rise, the ideals are being redefined.

Certainly, while I wouldn’t be so quick to lay the problem of homosexuality at the feet of heterosexual deviance as some seem to do. However, it does compound the confusion many homosexuals have and obscures the credibility of traditional sexual morality.

I also think we would do well to come to a better understanding of the psychological factors that give rise to same sex attractions. NARTH is a good resource:

http://narth.com/

I would recommend the 1986 CDF Letter on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Thursday, March 28, AD 2013 11:48pm

As far as Bill O’Reilly is concerned, I would have to say his show is truly a “No Spin Zone”…. except when O’Reilly himself spins like a jet turbine.

That being said, the clip that Paul links to doesn’t give a full context to what O’Reilly is saying. There is some validity to what he says about the whole equality rhetoric employed by the pro-same sex marriage side being more compelling at least in the eyes of teh public (the growing shift in opinion on the issue in the pro-same sex direction seems to confirm this) than the religious based argument. Of course, a religious argument is not really needed when a simple look at human anatomy will do. But then again, I am becoming more and more convinced that it takes a religious faith to be able to accept the most obvious of scientific facts.

Donald R. McClarey
Reply to  Greg Mockeridge
Friday, March 29, AD 2013 4:38am

“Donald, did 18th century England give widespread public approval to such behavior or was it just that they preached a different standard than that which they lived?”

Fairly widespread, certainly among the aristocrats and the rich who tended to be all who really mattered in Eighteenth Century England. The influence of Continental Enlightenment anti-Christianity, along with growing scepticism and religious apathy at home, had produced ugly fruit in England. Methodism had planted the seeds of revival, but the virulence with which it was hated by many of the powers that be in England is reminiscent of some of the bitterest atheist rants of today. That things changed for the better in the nineteenth century, largely as the result of men who were frequently mocked at the time, including among that number Burke and Wilberforce, gives me hope for our time.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, March 29, AD 2013 5:40am

John 15:18, “If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated me before you.”

David Spaulding
David Spaulding
Friday, March 29, AD 2013 7:09am

Donald,
I am reading Chesterton’s St. Francis of Assisi and you echo and apply his views on sexuality, as expressed in chapters 1 and 2, quite well. I think that what is different is that we are now calling “good” what reason demonstrates is “bad.”

It is surely true that human beings have ever acted on sexual impulses against better judgment and societal mores. Such is the state of the fallen soul. However, the 10th century nobleman who fathered illegitimate children knew that what he was doing was wrong and did not declare the act right. The 14th century merchant, looking for hidden houses of prostitution, did not proudly display his beastly behavior. The Victorian hid his pornography.

What is different now is that bad behavior is held up as a badge of honor and actively promoted. This is irrational.

The Center for Disease Control reports that more than 110 million Americans have venereal diseases! Our priests report that pornography now eclipses all other mortal sins confessed through the Church. 48 percent of American children born in 2012 were born to unwed mothers. 1 in 5 women will be sexually abused or assaulted at some point in their lives.

The evidence that the West’s hedonistic plunge off of a humanist cliff is irrational abounds. Yet, Victoria’s Secret is producing “sexy underwear” for tweens, it is damn near impossible to find summer dresses for my 11 and 6 year old daughters that come anywhere close to their knees, the “Family Channel” runs sexually charged shows for 12 year olds, and condom and Viagra commercials invade football, rugby, and baseball.

The West has abandoned reason as much as religion.

Amazingly, people of faith are told that our mores are “unnatural” and slavish and, so, must be abandoned for the “freedom” of this new age. But the age looks more and more like the 3rd Century.

Our response to it must be the same as St. Paul’s: that Man is not a beast.

It is no compliment to say to a man “you are like a male dog, sensing a woman in heat. You cannot control your impulse to chase her and, like a dog, may injure yourself or others to get to her so you should not be constrained. Take these condoms and get it out of your system.”

It is no honor to a woman to say “your form evolved for the primary purpose of causing men to want to have sex with you. Your value is defined by how wild and uncontrolled you can make men.”

This is not an impossible task to have precisely the same effect on this debased and destroyed culture as the early Church had on Rome’s for our message is the Truth. We need to stop equivocating and learn to speak with passion and conviction and love. Christ’s message is far more powerful than the sophomoric arguments of Satan’s servants.

