Beware of bumper stickers. Remember the Iraq War? Remember the bumper-sticker level of propaganda shameless spewed out by Bush, Blair and their neocon cohorts?
Well, now one of the master thinkers of neoconservatism agrees that the pallid dissenting Europeans, who couldn't compose a bumper sticker if you paid them, were right all along: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/
st...1715180,00.html
For the blessings of pluralism and the true sense of Christian exclusivism, I think the following is very illuminating: http://www.archbishopofcanterbur...ches/
060217.htm
"Spirit,"
One certainly needs to beware of a superficial tribalism that reduces the fullness of truth to clichees and bumper stickers, that's true. But notice how you shift the topic from the "Cafeteria Catholicism" (the target of this bumper sticker) to the Iraq War. The letter refers to the grey realities of politics, where even the most knowledgeable person has but conjectural probabilities to play with, while the former refers to the absolute, defined truths of Catholic faith and morals. I not only see nothing wrong with, but would be proud to sport any bumper sticker putting the smackdown on "Cafeteria Catholicism." By contrast to the contingencies of geo-political and military data, there is no contingency or unclearness about what the Church teaches.
You, of course, are free to continue posting your own bumper stiker comments sniping about the "repression," "homophobia," and "bloodless dogmatism" of the Vatican in these comment boxes. We love relativists like yourself, even if we hate relativism. Cheers,
Spirit,
LOL! Really, a post from Rowan Williams? Has he come out yet?
I never referred to the "bloodless dogmatism" of the Vatican. I don't recall referring to the "homophobia" of the Vatican either, though I do think the notorious 1986 document can be and has been used as a charter by homophobes. I am not a relativist.
The Iraq War was a matter of clear black and white in the judgment of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
Marc, remember that your judgment of a man of God can boomerang on yourself. Read this piece on the scourging of Rowan Williams http://churchtimes.co.uk/80256fa...e5?
opendocument
and ask yourself if, like the soldiers in Mel Gibson, you have not added a lash of mockery.
What is the 'notorious 1968' document?
The notorious 1986 document is the one on the pastoral care of homosexual persons, which says that the homosexual inclination is objectively disordered and that people who say otherwise should not be surprised if violent and irrational reactions ensue -- a bit like Bp Akinola warning Muslims that if they don't watch it they much not be surprised if the Christians respons with violent and irrational reactions!
Par. 10 of the document reads:
"But the proper reaction to crimes committed against homosexual persons should not be to claim that the homosexual condition is not disordered. When such a claim is made and when homosexual activity is consequently condoned, or when civil legislation is introduced to protect behavior to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the Church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground, and irrational and violent reactions increase."
These words are proudly displayed on the Vatican website.
Spirit of the wind said:
> "and ask yourself if, you have not added a lash of mockery."
Good men don't just stand by and let
heretics destroy the holy family.
If you are publically at war with the teaching of the Catholic magisterium (i.e., disordered nature of homosexuals), don't complain when things heat up in the kitchen.
Marc, you are perhaps unaware that defenders of the Church's teaching on homosexuality, such as Bruce Williams OP and many others, now claim that the 1986 document quoted above must be interpreted as referring not to the homosexual orientation but to the postive desire for proscribed sexual acts -- it is this, rather than the homosexual orientation as such, that is objectively disordered. In short the prima facie meaning of the 1986 text has been found to be intolerable by the Catholic community and its theologians -- to bring the Church into embarrassing proximity with Nazi views of homosexually inclined people as mistakes of nature.
I believe that the Church's views on this are maturing and developing, and therefore I do not see myself as "dissenting" but as contibuting to an ongoing discussion. Evidently Rowan Williams, within the wider Christian context, is also contributing in a very prudent and sober way to this discussion. Your rude guffaws at this saintly man are out of place.
Spirit of the wind: >"such as Bruce Williams OP and many others, now claim that the 1986 document quoted above must be interpreted as referring not to the homosexual orientation but to the postive desire for proscribed sexual acts -- it is this, rather than the homosexual orientation as such, that is objectively disordered."<
Certainly there are those who dissent
from the true meaning held in common by the faithful. So what's new? The Hans Kung school is always to be counted on for their displeasure.
We read your diatribes and resolve that you are a dissenter blasting away at the magisterium with agit-prop sensitivity. Your extreme discomfort with the disordered nature of homosexual orientation taught by the Church, is unfortunate for you, but not hopeless through vigilant prayer and penance. The Church's teaching on this issue is formed solidly around protecting the sanctity of the family. Children are at great risk when the nurturing norms of mother-father are threatened. Children rely on parents (adults) to protect them, and it's alarming that a basic concern for their welfare (our future) is not evident in your arguments but rather a what I/we want for ourselves to be satisfied. Sorry Sirit of the wind, if I've been crude to you and your fellow dissenters, I'll take it to confession, but my aim is and will be, to protect children in the fluff and buff of arguments that tear at the walls of sanity to allow the wolves entry into the mother's womb.
Marc, you are wrong to say that Williams, Radcliffe and several other moral theologians (Gallagher and Hannon in The Furrow) are dissenters. Their interpretation has not been contradicted by the Vatican, and seems to be taken up by such leading churchmen as Murphy-O'Connor.
Marc, you also miss the feelings of the parents of gay children, who are very concerned about protecting their offspring against hatred and physical violence, which begins in the schoolyard, and who are also concerned that their offspring have the opportunity to live a reasonably fulfilled human life.
To come back to those you so casually label "dissenters", Bruce Williams is professor of moral theology at the Pontifical Angelicum University, Rome, and a well-known DEFENDER of church teaching on homosexuality. Timothy Radcliffe led the Dominicans, one of the Church's major religious orders, for a number of years.
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