Showing posts with label Revise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Revise. Show all posts

Thursday, January 25, 2018

The Flight from God: Building a New Tower of Babel

As noted here:

"Change the Catechism. If its doctrine does not coincide with the new desired orthodoxy concerning homosexuality, it will be better to adopt the solution of Alexander the Great, who with one stroke of his sword decided to untangle the Gordian knot in his own way: by cutting it in two.

In the same way, in order to accept and definitively clear the way for homo-erotic practice, it is necessary to address the fundamentals, and from there everything will be easier. Now that an attitude of laxity and acceptance of homosexuality as a natural variant of human sexuality is becoming increasingly common, there remains only one small obstacle to adding a full affirmation of LGBT rights as an ingredient in the “Christian salsa” – to remove the Catechism of the Catholic Church, considered the last obstacle to be overcome.

Thus the battle will now move to a doctrinal level, but everything must be prepared with an affected and reassuring language which only a certain attitude of clericalism knows how to do. Above all, there must first be sent forth pioneers who make themselves interpreters and spokesmen of this line of thought. A small group of theologians and priests, a few bishops and even so-called pastoral workers, who lead a solitary battle outside of all restraint [from the Magisterium], but who place themselves prominently in view in their dioceses, while the silent majority is dozing.

The last shot, chronologically, is given to certain lay people, according to the precisely-ordered tapestry of the tearful cause. So reports Repubblica, telling the story of two parents who have accepted their lesbian daughter and have now joined the team put together by the Bishop of Civitavecchia, Luigi Marrucci, who himself belongs to the so-called Christian LGBT movement. “We were firmly convinced that homosexuality was a sin,” they say. And now? “We prayed and read the parable of the Prodigal Son, and we came to understand that Lord accepts all without judging. Martina is living in the truth and we love her as she is.” What truth are they speaking about? Certainly not the truth of the Gospel or the story of Sodom in the Bible nor the truth of the Catechism, to which they make a little peep towards the end of the story: “The problem is with the Catechism, which says that homosexuality is an intrinsically-disordered orientation.”

Here we have found the stumbling stone. This is the key observation necessary in order to “finally” clear the way for the homo-heresy in a Catholic tone. In fact this interview did not just happen by chance, rather, it was initiated from afar. Above all, to affirm the incompatibility of the Catechism, i.e., Catholic doctrine, with the world as it is experienced to be, which would be a worldview based on immanent experience and thus not based on truths of the Divine Law. But so it is.

Chronologically, [those who want a Catholic revolution] must now put in doubt the truth about homosexuality as taught by the Catechism, as Avvenire observed here with a well-laid out editorial by Luciano Moia: “There are those who, recognizing the Catholic Tradition contained in the Catechism, maintain the necessity of an affective life conducted in chastity. But there are also those, including bishops and theologians, who ask the Church to make a more profound reflection on the significance of sexuality, not excluding a [permissive] revision of moral theology.”

Who is right in this flirtation with moral relativism? The latter group seems to understand. Look at how here they are laying the groundwork to consider the Catechism no longer untouchable, introducing the virus of revision, as if the truth about man and the divine plan for the human race was merely a social construct subject to changing opinions."

Those of you who follow this Blog know full well that I have been warning for years this was coming.  See here, here and here for example.

In his powerful classic entitled, "The Flight from God," the eminent Swiss philosopher Max Picard writes: "In every age man has been in flight from God. What distinguishes the Flight to-day from every other flight is this: once Faith was the universal, and prior to the individual; there was an objective world of Faith, while the Flight was only accomplished subjectively, within the individual man. It came into being through the individual man's separating himself from the world of Faith by an act of decision. A man who wanted to flee had first to make his own flight. The opposite is true to-day. The objective and external world of Faith is no more; it is Faith which has to be remade moment by moment through the individual's act of decision, that is to say, through the individual's cutting himself off from the world of the Flight. For to-day it is no longer Faith which exists as an objective world, but rather the Flight; for every situation into which man comes is from the beginning, without his making it so, plainly a situation of flight, since everything in this world exists only in the form of the Flight." (The Flight from God, Gateway Editions, 1951, pp.1-2).

