What to Expect from the Reasonable MSM Pundits in 2006

Hat tip to Wired Catholic for this story.

"Where is the social justice?" asks The Herald.

Apparently not in the Catholic Church of Scotland, according to the courageous editor's of The Herald. No, it's much safer to parse social justice into the ever-convenient, Nanny-State policies so popular with Reasonable European elites. This way, the paper can condemn the Church's steadfast defense of marriage and family as a staple of authentic social justice. After all, this witness to Christ's truth in society, which is the definition of true social justice, opposes the free pursuit of the One Thing that Matters (2.0). Can't allow anything so Foolish to enter the public forum after all.

What's got the Herald in such a tantrum? A Scottish Cardinal gave a homily and apparently insisted on articulating the Catholic Church's teaching on it:

As the human race enters Anno Domini 2006, many pressing humanitarian and environmental issues jostle for our attention. Scotland's most senior Roman Catholic, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, could have chosen any one of them for his New Year's Day homily at St Mary's Cathedral. Instead, he chose to make an outspoken attack on ministers at Westminster and Holyrood over the introduction of civil partnerships and changes to the divorce laws. This follows a call last week from Pope Benedict XVI to the British government to acknowledge "the indispensable role of stable marriage and family life" for the good of society. The cardinal told his congregation in Edinburgh: "When our lawmakers condone and endorse trends in society which are ultimately ruinous of family life, we are entitled to question their motivation and condemn their behaviour." This outburst was at best intemperate and at worst unchristian.

Horror of horrors! A Cardinal of the Catholic Church actually calls laws that legalize "gay marriage" a threat to family life. And for that, he's called, "at worse unchristian." Yes, leave it to those champions of Christianity at the Reasonable Herald to know better than a Prince of the Church what Christianity is really all about!

Let's all follow the good instruction of our Reasonable betters! Raise the Stake, pile the Driftwood, make ready the kerosine; He must burn for his blasphemy!

What's next? Criticizing a man for observing that anyone that stands in the rain gets wet?

The Herald cuts right to the chase:

Civil partnerships are not religious ceremonies. Nobody is forcing the church to endorse them or recognise them.

Translation? Stay in your box, you religious zealot! Keep your doctrine away from the empirically-based Public Square!

What exactly does the cardinal object to? Does he object to a man who has shared his life with another man for several decades being treated as his next of kin and allowed to visit him when he is dying in hospital? Does he object to the survivor of a lesbian couple not being booted out of her home as a result of booted out of her home as a result of inheritance tax when her partner dies?

Now this is some nice Orwellian diversion. Let's bypass the ontological and moral issues of "Gay marriage" and present the plight of poor blokes that won't be admitted into hospitals or secure their homes. This way, everyone knows how moral "Gay Marriage" is (since it's a contract between consenting adults that doesn't hurt anyone) and how mean the Cardinal is for opposing it (since he's trying to impose his religious convictions on others.) Breath-taking. In only three paragraphs, the editors of the Herald have re-defined social justice, Christianity, the Church's proper participation in society, and the Greatness of "gay marriage" for society! Not a bad day's agitprop!

Of course, Fool that I am, I respect what the Church teaches regarding marriage, the family and homosexual activity. Pope John Paul the Great's APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION FAMILIARIS CONSORTIO presents the truth about how the Church sees marriage, and why marriage's role in society remains crucial:

11. God created man in His own image and likeness(20): calling him to existence through love, He called him at the same time for love.

God is love(21) and in Himself He lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in His own image and continually keeping it in being, God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion.(22) Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being.

As an incarnate spirit, that is a soul which expresses itself in a body and a body informed by an immortal spirit, man is called to love in his unified totality. Love includes the human body, and the body is made a sharer in spiritual love.

Christian revelation recognizes two specific ways of realizing the vocation of the human person in its entirety, to love: marriage and virginity or celibacy. Either one is, in its own proper form, an actuation of the most profound truth of man, of his being "created in the image of God."

Consequently, sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves to one another through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses, is by no means something purely biological, but concerns the innermost being of the human person as such. It is realized in a truly human way only if it is an integral part of the love by which a man and a woman commit themselves totally to one another until death. The total physical self-giving would be a lie if it were not the sign and fruit of a total personal self-giving, in which the whole person, including the temporal dimension, is present: if the person were to withhold something or reserve the possibility of deciding otherwise in the future, by this very fact he or she would not be giving totally.

This totality which is required by conjugal love also corresponds to the demands of responsible fertility. This fertility is directed to the generation of a human being, and so by its nature it surpasses the purely biological order and involves a whole series of personal values. For the harmonious growth of these values a persevering and unified contribution by both parents is necessary.

