{"id":2714,"date":"2008-04-10T17:14:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-10T17:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/04\/moral-mess-2\/"},"modified":"2008-04-10T17:14:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-10T17:14:00","slug":"moral-mess-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/04\/moral-mess-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Moral Mess 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>One of the problems facing Catholics in the present moral mess is how to deal with the friends, family members, neighbors and acquaintances who are in, err\u2026 irregular relationships.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>We\u2019re not supposed to be\u00a0judgmental\u00a0and self righteous. \u201cLet he who is without sin cast the first stone\u201d and all that. At the same time, we have a duty to uphold the truth, point out error and protect our children. This is not to assume that all homosexuals are predators. The protection I\u2019m talking about it more subtle than that. We have a duty to protect their moral sense and their developing conscience. They need to know what is normal and acceptable and what is not.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>There used to be a system of checks in a moral society through which those who choose to live \u2018irregular\u2019 lives are sanctioned by those who live around them.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Ordinary people used to shun those who publicly lived immoral lives. It was a form of social excommunication. The push for total tolerance in all things has eliminated that form of social sanction, and how the only way it happens is for individual families or individual people to cut themselves off from those who live publicly immoral lives lest they cause scandal to others\u2013especially the young.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>When a whole community shunned someone no one was individually responsible, and no one was therefore individually\u00a0judgmental.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Things have changed. The pressure is on all of us to accept all manner of bizarre and immoral \u2018alternative\u2019 lifestyles as if they are normal. If we do so, our children will believe them to be normal. What\u2019s to be done?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I guess one has to approach it with care, caution and a sense of humor and sense of proportion. Steer clear of people you do not want to influence your family. When they can\u2019t be avoided explain the situation they are in to your children with tact and a non\u00a0judgmental\u00a0attitude, and explain the truth and explain the church\u2019s teachings.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Any other ideas?<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the problems facing Catholics in the present moral mess is how to deal with the friends, family members, neighbors and acquaintances who are in, err\u2026 irregular relationships. We\u2019re not supposed to be\u00a0judgmental\u00a0and self righteous. \u201cLet he who is without sin cast the first stone\u201d and all that. At the same time, we have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Moral Mess 2<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One of the problems facing Catholics in the present moral mess is how to deal with the friends, family members, neighbors and acquaintances who are in,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/04\/moral-mess-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Moral Mess 2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the problems facing Catholics in the present moral mess is how to deal with the friends, family members, neighbors and acquaintances who are in,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/04\/moral-mess-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fr. 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