Sweating Bullets
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
I’ve recently seen this quote about the Bourbons (I think) from Talleyrand (I think), “They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”
To quote the great American philosopher, Bart Simpson, “I’m insulted!”
Just how stupid do evil men think we are?
As ever, the cover-up has more dire consequences than the crime.
“Just how stupid do evil men think we are?“
It is Sin, that makes one stupid.
The digital equivalent of flop sweat has been pouring off the Jesuit reverend since this story broke. His posting can only be described as panicky: at a minimum, it shows awareness that plenty of his enabling/supportive clerical brethren do.
And so much for the hypothetical celibate gay priest he likes to brandish. It seems that like Novus Ordos in Latin, such are possible–but really, really difficult to find.
The digital equivalent of flop sweat has been pouring off the Jesuit reverend since this story broke.
Precisely Dale!
Three catholic groups: progressive, conservative and traditionalist..
Traditionalists remain solid, conservatives are having sympathy for- , and the progressives are anxious…
One may be confident that this man did not rise to a position of such influence without the support of many superiors who were well informed of his sexual deviancy. They should be outed and sent to a monastery, at a minimum. More likely, they will continue to infect the Church. Is there no person with actual authority that will hold these deviants to account? I suppose their deviancy was a result of their exposure to Mass in the Extraordinary Form.
To keep things even handed, I think the Pillar should next go after pharmacy records to see how many Catholic school teachers and employees (all of whom the church labels as “ministers” for purposes of civil law) are buying birth control pills. If we can assume that because a priest has a particular app on his phone he is using it for tawdry purposes, then surely we can assume anyone buying birth control pills is violating the church’s teachings on contraception.
If we can assume that because a priest has a particular app on his phone he is using it for tawdry purposes
For what non-tawdry purpose would you be on Grindr?
One may be confident that this man did not rise to a position of such influence without the support of many superiors who were well informed of his sexual deviancy.
Why must one be ‘confident’ of that?
“To keep things even handed”
Lay Catholic teachers have been fired for openly defying the teachings of the Church. Of course lay Catholic teachers usually have taken no vows to obey the teachings of the Church, are usually vastly underpaid in comparison to their secular peers, and have no power in the Church in comparison to a Monsignor running the USCCB. Otherwise John your analogy is perfect.
There might be catholic school parents, underpaid teachers and employees who don’t use contraception but in our travels as NFP promoters we’ve never met them.
We have met catholic school parents, underpaid teachers and employees that are extremely hostile to NFP.
On the face of it, John’s recommendation looks the epitome of fairness: treat Catholic school teachers, administrators and other religious employees among the laity exactly as one would treat a cleric. If a cleric having engaged in homosexual activities should be exposed, then so should a lay person having used artificial contraceptive measures. But there is a difference that John ignores (as do all liberals who hypocritically cry equality for the powerless against the powerful): Ezekiel 34:1-10 and Jeremiah 23:1-4 (the OT reading for Novus Ordo Mass this last Sunday) make the powerful clerics MORE responsible than the powerless laity. Yet liberals like John in the name of a false equality would damn the powerless laity while excusing the sins of the powerful clerics when those clerics are LIBERAL PROGRESSIVE FEMINIST HOMO-EROTIC SEX PERVERTS. Remember the ultimate goal of John’s equality: to make sodomite and lesbian perversion EQUAL in sanctity to the heterosexual relationship of husband and wife in Holy Matrimony. To people like him, a homo-erotic priest is cruising gay bars is better than a drunken submarine sailor at a brothel because the priest is acting to “welcome” the gay whose perverted behavior is a sin crying out to God Almighty for repudiation. I am NOT excusing the drunken submarine sailor at a brothel (been there, done that, confessed it, not doing it now or any more). Rather, liberals like John are (for all their cries of equality) ultimately elitists who condemn the powerless and extoll the powerful. It has always been their way.
First: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”
Second: There are degrees here, certainly abortion is worse than sodomy, sodomy is worse than adultery, adultery is worse than fornication, fornication is worse then contraception.
The problem is, unless married couples try to not use contraception and observe periodic continence, there’s no practical way of really fighting any of it. And there will always be a slow creep backwards to worse sin.
Liberals use that phrase – “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” – to say that it is impermissible for anyone to point out the sin which homosexual behavior is, or for that matter the sin of adultery, fornication (now called co-habitation), contraception (called family planning), etc.