Picard goes on to explain in this critically important work that, "The man of the Flight cannot bear the feeling that there is one thing and one thing only: the Flight. He needs something wholly other, something, now threatening, now friendly, which is above him, like a heaven beneath which he can make his journey...This is Art...The very existence of Art in a sphere of its own already means that it is 'wholly other,' and from the beginning it is other than reality itself. The strange thing about Art is that a work of art is indeed made by man, but that once it is made it stands there independently of man. This gives it a semblance of otherness." (The Flight from God, pp. 138-139).

This is of the utmost importance for "modern man" as he flees from his God Who is Wholly Other. Nature abhors a vacuum after all. And so, in his flight from the Divine Other, man in the flight substitutes "Art" for the Divine Being as the Wholly Other." Picard explains that the cinema "..is the perfect Flight" and that here is where "men may learn how best to flee." For this reason, "..cinemas are everywhere erected, examples of the Flight. The figures on the screen are fashioned only for the Flight, they are disembodied. Like one in a hurry who drops his luggage, the figures have laid down their bodily substance somewhere in the background, while they themselves make off in the foreground of the screen, outlines only of their bodies. Sometimes they are still for a moment, looking backwards fearfully, as if there was one who pursued them. Alas, it is only a game, they do but pretend to be afraid. No one can reach them, these things without being. And now, as if they want to fool the one who pursues them, they move more slowly, they even translate a movement which ought o be fast into a slow one; they demonstrate slowness in the Flight, so sure are they that nothing can reach them, these things without being. Here in the cinema it is as if there were no more men, as if the real men were somewhere in safety, had for long been in safety, and as if these shadows had been left behind simply to flee in place of the real men. They only pretend to be in flight and even the men who sit in front of the screen in order to gaze at the shadows there seem nothing but dummies, arranged to complete the illusion,while the real men have long since departed." (pp. 8-9).

Dr. Von Hildebrand was right when he said that, "Modern man has lost that consciousness of being a creature which even the pagan possessed, and he lives in the illusion that by his own powers he can transform the world into a terrestrial paradise." (The New Tower of Babel, Sophia Institute Press, 1994, p. 21).

Having decided against God, "modern man" has embraced the Flight. This flight from the Divine Other has led to the decline of man's confidence in the powers of human reason to attain reality and truth. Man in the Flight has concluded today that all truth is relative. In the same way that Pilate asked Our Lord, "What is truth?" and hastened in his flight to the judgment-hall without waiting for an answer (John 18:38), so "modern man," in his embrace of relativism, joins the flight without any thought of inquiring for the truth. Instead, he settles for illusion, rejecting the permanent authority of truth as founded by the Divine Other in reality, reason and revelation while setting himself up as the autonomous source of all truth:"Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the 'mystery of iniquity' in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 675).

The Antichrist is behind the Flight, urging "modern man" to hasten in his Flight and not to look back. How will this Flight end? In the words of Romano Guardini:"One day the Antichrist will come: a human being who introduces an order of things in which rebellion against God will attain its ultimate power. He will be filled with enlightenment and strength. The ultimate aim of all aims will be to prove that existence without Christ is possible - nay rather, that Christ is the enemy of existence, which can be fully realized only when all Christian values have been destroyed. His arguments will be so impressive, supported by means of such tremendous power - violent and diplomatic, material and intellectual - that to reject them will result in almost insurmountable scandal, and everyone whose eyes are not opened by grace will be lost. Then it will be clear what the Christian essence really is: that which stems not from the world, but from the heart of God; victory of grace over the world; redemption of the world, for her true essence is not to be found in herself, but in God, from whom she has received it. When God becomes all in all, the world will finally burst into flower." (The Lord, p. 513).

