I was driving around last night and was listening to a rebroadcast of the Sean Hannity Show. There was an interesting argument going on between Alveda King and “Jon”, who turns out to be Jon O’Brien, the president of Catholics for Choice.
I usually half listen, as there are other things to worry about, like driving the car. But then, I heard it….one of the most incredibly ignorant things I have ever heard. Jon actually said that the Catholic Catechism actually says that all of our moral choices are up to our conscience. He told Sean to go back to catechism class and relearn it!
First of all, the Catechism says nothing about everything being ok as long as we are following the conviction of our conscience. The Church states that we are all given free will, and free to make choices. But there is a definite standard to be upheld.
Whether you look at it from the perspective of the ten commandments, or follow the natural law, or you are a student of early history, there are definite rules and standards to live up to.
I find the idea that we split the Catholic church into different subsets like liberal and conservative and ultra-conservative to be fascinating.
There is One, Holy and Apostolic Catholic Church.And its Catechism states:
2363 The spouses’ union achieves the twofold end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission of life. These two meanings or values of marriage cannot be separated without altering the couple’s spiritual life and compromising the goods of marriage and the future of the family.
It is also amazing that people state that Humanae Vitae is the beginning and end of the Church’s position on birth control. The kindest thing I can say about that is that it is short sighted. First of all, prior to 1930, all church denominations prohibited birth control.
Even at the time of the Lambeth conference, Contraception was declared licit only in grave situations within marriage. No church has ever come out in support of the widespread use of contraception and free sexual activity.
And it really doesn’t matter what polls say either. Perhaps we should take a poll, and if a majority agree, why don’t we just get rid of the Designated Hitter in Baseball. OR maybe the constitution should be entirely ignored. Why do any games have rules? Perhaps if the Catholic Magisterium had just been a little more democratic, there would be no such thing as heresy, and anything would go, just like has happened after the Protestant Reformation. There are more protestant denominations than I can count.
Perhaps since a majority of Catholics do not believe that the Eucharist is Christ’s Body, blood, soul, and divinity, we should just pitch that too.
NO! The problem is that, for over a generation, the laity has not truly been taught what the Catholic church teachings are and why they are so beautiful. There are a number of reasons for this of course, but that is why people see these things as arbitrary rules set up by a few men and not part of Divine Revelation. If you don’t accept a teaching, you likely don’t understand it. We are in true need for our priests to teach from the pulpit, and our Bishops to demand that those with a voice speak the Truth, even if we need to speak Truth to power!
Catholic Sexual morals are not a list of suggestions, they are a set of doctrines that have been preached since the time of Jesus and are part of the Natural Law. We need to know them in our mind, and hold them close to our heart along with the entirety of the Church. And that is the source of true Conscience.
Here is a possible start.
St Anne, Pray for us!
Reblogged this on Deacon John's Space.
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