So, yes, we must live it Msgr. Pope; but we and, most especially, our clerics must proclaim it from the rooftops of the world.

We are Man, made male and female, in God’s image. We were given all of creation and commanded to be stewards of that creation so that we would learn to love and serve Him in this life so that we will be happy with Him forever in the next. We are Man, not beasts, and are capable of and called to control our appetites, to embrace adversity and I will not sacrifice my children on any alter but God’s!

Donald R. McClarey
Reply to  David Spaulding
Friday, March 29, AD 2013 7:14am

“The West has abandoned reason as much as religion.”

We live in increasingly stupid times G-Veg. The flight from sexual morality goes hand in hand with the flight from fiscal responsibility. As a society we are engaged in a huge recreation on an epic scale of the parable of the prodigal son.

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Friday, March 29, AD 2013 7:45am

The rampant acceptance of homosexuality is driven almost entirely by pop culture. the explosion of the Internet, smartphones, Twitter, Facebook, etc. is something that has been completely embraced by young people.

I suspect homosexuality has been part of Hollywood since the modern entertainment business began. In a sense, it has been propaganda as much as entertainment. Young people – especially those in high school – feel the pressure of fitting in, so they follow the pack when it comes to entertainment, and entertainment has been effective in propagandizing homosexuality – while trashing Christianity.

Glee is just one example.

Some group enlisted National Hockey League players to participate in something called “You Can Play”. It is an outreach program aimed at…not blacks, Latinos and Asians, who are rare in the NHL; but…homosexuals.

I fear a Canadian Human Rights Commission being established in the US, where the homosexuals drag out anyone who criticizes them and makes them pay thousands of dollars in fines.

I could go on and on, but I can’t. My 98 year old grandmother died yesterday. I had to call for the funeral home to pick up her tired and worn down body. I am the executor and I have to handle things, and I have wasted too much time on the Internet today already.

Kevin SD Connelly
Kevin SD Connelly
Friday, March 29, AD 2013 9:37am

To read much of the comment here is to gain hope that there is a lifeboat on this sinking ship we call “modern culture.” As to the homosexual juggernaut which presses upon us with an assumed air of inevitability, (which is how the left cunningly presents itself), its present day power certainly is derived from the history of sexual misconduct of every kind that has so blithely been excused and rationalized for so long. Its roots are deep in our disordered wills – no fiat voluntas here – which has permeated the psyche of even “Christian thinking peoples.” “Yeah look at me. I’m independent. I do it my way.”

The contraceptive ideology played a crucial role in getting us here and it remains one of the most valuable weapons for the culture of death orchestrated by the father of lies. Homosexuality, like contraception, is a dead act incapable of giving life. And both are based on a juvenile, perhaps demonic, idea that love has to do with pleasing oneself and being “happy.” These may be the consequences of true love, but not Love’s goal.

The lack of intellectual honesty and muddled thinking so carefully cultivated by our educators makes an appeal to reason very difficult. Reason doesn’t matter when, “well, that’s just the way I feel. You can’t judge my feelings.” Another victim to the culture of death- thinking. We are so far down the proverbial road to perdition it’s hard to imagine how we turn things around – but we must. After all, that is the Easter message. Death has been defeated. It is clear you all believe the same. Living the Truth and proclaiming the Good News seems our only alternative as some of you have already pointed out. Our pulpits, our schools, our priestly people have long been nearly silent on contraception, homosexuality, chastity, purity and have become quiet again on abortion. It’s time to get back in the game of saving souls.

Pinky
Pinky
Friday, March 29, AD 2013 9:44am

Penguins Fan – You and your family will be in our prayers.

You mentioned Glee. Does anyone remember High School Musical? This was a rare Disney sleeper, something that they didn’t promote the heck out of, but it became a hit, then the Disney machine kicked in and marketed it like crazy. High School Musical was innocent. It was a love story that appealed to kids of the right age group. Now, when anything is successful, Hollywood steps in and duplicates it, right? Not in this case. Instead we got Glee. That tells you something about Hollywood.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Friday, March 29, AD 2013 12:49pm

Thank You Donald and Lisa and Kevin SD and everyone.