Are we not approaching the Reign of Antichrist? "Modern man" strives to build a godless world where he is subject to no one but himself. Having eliminated God from this world, "modern man" deifies and absolutizes himself. Having rejected his place as a creature dependent upon God, "modern man" is moving, "..not toward divinity, but toward dehumanizing, toward the destruction of being itself through through the destruction of truth. The Jacobin variant of the idea of liberation...is a rebellion against being human in itself, rebellion against truth, and that is why it leads people - as Sartre percipiently observed - into a self-contradictory existence that we call hell." (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, p. 248).

Saturday, October 03, 2015

Parish priest where I attended Mass tonight: Yes many, even in the Church, are promoting sodomite "marriage," but every family is dysfunctional

Matthew Pearson, writing for Church Militant, notes how "A Polish priest working at the Congregration for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has admitted his homosexuality and issued a manifesto demanding changes to Church teaching.

The priest, Msgr. Krzysztof Charamsa, is a professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University and has been on the Vatican's International Theological Commission since 2009.

In a video released yesterday by the Polish LGBT activist group Artykuł osiemnasty, Msgr. Charamsa declares his homosexuality and admits to having a boyfriend.

Also released along with the video was a 10-point manifesto of demands.

1. Disposal of homophobia and anti-gay discrimination

We demand that the Catholic Church divest itself of activities, the mentality and language of homophobia, hate speech, humiliation and depreciating, marginalization, stigmatization and rejection of LGBT people. We demand the cessation of the Church of discrimination and soft persecution of these people so within it as well as beyond its borders.
2. Condemnation of punishment for homosexuality

We demand that the Church unequivocally speak out against punishment for sexual orientation and against the death penalty or imprisonment, against any acts of cruelty against any discrimination against people based on sexual orientation, as well as against attempts to undergo "reorganizational therapies" of persons belonging to sexual minorities.

3. Cessation of the Church's interference in guaranteeing human rights by democratic states

We demand that the Church revise its past behavior to states and nations which, through the democratic development of civilizations, seek to guarantee human rights, including the right of persons belonging to sexual minoritiesto love and to civil marriage. Civilized countries should respect their autonomy for the sake of the common good of all, not just Catholics.

4. Canceling incompetent and prejudicial documents

We demand the Pope revise the Catechism and repeal all the cruel documents that are incompetent to deal with the issue of homosexual persons, who are the object both of the Church's compassion and stigmatization — in particular, the documents of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the heir to the Holy Inquisition. Unacceptable documents include:

a) the declaration Persona Humana from 1975, discussing among other things the "pathological constitution" of homosexual persons, which by their nature supposedly "have difficulty adjusting socially" and carry an "disorder" that "without the necessary and significant adjustment" is considered a "depravity";

b) Letter on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons of 1986, which calls for "compassion" for homosexuals, who "suffer" from same-sex attraction, and which accepts the existence of "fair discrimination" against homosexuals and rejects only "unjust discrimination" against them;

c) the outrageous Considerations Concerning the Response to Legislative Proposals on the Non-Discrimination of Homosexual Persons in 1992;

d) Considerations Regarding Proposals to Legalize Unions Between Homosexual Persons from 2003, according to which homosexuality is "devoid of any genuine affective maturity," and homosexual relationships are devoid of any "human and ordered form of sexual relations";

e) the Catechism of the Church Catholic, sections 2357–2359, teaches that not only same-sex acts but also homosexual orientation are "objectively disordered." It also emphasizes that by nature, homosexuals have no emotional complementarity with other human persons they love. And it adds that for most of us orientation is a difficult experience requiring compassion toward our neighbor, but not without avoiding just discrimination. How does the Church know what is our suffering and difficulty? Well, it is not sexual orientation, but homophobia from the Church. Learning via the Catechism is offensive, apart from the fact that the very definition of homosexuality is deficient, if not quite false. The analysis of the situation of homosexual persons is also deficient.

5. Immediate cancellation of discriminatory instructions about denying the priesthood to homosexual persons

We demand that the Pope immediately abolish regrettable instructions about refusing the ordination of homosexuals, endorsed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.

