Sunday, May 17, 2009

Teleprompter Jesus to speak at Notre Dame, Bishop upset (link here)

I couldn’t agree with the bishop more.
If a religious sect represents itself as being the one true organ for the dissemination of God’s truth, then adherents to that faith should reasonably be expected to adhere to those tenets of God’s Word. The public proclamation of following that faith, and the public attendance of services would be an affirmation, if any was needed, of that expectation.
If one is to align oneself with a particular religious sect, that in this case has been around since, so to speak, day 1, then one should be somewhat pliant and seek to conform oneself to the tenets of that sect, one would suppose.
If it is agreed that abortion is the taking of life from a human, no matter the stage or progression of that life in or out of the womb, it can also be agreed that that is a violation of the Commandments.
If the hierarchy has spoken of its disdain of government support or sanction of a policy such as abortion, and that message has been faithfully broadcast from the pulpit to the congregations in an election year, then a thinking person should be cognizant of the ramifications of publicly speaking at cross purposes to the message.
If one were to regardless speak or write in a public forum of one’s support, whether in a passive or direct manner, of those who are in favor of abortion, then that person is rejecting not just God’s word, but would seem to be putting themselves at odds with the law as well. The basic rights and guarantees put forth by the founders of our country as being God given- that of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness- would certainly be in jeopardy for the life being terminated. All rights, responsibilities, opportunities, etc. flow from that one.
When we are urged to retain “perspective” in the matter of the President of the United States addressing Notre Dame, does Ms. Kerian think the “singular lens” of abortion is not a sufficiently weighty criteria to judge the appropriateness of the offer by? If the President does not judge human life still in the womb to be worth protecting, what assurance are the rest of us to take that our lives may not also someday be judged not worth consideration?
Speaking to the origin of this controversy, the invitation by the head of Notre Dame to the president to speak, it also would seem to send very conflicting messages to those in and outside of the Catholic faith as far as what real order exists and what degree of thought is given to these kinds of actions. If down through the years the Catholic church’s concern for the downtrodden and afflicted in society has caused the formation of allegiances with certain political philosophies, then perhaps it is time to re-examine those ties.
In this current climate of moral decay, entire generations now have been raised without many of the built-in restraints of only a few years ago. Not many years back even those raised completely away from any church were instilled with some concepts of right and wrong (natural law as the Bible calls it) just by virtue of being exposed to society at large, most of who were God-fearing and law-abiding. The corrosive effects of the sexual revolution, and the general relaxation of society’s taboos have in many parts of our country removed even this little restraint. Attempts by well-meaning politicians on both sides of the aisle since then have seemed to only make things worse, laws and the application of money never being able to take the place of what was once common sense. If church congregants and by extension, churches, have bought into many of these social engineering schemes- and many have- they must now work to extricate themselves.