Just because one has sinned (“for all have come short of the glory of God”) does NOT mean that one therefore must excuse or ignore the sinful behavior in either one’s self or in another. In fact, that is NOT what St. Paul did in 1st Corinthians 6:9-10:
9 Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators [cohabitators – been there, done that, repented], nor idolaters [we’ve all done that!], nor adulterers, 10 Nor the effeminate [μαλακοὶ in Greek meaning “male receivers of penetration from males”], nor liers with mankind [ἀρσενοκοῖται in Greek meaning “male penetrators of men”] , nor thieves, nor covetous [also been there, done that, and sometimes have to repeatedly go to Confession], nor drunkards [hey, that was me at one time!], nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God.
This idea that we mustn’t point out what sin really is because we have sinned and are imperfect is quite frankly bubulum stercus. The fact is that we should NEVER want others repeating the same stupid dumb idiot mistakes that we have made, because the consequences become unlivable, and I speak from experience (especially with respect to St. Paul’s citation of the μέθυσοι – you all can look that up). Ignoring sin is like greasing the skids to hell. That doesn’t mean we judge the state of a person’ soul – see Matthew 7:1-5. But is does mean we should take the log out of our own eyes so that we can see clearly enough to remove the speck of dust in our neighbor’s eye (Matthew 7:6).
And by the way, Jesus DID cats the first stone when He said to the woman caught in adultery in John 8:1-11, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.”
No homosexual behavior. No lesbian behavior. No adultery. No fornication. No contraception. Etc.
One last thing –> a priest doing LGBTQ things and covering up (instead of getting psychological help) while preaching from the pulpit and presiding over the Eucharist at the altar is worse – YES, WORSE – than the husband and wife using contraception in the privacy of their homes. BOTH are forbidden, but as David WS points out, their or degrees or graduations of what’s bad.
PS, sorry for the typoes. One “is” should be “it” and “cats” shoudl be “cast.” I wish these entries were editable. 🙁
“If we can assume that because a priest has a particular app on his phone he is using it for tawdry purposes”.
It was proven he used it. To engage in sexual activity with other men. Sick.
That priest then went to Mass held up the Blessed Eucharist and have it to the congregation. That is vile and low. It makes ones stomach turn.
You obviously have no respect for our Lord if you can sit there and make excuses for this pathetic excuse of a man.
The expression is ”the jig is up”, as in the dance.
Quite right. The gig, in regard to Father Martin’s career as a celibate mouthpiece for the Lavender Mafia, is up was an intentional variant by me.
Great summary, LQC. The out-of-context and generally ignorant slinging of Scripture quotations by those who use them to argue against basic moral laws is, to me, itself a grave matter. It’s even worse if the slinger knows he or she is misinterpreting and/or misapplying the Word. Enemies of the truth always try to twist it to serve their own purposes. James Martin EssJay seems to me to be among the worst offenders in this respect. May he repent and undergo conversion of heart before it is too late. Eternity is a very long time.
Calls to mind Chesterton (what doesn’t?):
“The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice.” – Illustrated London News, June 11, 1910
also: “Truth is sacred; and if you tell the truth too often nobody will believe it.” – Illustrated London News, Feb. 24, 1906
https://www.chesterton.org/quotations-of-g-k-chesterton/
Wrong, John, regarding.” then surely we can assume anyone buying birth control pills is violating the church’s teachings on contraception.” Wrong assumption – birth control pills can be prescribed by an OB/Gyn to regulate a woman’s irregular menstrual cycle and to treat endometriosis. The latter which if left untreated can overgrow female reproductive organs and in worst case strangle the bowel. The remedy then is not chemical menopause via the “pill” but surgical menopause and worst case resection of the colon.
To me the outstanding sin is that he continued to present himself as an arbiter. I don’t think mr and mrs John Doe do that. Msgr contributed to the continuing deceit and dissimulation and then to the cover up of said
CAM-
Well pointed out.
‘The Pill’ is also used for hormone control, and I have known women who had to have additional progestin and estrogen in order to carry to term. I think the blog was called “care and feeding of geeks,” the lady was talking in real-time about how much she had to fight, and they nearly lost their second son because some doctor decided that couldn’t be right and canceled her prescription.
Both of these situations are pointed out every time that someone calls in to Catholic Radio and asks if it’s an inherent evil to be prescribed a thing that is used for chemical birth control when you are not using it to break the reproductive system, but to fix a broken system.
For a similar example, I have a skin condition, and the lotion for it causes misarrange in some women, including myself. There are various herbs and extracts– including peppermint!– that in some women trigger the female cycle, regardless of where they are supposed to be. My cousin in law looks like she’s dealing with toxic waste when she has to mix up something with peppermint in it, while I can spill a jar over my hand and have no effect.
Humans are not standardized, and the female hormone system… well, if anybody’s curious, look at the simplified charts of female hormone interaction on Natural Family Planning websites. Add in various forms of stress and it’s even more complicated.