Tag: “Church teachings”

  • “The corrupt political process in New York State”

    The Catholic bishops of New York state are upset. They are displeased about this pesky new same-sex marriage bill. They think it’s most unfair to them, the Catholic bishops of New York state.

    “The passage by the Legislature of a bill to alter radically and forever humanity’s historic understanding of marriage leaves us deeply disappointed and troubled,” the state’s bishops said. “We strongly uphold the Catholic Church’s clear teaching that we always treat our homosexual brothers and sisters with respect, dignity and love. But

    Ah yes “but.” Good old “but.” You saw that “but” coming a mile away, didn’t you. The instant they produce the bit about “we always treat our homosexual brothers and sisters with respect, dignity and love,” you know for a certainty what will immediately follow. But. But we won’t have it. But it’s an outrage. But God said. But we strongly affirm. But one man and one woman (and never, by golly, the other way around). But lifelong loving union that is open to children. But but but.

    This definition cannot change, though we realize that our beliefs about the nature of marriage will continue to be ridiculed, and that some will even now attempt to enact government sanctions against churches and religious organizations that preach these timeless truths.

    Self-pity much? Complain about inability to impose your church’s “teachings” and its “timeless truths” on unwilling other people much?

    “We worry that both marriage and the family will be undermined by this tragic presumption of government in passing this legislation that attempts to redefine these cornerstones of civilization,” the bishops added.

    No, you don’t. You worry that your power and authority and privilege will be undermined by this unremarkable good sense of government in passing legislation that benefits some people and harms none.

    “Our society must regain what it appears to have lost – a true understanding of the meaning and the place of marriage, as revealed by God, grounded in nature, and respected by America’s foundational principles.”

    No, it mustn’t. That’s the very thing it must not do. There is no “God” to do this revealing; Catholic bishops don’t know a damn thing about this “God,” any more than anyone else does. It’s all “church teachings” all the way down, and we don’t have to buy into it, much less obey it.

    A Brooklyn bishop played the populist card.

    “Today, Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature have deconstructed the single most important institution in human history,” Bishop DiMarzio said. “Republicans and Democrats alike succumbed to powerful political elites and have passed legislation that will undermine our families and as a consequence, our society.”

    The shit. That’s Nazi-talk, that “elites” shit. What does he think he is? What does he think bishops are? They’re an elite if you like. They have masses of illegitimate power and authority; they’re wholly unaccountable; they rigorously exclude women from power and ferociously punish anyone who tries to get a woman admitted; they shield each other from the law and the police; they tell governments what to do. They wear special elite clothes; they perform magical elite ceremonies; they have special elite knowledge. Teh gaze have nothing to match that.

    And he didn’t stop there.

    At a time when so many New Yorkers are struggling to stay in their homes and find jobs, we should be working together to solve these problems. However, the politicians have curried favor with wealthy donors who are proponents of a divisive agenda in order to advance their own careers and futures.

    Right; this is all about rich people trampling on the faces of the poor.

    I have asked all Catholic schools to refuse any distinction or honors bestowed upon them this year by the governor or any member of the legislature who voted to support this legislation. Furthermore, I have asked all pastors and principals to not invite any state legislator to speak or be present at any parish or school celebration.

    The above request is intended as a protest of the corrupt political process in New York State. More than half of all New Yorkers oppose this legislation. Yet, the governor and the state legislature have demonized people of faith, whether they be Muslims, Jews, or Christians, and identified them as bigots and prejudiced…

    Ugly, ugly stuff.

  • Can we all get along?

    The Vatican knows how it wants this “bring in the atheists” party to go. It wants it to go well for the Vatican.

    “The aim is to help to ensure that the great questions about human existence, especially the spiritual questions, are borne in mind and discussed in our societies, using our common reason,” Cardinal Ravasi said.

    See? Like that. It wants atheists to pretend to think that the Vatican uses reason when it discusses the great questions about human existence.

    Ideally, Cardinal Ravasi said, the conversations begun by this project should resemble not a “duel” but a “duet,” with believers and non-believers offering complementary ideas and helping each other to refine their views.

    See? The non-believers are supposed to pretend to think that Vatican ideas are “complementary” to secular ideas and that the Vatican can help atheists refine their views.

