I Just Can't Stay Quiet

I wrote the following in response to two columnists who wrote in support of the liberal nuns which our Archbishop Sartain must oversee now. I really do not know why non-Catholics feel the need to weigh in on matters of the Catholic Church. It is not the fact that leadership is male that makes the Church take exception to what various orders of nuns are doing, but rather that the nuns are doing things, promoting things, like ordination for women, which the Catholic Church says it cannot do, not because it desires to degrade women but because it has believed since the beginning that God arranged things how He wanted them. Feminist views in culture today are not sufficient to opposed the will of God and the Church will not. It is not discrimination to not allow everyone to do what they want. That's not freedom, it's license. The Church has based the role of women in the Church on Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven. This is no small role but never does Mary pine to be equal with  God or her son. To say that there are actual differences between the sexes is not discrimination. God created them male and female, they are not twins! The genders have different things to do. Do men have babies? Is that gender discrimination? No. Women don't have the strength of men physically, but is this discrimination? Again, no. You seem to take exception with dogma that is divinely ordained. Are we to ignore what we believe God tells us in favor of public opinion? And further, you seem to say that because other denomination don't believe as the Catholic Church does, the Church must be wrong, be making wrong interpretation of scripture. However, as the original Church founded by Christ, and writers of the new testament, I think she, more than any other church knows what is meant in scripture. Interpretation is not, over the centuries, a matter of human interpretation as you suggest. Therefore, the fact that the Holy Spirit has inspired men to understand what is meant is God's will, not man's will. It is not the providence of any person or group of people to try to make the Catholic Church's teachings more "equitable." That is certainly not the goal of the Church. It is the goal of the church that all should be holy. The Church's only ancestor is Christ and I am sure that He does not promote injustice. In fact it was He and the Church who established the dignity of women who before that were considered property. The so-called Church systems were not human creations as Sister Maricarmen-Bracamontes believes but instituted by Christ. The Church is not political but neither will it say that any part of life is outside of the realm of faith. Faith makes a difference in lives or what difference does it make to have faith? Therefore the redefining of marriage to be any two who want to live together will not be accepted by the Church, which understands that it was God who instituted marriage between men and women only. And if you think that you have seen the last of those who want to further redefine marriage, you are mistaken. Multiple people of any sex, children, maybe even animals will have their proponents who want marriage to include them too. "But we love each other!" is their battle cry, followed by "You're discriminating against us!" Marriage was intended to be the foundation of society, providing stability to society and to future generation by providing a strong nurturing family unit which taught values and moral behavior to their children. The Church has always supported and defended children. Contraception is saying no to babies in general but some forms are even acting like abortion drugs, killing a specific child in the womb. Outright abortion is killing babies. In no instance has a pregnant mother given birth to anything but a human child. That child is a separate being with perhaps different coloring, different blood type and differing DNA, all sure signs that this is a distinct person. You can't tar the issue with the word "political" and say the Church must not get involved. Morality is to be lived out therefore the Church is well within her proper domain to speak out against such an egregious error. There is talk on this issue of women's right but they are not rights, they are demands. God gives rights, as the Bill of Rights spells out, not the government, not the courts, not the culture. God has never given people the right to kill one another. Let the sisters be free indeed! Free to leave the Catholic Church to find another church which will espouse their views. These proud, rebellious, disobedient nuns are Catholic in name only and a cancer in the Church.

Marriage: What is it? And why

It has been on my mind to create this post for a long time but I have had a hard time finding the time to sit down and think through what I wanted to say. Marriage has been in the news a lot lately and it seems to me that the media and the government want to allow only their definition and call anyone who disagrees a hater or bigoted or worse. I am Catholic so it seems to me that the government is focusing on trying to force the Catholic Church to go along with  the current culture, which it never has in all its years.

And yet, even in the Catholic Church, there are many who want to say that it is our job to be inclusive and the surely Jesus would not have excluded anyone. They are not remembering that he called the Pharisees and Sadducees “You brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” so he clearly didn't include everyone no matter what they were doing.  Inclusiveness is tantamount to saying that God has no standards and that His holiness can tolerate everyone being welcomed in Heaven. I think it is pretty clear that God does not do that. He says instead, “Be holy as I AM holy.” I heard Mother Angelica at EWTN say that inclusive language is satanic. It seemed an extreme statement but when she explained that it is Satan who wants to separate us from the relationship of father and child that we have with God, I can see her point. If God is feminine or “it” and not masculine, then there can be no familial relationship which is the foundation of Christianity.

When it comes to marriage, God created man and woman in His own image, and said that when they marry, they become one. I do not believe that two men or two women can become one. Neither can they create new life which is one of the essential parts of marriage. My children are adopted so I understand about getting children that way. But with marriage being the foundation of society that it is, marriage can not strengthen society without producing new children. And it has been proven that a solid, healthy family is a family that stays intact, and has a mother and a father for the children. Divorce is the bane of our existence, which is why the Church bans it. The sad reality is that people marry for the wrong reasons and that leads to faulty marriages which were never valid to begin with or which are not strong enough to stand the testing that every family goes through.

Our society, beginning in the 60s with the introduction of contraception, has separated sex from marriage which has not been good for people or for marriage. Men and women are indulging in casual sex and undermining the best chance for a strong marriage by living together first and likely having children first too. The “hook-up” culture demeans the person and makes the frequently resulting baby seem like a mistake. Contraception (which is birth control not birth prevention) says “I do not want babies” and it is a very short step indeed to abortion, which says, “I do not want this baby.” 1.5 million babies are aborted every year in the US and there are twice as many abortions among blacks as among whites.

It takes 2.1 births per couple to maintain the current population but very few countries are maintaining that birth rate due to the high abortion rates and the poor economy. In 2011 the United States dropped to its lowest level ever, below the replacement rate. If it drops to 1.2 the country is in serious decline and no country thus far has recovered from a birthrate of that level. Japan is currently in that place. For comparison, back in the 1950s the birthrate was 5 children per family. The society that figures out how to restore the economic foundation of the family to society will own the future. Right now the Obama administration is working hard to destroy the economic foundation of the family unit so it seems unlikely that the United State will own the future unless things change drastically.

Neither society or the economy can thrive if the family is not strong. And if marriage is not the foundation of society, then the society is crumbling. With the current attack on marriage in the United State, and around the world, it is the very foundations of society that are under attack and society is foundering. Defining marriage as one man and one woman is essential to maintaining the foundations of society.