I want to respond to this:
“The fact is, while it’s right to oppose gay marriage, it’s only going to affect a few hundred people directly.” (from Pinky-whose pithy comments I appreciate)
Pinky, just me and my family number more than half a hundred. We are directly affected and hurt. That is not counting the ones age 15 and under, whose life, and possibly eternal life, will feel the effect. Families suffer in silence for the most part.

My son has chosen this behavior. He didn’t choose the temptation, but he is choosing his response to it. He doesn’t choose it just for himself and his current partner only, but has mailed out “save the date cards” to all of our family and friends thus making a few hundred people choose.

If all the commentators on TV could be present in our family room and hear and see the wounds especially for brothers and sisters they would know how much it hurts. It isn’t just about the one day of the wedding and the sacrilege, but about being cut apart. It is as if he is saying to some of his siblings “You either love me and celebrate this wedding with me, or we are severed. I can line up some brothers/sisters on my side and see if anyone remains with you”. The chips fall where they may… Mom and Dad will be branded haters by many lifelong friends, family and coworkers. I am warned by my sister that I am on the wrong side of history, like Bull O’Connor.
The validation he seeks won’t come from getting to be called “married”… because there is really no satisfaction in this relationship… that’s why it won’t be monogamous.
It is not illegal for him to be in this relationship, those old sodomy laws are gone. I think they want to bring the Church to heel though- making them give up the sacrament, give up moral authority.. as well as the only ones who still love enough to care- thousands of moms and dads and brothers and sisters.

His dad and I are not guilty (more than ordinary) Neither is society.

This willful prideful juggernaut against our family and all families can’t just be ignored like a pesky but mostly inconsequential fly. A fly that is irritating but really doesn’t hurt much. This fly carries medical and social and spiritual problems with it such that the deleterious effect will be widespread.

I realize that the flies are out the bottle and it is very hard to put them back in.
Here is a quote from Charlemagne in an 802 capitulary about the “most pernicious rumor” that “some of the monks are understood to be sodomites” and his vow that “if any such report shall have come to our ears in the future, we shall inflict such a penalty, not only on the guilty, but also on those who have consented to such deeds, that no Christian who shall have ever heard of it will ever dare in the future to perpetrate such acts.”
I know Charlemagne lived in a different era. But the important thing he was not afraid to call right and wrong. And try to do right. And he knew that you can not give place to evil but must stop the spread.

Sometimes modern day Christians have wondered why the Christians who knew they would have to face the lions didn’t just go ahead and say the word– they are just words. And only affected a few people at first.

Donald R. McClarey
Reply to  Anzlyne
Friday, March 29, AD 2013 12:55pm

I can’t even imagine the pain of this situation for you Anzlyne. Your attitude is completely correct. We do no favor for our children by pretending that a sin they are enmeshed in is a virtue. My prayers for you and your family.

David Spaulding
David Spaulding
Friday, March 29, AD 2013 1:17pm

There have been times, in the middle of an heated discussion, where one will say “what if our child…” Reading your lines makes me finally understand how trite and foolish that is.

Our reaction to the theoretical cannot easily be forecast and I am humbled by your sharing this with us.

God bless and keep you and yours.

David

Pinky
Pinky
Friday, March 29, AD 2013 2:03pm

Anzlyne – Thanks for calling me “pithy”. In this case, you could have said “flippant” or worse and I’d have no room to argue. As I said to Penguins Fan earlier, I’ll be keeping you and your family in my prayers, and I’m sure we all will. It’s 3:00 on Good Friday. This is when Christ turned to a sinner in his dying moments and told him that he’d be with Him in Paradise. This is a moment for hope for all sinners. I’ll pray for your son.

I’ve been getting clobbered on the web lately, defending traditional marriage – with a fake name, when I can turn off my screen any time I want to. You’re defending it in the most personal way, and I thank you for your fortitude.

