this post<\/a> illustrates the chasm between CAEI, the direction of the Church, and me.<\/p>\nIt is a post answering a person who is clearly more sympathetic to the LGBT worldview than I am. \u00a0Not that I believe gays should be hated or murdered. But I don\u2019t think it natural, normal, or right. \u00a0Nor do I think that as long as there is no physical penetration, anything gays do is therefore completely morally neutral or without side effects. One of my understandings of sin has always been that the commands against sin isn\u2019t some weird, fickle thing on God\u2019s part. \u00a0Sin actually is something that tears apart the created order one way or another. \u00a0To paraphrase Merlin, when a man sins, he murders some part of the world. \u00a0Hence God\u2019s commands against the sins. <\/p>\n
Now Mark answers the individual with respect and even high fives, despite the individual\u2019s confession that he\/she and the Church part company regarding this supposedly mortal sin. \u00a0No problem. \u00a0As the possibility of universalism has been entertained there and across the Catholic blogosphere, things like mortal sin and sexuality seem to diminish in importance. \u00a0Like secular liberalism, things that directly impact me \u2013 war, death penalty, poverty, torture \u2013 those are the things we go crazy about. \u00a0Things that I can potentially enjoy or get something from \u2013 sex \u2013 become less important, if not just fine altogether. \u00a0When the hereafter is a sure thing, it becomes an unimportant thing. \u00a0And this life suddenly becomes the sole focus of what I, and by extension the Church, should care about.<\/p>\n
If it was just CAEI, it wouldn\u2019t be a big deal. \u00a0But it isn\u2019t. \u00a0As I\u2019ve said, I think the tension with CAEI, it\u2019s claim to be the blog of a \u2018conservative Catholic\u2019, and the clear and obvious fact that it respectfully disagrees with all but a couple of the sins of liberalism, while dismissing almost anything to do with traditional and conservative values, is due to the Church\u2019s obvious lurching to the Left of center regarding a growing number of issues and teachings.<\/p>\n
From homosexuality, to war and capital punishment, to evolution, to climate change, to immigration, to education, to the role of women, to economics, to scholarship (biblical and otherwise), to general behavioral issues and individual ethics, the Church and the latest product of liberal and secular thought are increasingly sounding one and the same. <\/p>\n
Yes, Jesus still really lived and really died and raised from the dead. \u00a0Mary is still Immaculately conceived. \u00a0Only men can still be priests. \u00a0And gays can\u2019t get married. \u00a0And God made evolution happen. \u00a0But apart from that, the differences between the Church\u2019s approach to a host of topics and the general assumptions of a liberal, European socialist thinker, are increasingly few and far between.<\/p>\n
So a conservative blogger who has stated his undying loyalty to the Church is in a pickle. \u00a0When the Church is increasingly modifying how it interprets itself in light of increasingly progressive, liberal, and even secular perspectives, what is the loyal Catholic blogger to do? \u00a0You can just admit what the Church is doing and change your moniker. \u00a0Or you can insist you are ever and always conservative, and when properly understood, there is no difference between being so and being loyal to the Church. \u00a0No matter how obviously skewered the outcome is. <\/p>\n
And so you get numbers of Mark\u2019s readers, the majority being to the left of center, coming in to put various spins on this. \u00a0Some defending homosexuality. \u00a0Some attacking the Indiana law. \u00a0A few giving thumbs up to the post (it was well written and many parts were good at unpacking what the Church teaches about disordered appetites). \u00a0But there is a general respect and willingness to agree to disagree. \u00a0And even against more confrontational support for the LGBT viewpoint, Mark is restrained and leaves his rebuttals succinct and without vitriol. <\/p>\n
Imagine it being a post dealing with conservatives, conservative views and readers defending conservative interpretations of the Faith or its teachings. \u00a0You don\u2019t have to. \u00a0There are legions of posts doing that. \u00a0Read and notice the difference. <\/p>\n
Again, what is a person to do who wishes to be 100% loyal to the Church without admitting that the Church is changing how it approaches its practice of the Faith? \u00a0But I\u2019ve come to find out it\u2019s what Catholics have always had to do. \u00a0Because contrary to the image that many have, the Church does in fact change. \u00a0And it always has. \u00a0In fact, if you want a tradition that doesn\u2019t change, you\u2019d have to look east. \u00a0The Orthodox Church, even admitted to by Evangelical scholars from my ministry days, is about the only tradition close to what the Faith was centuries ago. \u00a0With a few modern conveniences aside, its teachings and its practice and the approach some 1500 years ago are still pretty close to the same. \u00a0But the Roman Church? \u00a0Go into a time machine and go back a thousand years, and you would be a lost as you could hope to be. \u00a0That is, if you survived long enough to point out the differences. \u00a0And that, to me at least, explains the tension and the contradictions that you find, not only on CAEI, but a growing number of Catholic outlets as well.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My penance is pretty much coming to a close. \u00a0I\u2019ve chosen to endure that Lenten obligation through the actual Easter Week. \u00a0When most are finally getting their chocolate, coffee, Sports Illustrated Swim Suit editions, or whatever they gave up, I\u2019m still plugging through. Granted, the last week\u2019s worth of posts haven\u2019t been what they are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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