6. Initiate a serious interdisciplinary scientific reflection over the morality of human sexuality

We demand that the Church initiate a serious and objective scientific reflection on sexual morality, taking note of the development — which so far the Church has only viewed ideologically — of science and reproductive health services, medical, psychological, psychiatric, biological, sociological, anthropological, Gender studies, etc.

7. Revision of the interpretation of biblical texts on homosexuality

We demand that the Church treat seriously the question of its own interpretation of the Bible, freeing itself of fundamentalism, noting verses that talk about homosexual people, never condemning them, and contextualizing biblical texts that address homogenital acts.

8. Adoption of ecumenical dialogue with our Lutheran and Anglican brothers about homosexuality

We demand that the Church take seriously ecumenical dialogue on the issue of homosexuality with Christians, Protestants and Anglicans who, in an open and transparent process of maturation, have developed their own beliefs on this subject, which may help the Catholic Church understand the reality of it.

9. The need to ask for forgiveness toward homosexuals

We demand that the Church stop persecution and crimes against homosexuals and to cease committing similar acts from now on.

10. Respect for and belief in homosexuals and change in the distorted position of the Church on what a homosexual Christian life should look like

We demand that the Church finally open itself up to believing in homosexuals, who are baptized persons belonging to sexual minorities who still do not have the right to dispose themselves in total love and resignation to a healthy sex life, which expresses their nature in accordance with their sexual orientation."

Now, given the first reading and the Gospel for Sunday, October 4th, I was hoping that the priest who celebrated Holy Mass which I attended (a Vigil Mass) would speak on the Church's teaching regarding what constitutes authentic marriage.

The readings:

Reading 1 GN 2:18-24

The LORD God said: "It is not good for the man to be alone.
I will make a suitable partner for him."
So the LORD God formed out of the ground
various wild animals and various birds of the air,
and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them;
whatever the man called each of them would be its name.
The man gave names to all the cattle,
all the birds of the air, and all wild animals;
but none proved to be the suitable partner for the man.

So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man,
and while he was asleep,
he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
The LORD God then built up into a woman the rib
that he had taken from the man.
When he brought her to the man, the man said:
"This one, at last, is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called 'woman, '
for out of 'her man’ this one has been taken."
That is why a man leaves his father and mother
and clings to his wife,
and the two of them become one flesh.

And the Gospel
MK 10:2-16

The Pharisees approached Jesus and asked,
"Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?"
They were testing him.
He said to them in reply, "What did Moses command you?"
They replied,
"Moses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce
and dismiss her."
But Jesus told them,
"Because of the hardness of your hearts
he wrote you this commandment.
But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. 
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.
So they are no longer two but one flesh.
Therefore what God has joined together,
no human being must separate."
In the house the disciples again questioned Jesus about this.
He said to them,
"Whoever divorces his wife and marries another
commits adultery against her;
and if she divorces her husband and marries another,
she commits adultery."

And people were bringing children to him that he might touch them,
but the disciples rebuked them.
When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them,
"Let the children come to me;
do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to
such as these.
Amen, I say to you,
whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child
will not enter it."
Then he embraced them and blessed them,
placing his hands on them."

Rather than addressing the growing darkness and the rampant confusion of our sad time, the priest who celebrated Mass said that everyone suffers from dysfunction and EVERY FAMILY IS DYSFUNCTIONAL.

Then he offered a prayer for family healing.

It would seem that some of us suffer more than others from dysfunction.

But do you see what this troubled priest was implying? - That no one can really speak out against the sin which cries to Heaven for vengeance because we are all sinners and EVERY FAMILY  has its problems.

It is this sort of sick "logic," usually advanced by people living the homosexual "lifestyle" or who have a friend or family member who does, which is used as a device to try to guilt others from opposing the sodomite agenda.

This priest, incardinated in the Diocese of Springfield, failed to deliver a homily based upon the Gospel because he is a coward.  Rather than using his homily to dispel darkness, this priest provided aid and comfort to those who would distort the Church's authentic teaching on marriage and failed his parishioners in the process.


Some are more dysfunctional than others
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