Andrew's latest take on the Pontiff contains some whoppers.

www.AndrewSullivan.com - Latest Posts: "Alas, the Gospels do not tell us everything. Jesus never mentions, say, abortion, homosexuality, reproductive technologies or a celibate priesthood, to name just a few of the issues confronting the Roman Catholic Church. "

The first point is not really valid. I seem to remember one of the Commandments mentioning something about "Thou Shalt Not Kill." It does not have the codecil, "Unless You Are Inconveniently Pregnant."

Homosexuality is explicitly mentioned in both Leviticus and the tale of Sodom and Gommorah (despite Andy's ravings to the contrary).

Reproductive issues ("technologies" or otherwise) are addressed in the story of Onan. He was castigated because he spilled his seed upon the ground which displeases the Lord. One can reasonably extrapolate that the same thing happens in actuallity with some methods and in prinicple in others.

Lastly, the issue of celibate priests; It took me .31 seconds of googling to find the link explaining this one. I can see how he missed it, the page is for an outmoded, archiac, hardline, hidebound, obscure, dictatorship.


and this:
"Benedict has thus been emboldened to make several claims. Take the question of women's role in the church. Their exclusion from the priesthood is not within his power to change, he claims. Women in society? A woman has "roles inscribed in her own biology," he says. And what would those be? Motherhood and virginity, "the two loftiest values in which she realizes her profoundest vocation." So a woman is less a woman if she is a scientist or journalist or Prime Minister? That's what "nature" seems to tell us. What happens when nature suggests that some women are not cut out for motherhood or virginity? Then those women are rebelling against their full potential."

He's missed the point entirely. Women are biologically capable of being mothers. Either a woman should be welcoming to children within the bounds of matrimony or she should remain a virgin. Is that so hard to understand? He's speaking about a vocation here not an occupation. The two are vastly different. He's either being disingenuous, flippant or just plain sloppy. A woman can be a virginal Prime Minister, a mother and a scientist or the reverse of both cases. He seems to want limitless restaints on human choices. This is simply not possible. We are all, all of us, constrained by many things. I want to be a Formula 1 driver but I'm not. Why not? Simply put, I don't have the funds, I almost certainly lack the skill and never had the opporutnities. Is that fair? No, but life isn't fair. We have opportunities and we make choices based on them. A few of us, persevere enough to make our own opportunties. Even then, there are limits to what we can do and be. Americans seem to have told themselves that we are entitled to whatever we want. We need to be disabused of this notion as soon as possible.


oh boy, there's more...

"Gay people are often born homosexual, Benedict has argued. But they are beset by an inherent tendency toward an "intrinsic moral evil" and are thus by nature "objectively disordered." A whole class of human beings naturally more disposed to evil than others? Don't ask the obvious questions. Just accept the answers. And if the result is enormous human suffering, as women and gays labor under discrimination, condescension and prejudice? Suffering brings them closer to Christ."

There are a great many people who are "objectively disordered". Some people are more susceptible to drug abuse (alcohol or worse), pedophilia, violence and so on. I AM NOT PUTTING HOMOSEXUALS ON THE SAME MORAL PLANE AS ANY OF THE AFOREMENTIONED GROUPS. I am merely pointing out that homosexuals are not the only ones, in the eyes of the Church, to be objectively disordered. Each of these groups must resist and overcome their impulses to refrain from sin. Bottom line Andrew: The Bible says homosexual activity is sinful and that simply isn't going to change. The Church is bound by The Book (whether you like it's message or not). I don't understand why Andrew remains Catholic? Why not leave for more accomodating environs?


continuing on....

"Benedict once wrote of the 18th century church, roiled by the Enlightenment, that it "was a church reduced in size and diminished in social prestige, yet become fruitful from a new interior power, a power that released new formative forces for the individual and for society." That is his vision. If the church withers to a mere shadow of its former self, then that is not failure. It is success. And even in a short papacy, Benedict might just manage it."

Again, the point was not that the Church was better because it was small or less powerful, but rather, that it remained true to the message given by God and not only survived, but flourished.

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