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Friday, March 29, AD 2013 6:04pm

Anzylne, you also will be in my prayers. I wonder if our ancestors went though something like this during the Civil War, when families also were being forced to choose sides over a contentious social issue (slavery), to the point that brothers, cousins, fathers, sons, etc. joined different armies and marched off to kill one another. And I wonder sometimes if it’s about to happen again …

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Saturday, March 30, AD 2013 9:00am

[…] the Square Supreme Court Asks Tough Questions on Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ – G. Stanton Msgr. Charles Pope on Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ – P. Zummo, The Amrcn Cthlc The Unseemly Campaign Directed at One Man – Austin Ruse, […]

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Saturday, March 30, AD 2013 9:29am

[…] Things/On the Square Supreme Court Asks Tough Questions on Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ – G. Stanton Msgr. Charles Pope on Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ – P. Zummo, The Amrcn Cthlc The Go to the Source: Big […]

Esther
Esther
Saturday, March 30, AD 2013 6:39pm

/ Recently saw the following web item. Readers may also like to Google or Yahoo “God to Same-Sexers: Hurry Up.” /

(The following paper was inspired by Bill O’Reilly whose TV show favors God Dumpers and not “Bible Thumpers.” Quotes are from “Vital Quotations” by Emerson West.)

DANGEROUS BIBLE THUMPERS OF AMERICA

ROBERT E. LEE: “In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to give me light and strength.” (p. 21)
DANIEL WEBSTER: “If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper.” (p. 21)
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS: “I have made it a practice for several years to read the Bible through in the course of every year.” (p. 22)
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: “I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Saviour of the world is communicated to us through this book.” (p. 22)
GEORGE WASHINGTON: “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.” (p. 22)
HORACE GREELEY: “It is impossible to mentally or socially enslave a Bible-reading people.” (p. 23)
THOMAS JEFFERSON: “I hold the precepts of Jesus as delivered by himself to be the most pure, benevolent, and sublime which have ever been preached to man. I adhere to the principles of the first age; and consider all subsequent innovations as corruptions of this religion, having no foundation in what came from him.” (p. 45)
THOMAS JEFFERSON: “Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would by now have become Christian.” (p. 47)
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: “As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, is the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see.” (p.49)
WOODROW WILSON: “The sum of the whole matter is this—-that our civilization cannot survive materially unless it be redeemed spiritually. It can only be saved by becoming permeated with the spirit of Christ and being made free and happy by practices which spring out of that spirit.” (p. 143)
PATRICK HENRY: “There is a just God who presides over the destiny of nations.” (p. 145)
THOMAS JEFFERSON: “Material abundance without character is the surest way to destruction.” (p. 225)
THOMAS JEFFERSON: “Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus.” (p. 237)
GEORGE WASHINGTON: “The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low, that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.” (p. 283)
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: “Here is my creed. I believe in one God, the Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshiped.” (p. 301)
CALVIN COOLIDGE: “The strength of a country is the strength of its religious convictions.” (p. 305)
GEORGE WASHINGTON: “The perpetuity of this nation depends upon the religious education of the young.” (p. 306)

Prior to our increasingly “Hell-Bound and Happy” era, America’s greatest leaders were part of the (gulp) Religious Right! Today we’ve forgotten God’s threat (to abort America) in Psa. 50:22—-“Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” Memo to God Dumpers: In light of Rev. 16:19, can you be sure you won’t be in a city that God has already reserved for destruction?

Jon
Jon
Saturday, March 30, AD 2013 10:24pm

THe pope made a very good point. Heterosexuality has been in a very bad state for many years. I think he said 50. A serious heterosexual crisis occurred opening the door to homosexuality. This was a gradual erosion.

Michael PS
Michael PS
Monday, April 1, AD 2013 9:28am

Jon

I believe Miss Anscombe made the point very well in 1972

“If contraceptive intercourse is permissible, then what objection could there be after all to mutual masturbation, or copulation in vase indebito, sodomy, buggery (I should perhaps remark that I am using a legal term here – not indulging in bad language), when normal copulation is impossible or inadvisable (or in any case, according to taste)? It can’t be the mere pattern of bodily behaviour in which the stimulation is procured that makes all the difference! But if such things are all right, it becomes perfectly impossible to see anything wrong with homosexual intercourse, for example. I am not saying: if you think contraception all right you will do these other things; not at all. The habit of respectability persists and old prejudices die hard. But I am saying: you will have no solid reason against these things. You will have no answer to someone who proclaims as many do that they are good too. You cannot point to the known fact that Christianity drew people out of the pagan world, always saying no to these things. Because, if you are defending contraception, you will have rejected Christian tradition. “

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