{"id":37719,"date":"2012-08-28T00:01:42","date_gmt":"2012-08-28T07:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=37719"},"modified":"2014-12-30T14:42:21","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T21:42:21","slug":"how-i-love-tony-esolen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2012\/08\/how-i-love-tony-esolen.html","title":{"rendered":"How I love Tony Esolen!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The man\u00a0can write.\u00a0 Here he is<\/a>, calling the bishops of Canada to lead<\/em>, for God\u2019s sake\u2013and calling laity to grow a spine even if our bishops don\u2019t:<\/p>\n

A pair of threes: that is what the World, the Flesh, and the Devil are holding.\u00a0 What do you do, if you know damned well that your opponent is holding a pair of threes?\u00a0 You call his bluff.\u00a0 You raise the stakes.\u00a0 It requires a spine somewhat firmer than overdone linguini, and, in the bishops, other accoutrements rather larger than peas.\u00a0 But it must be done.<\/p>\n

So the bishops, knowing well what makes for real human happiness and a culture worthy the name, might say, \u201cWe must obey God rather than man.\u00a0 Let us be clear here.\u00a0 All genital intercourse between human beings must be open to bringing new life into existence, by the nature of the act and in the intent of the agents, within the haven of indissoluble marriage.\u00a0 Fornication is destructive of marriage, of the common good, and of the spiritual and emotional welfare of the fornicators themselves.\u00a0 It is a grave evil.\u201d<\/p>\n

And: \u201cYou have no coherent way to distinguish between virtue and vice in these matters.\u00a0 You thus supply your own arbitrary decision, and that is the action of a tyrant.\u00a0 But our view, not our own but what has been given to us by God and what ratifies the nature of sexual intercourse, is entirely consistent and rational.\u00a0 We assert that the giving of the whole body implies the giving of the whole person, which in turn implies the giving of one\u2019s whole life.\u00a0 Since man is a social creature, this all-giving must be affirmed before one\u2019s fellow men, and cannot remain a private decision, floating in the eddies of the moods and intents of the agents.\u00a0 Since man is made by God and for God, He too must be invited to the feast\u2014He is the maker of the feast.\u201d<\/p>\n

And: \u201cWhat do you people have to show for your apostasy from faith and reason?\u00a0 What has it gotten you?\u00a0 Your mass entertainment is a sewer.\u00a0 Your children are batted from mother to father or from foster home to foster home like tennis balls.\u00a0 Those are the children you have not murdered in the womb.\u00a0 You cannot walk the city streets at night.\u00a0 You have sown mistrust and transience at the heart of what should be the most permanent of human things.\u00a0 You plant lust, and are surprised when the weed comes forth with spikes and thorns and a system of roots that creep and branch until the whole garden is choked out.\u201d<\/p>\n

And: \u201cYou want to uphold the biological absurdity of a man \u2018marrying\u2019 a man.\u00a0 We will uphold the biological and theological truth that a marital act is a marital act, and what follows from that fact, the disorderliness and wrongness of sexual congress outside of marriage.\u00a0 We are going to insist upon it.\u00a0 Now you with your pair of threes can pretend all you want that you support marriage.\u00a0 We will affirm the whole <\/em>of the Christian teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

And: \u201cYou will see, of course, that you can no more graft homosexual pseudogamy upon this whole teaching, than you can graft the arm of an octopus upon an apple tree.\u00a0 Go ahead then\u2014we dare you to keep bluffing.\u00a0 We dare you now to forbid us to teach the whole doctrine.\u00a0 We dare you to order us to bless fornication, divorce, abortion, contraception, onanism, unchastity, and all your miserable brew of temporary and local excitation to spice your perduring and spreading ennui.\u201d<\/p>\n

And: \u201cYou have nothing to offer.\u00a0 You are holding a pair of threes.\u00a0 We have everything to offer.\u00a0 We proclaim the holiness of the human body.\u00a0 We proclaim that the power of sex, male and female, cooperates in God\u2019s creation; it is the means He has chosen for bringing into being a new human soul.\u00a0 We proclaim the mystery of the union of man and woman, a mystery that mirrors the very life of the three-personed God.\u00a0 We proclaim the fruitfulness of chastity, and its harmony with the other virtues: reverence, fidelity, generosity, humility, and courage.\u00a0 We hold up for young people the beauty of the truth.\u00a0 You hand them a pill and a pack of rubbers.\u201d<\/p>\n

What about it, bishops, priests, and laity?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The man\u00a0can write.\u00a0 Here he is, calling the bishops of Canada to lead, for God\u2019s sake\u2013and calling laity to grow a spine even if our bishops don\u2019t: A pair of threes: that is what the World, the Flesh, and the Devil are holding.\u00a0 What do you do, if you know damned well that your opponent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[214],"class_list":["post-37719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-intentional-discipleship"],"yoast_head":"\nHow I love Tony Esolen!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The man\u00a0can write.\u00a0 Here he is, calling the bishops of Canada to lead, for God's sake--and calling laity to grow a spine even if our bishops don't: A pair\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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