    No doubt it will have chosen its non-believers carefully. The non-believers I know don’t think for a second that the Vatican is a reason-based institution or that its ideas are “complementary” in any meaningful sense. The Vatican, like the Templeton Foundation, apparently wants to borrow some of the respectability of rational people and ways of thinking while maintaining its own anti-rational ways.

    If they invite you to the party, I urge you to decline.

  • A shabby pretext

    Inayat Bunglawala is pondering (in a rather inconclusive and unproductive way, which I suppose in his case is probably just as well) the tensions between religious freedom and other kinds of freedom, religious rights and other kinds of rights. One thing he mentions needs more second-guessing than it usually gets.

    Professor Roger Trigg kicked off last night’s discussion by pointing out that Article 9 of the European convention on human rights guarantees that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to … manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.” However, Professor Trigg argued that, in reality, a number of recent cases showed that this religious freedom was being trumped by other human rights.

    He cited the case of a registrar in the London borough of Islington who had objections to conducting civil partnership ceremonies. The registrar happened to be a Christian and “could not reconcile her faith with taking an active part in enabling same sex unions to be formed”. This was a case where the freedom to manifest one’s religious beliefs in practice appeared to come into direct conflict with the right not to be discriminated against due to one’s sexual orientation.

    Here’s what I think needs closer examination: in what sense is it really part of the registrar’s religious beliefs that gay people shouldn’t get married?

    Is that something Jesus is quoted as saying? Is it a central Christian belief? Is it a religious belief at all?

    Not that I know of. As far as I know, it’s just a traditional entrenched customary belief – a “Yuk” belief, to borrow from Leon Kass and Jonathan Haidt. It doesn’t really have any strictly religious content. Yet it gets called a religious belief. Why? Partly to make it seem more respectable, and partly precisely to take advantage of the rights that Bunglawala mentions. A mere stupid bit of bigoted dislike doesn’t deserve or get the dignity of a right, but if you say it’s a religious belief – oh well that’s different. Only it isn’t. But a lot of people say it is. It’s mostly a con, and should be treated as such.

  • The pope visits Fátima

    The pope is telling everyone what to do, again – not that he ever stopped, but still it’s interesting to see that he apparently feels no shyness or hesitation, no doubts about his moral authority, even now that it has been searchingly and thoroughly revealed that he and his church have been protecting child rapists and bullying their victims for many decades.

    This is interesting, in its way. I think ordinarily people who have been morally compromised the way the pope has become a little bashful about pretending to be moral bosses. It’s interesting that the pope doesn’t, especially since the content of his moral bossing is so godawful – so harmful for actual existing people, so fretful about imaginary people and arbitrary rules.

    Benedict called for initiatives aimed at protecting “the family based on the indissoluble marriage between a man and a woman, help to respond to some of today’s most insidious and dangerous threats to the common good.”

    Like that. Pretending that divorce and gay marriage are insidious and dangerous threats to the common good. (You can make a case that divorce can be partially harmful to the common good, but then you can also make a case that indissoluble marriage can be partially harmful to the common good.) Prating about divorce and abortion and gay marriage when he and his tyrannical church have done real harm to thousands of real children. Talking as if he were better than other people because he wears the white dress. Talking as if he were even minimally decent.

    Benedict has endeavored to shape a new identity for the church as a “creative minority” in an increasingly secular Europe. On Thursday, he denounced “the pressure exerted by the prevailing culture, which constantly holds up a lifestyle based on the law of the stronger, on easy and attractive gain.”

    The law of the stronger is it – as in the all-powerful church that gets to shelter criminals from the law and get away with it year after year? Easy and attractive gain is it – as in the children trained to revere the church and its priests, who are such easy pickings for men who enjoy raping children? That kind of thing?

    The pope also told the social service groups to find alternatives to state financing so they would not be subject to legislation at odds with Catholic teaching, urging them to “ensure that Christian charitable activity is granted autonomy and independence from politics and ideologies

    Meaning, of course, politics and ideologies that favor equality and frown on discrimination against people for arbitrary reasons. The pope can’t be doing with those politics and ideologies, he prefers “Catholic teaching” that gay people are sinful.

    Bust him! Read him his rights, cuff him, book him, let him phone his lawyer.