The only "place" in which this self-giving in its whole truth is made possible is marriage, the covenant of conjugal love freely and consciously chosen, whereby man and woman accept the intimate community of life and love willed by God Himself(23) which only in this light manifests its true meaning. The institution of marriage is not an undue interference by society or authority, nor the extrinsic imposition of a form. Rather it is an interior requirement of the covenant of conjugal love which is publicly affirmed as unique and exclusive, in order to live in complete fidelity to the plan of God, the Creator. A person's freedom, far from being restricted by this fidelity, is secured against every form of subjectivism or relativism and is made a sharer in creative Wisdom.

(snip)

42. "Since the Creator of all things has established the conjugal partnership as the beginning and basis of human society," the family is "the first and vital cell of society."(105)

The family has vital and organic links with society, since it is its foundation and nourishes it continually through its role of service to life: it is from the family that citizens come to birth and it is within the family that they find the first school of the social virtues that are the animating principle of the existence and development of society itself.

Thus, far from being closed in on itself, the family is by nature and vocation open to other families and to society, and undertakes its social role.

Family Life as an Experience of Communion and Sharing

43. The very experience of communion and sharing that should characterize the family's daily life represents its first and fundamental contribution to society.

The relationships between the members of the family community are inspired and guided by the law of "free giving." By respecting and fostering personal dignity in each and every one as the only basis for value, this free giving takes the form of heartfelt acceptance, encounter and dialogue, disinterested availability, generous service and deep solidarity.

Thus the fostering of authentic and mature communion between persons within the family is the first and irreplaceable school of social life, and example and stimulus for the broader community relationships marked by respect, justice, dialogue and love.

The family is thus, as the Synod Fathers recalled, the place of origin and the most effective means for humanizing and personalizing society: it makes an original contribution in depth to building up the world, by making possible a life that is properly speaking human, in particular by guarding and transmitting virtues and "values." As the Second Vatican Council states, in the family "the various generations come together and help one another to grow wiser and to harmonize personal rights with the other requirements of social living."(106)

Consequently, faced with a society that is running the risk of becoming more and more depersonalized and standardized and therefore inhuman and dehumanizing, with the negative results of many forms of escapism-such as alcoholism, drugs and even terrorism-the family possesses and continues still to release formidable energies capable of taking man out of his anonymity, keeping him conscious of his personal dignity, enriching him with deep humanity and actively placing him, in his uniqueness and unrepeatability, within the fabric of society.

The Social and Political Role

44. The social role of the family certainly cannot stop short at procreation and education, even if this constitutes its primary and irreplaceable form of expression.

Families therefore, either singly or in association, can and should devote themselves to manifold social service activities, especially in favor of the poor, or at any rate for the benefit of all people and situations that cannot be reached by the public authorities' welfare organization.

The social contribution of the family has an original character of its own, one that should be given greater recognition and more decisive encouragement, especially as the children grow up, and actually involving all its members as much as possible.(107)

In particular, note must be taken of the ever greater importance in our society of hospitality in all its forms, from opening the door of one's home and still more of one's heart to the pleas of one's brothers and sisters, to concrete efforts to ensure that every family has its own home, as the natural environment that preserves it and makes it grow. In a special way the Christian family is called upon to listen to the Apostle's recommendation: "Practice hospitality,"(108) and therefore, imitating Christ's example and sharing in His love, to welcome the brother or sister in need: "Whoever gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward."(109)

The social role of families is called upon to find expression also in the form of political intervention: families should be the first to take steps to see that the laws and institutions of the State not only do not offend but support and positively defend the rights and duties of the family. Along these lines, families should grow in awareness of being "protagonists" of what is known as "family politics" and assume responsibility for transforming society; otherwise families will be the first victims of the evils that they have done no more than note with indifference. The Second Vatican Council's appeal to go beyond an individualistic ethic therefore also holds good for the family as such."(110) As for homosexual activity and "gay marriage," The Church's teaching is clear. Pope John the Great reiterates this teaching in his January 2005 address to the Vatican Diplomatic Missions: The challenge to life has also emerged with regard to the very sanctuary of life: the family. Today the family is often threatened by social and cultural pressures which tend to undermine its stability; but in some countries the family is also threatened by legislation which B at times directly B challenge its natural structure, which is and must necessarily be that of a union between a man and a woman founded on marriage. The family, as a fruitful source of life and a fundamental and irreplaceable condition for the happiness of the individual spouses, for the raising of children and for the well-being of society, and indeed for the material prosperity of the nation, must never be undermined by laws based on a narrow and unnatural vision of man. There needs to prevail a just, pure and elevated understanding of human love, which finds in the family its primordial and exemplary expression.

But wait! There's more!

1601 "The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament."84

I. MARRIAGE IN GOD'S PLAN

1602 Sacred Scripture begins with the creation of man and woman in the image and likeness of God and concludes with a vision of "the wedding-feast of the Lamb."85 Scripture speaks throughout of marriage and its "mystery," its institution and the meaning God has given it, its origin and its end, its various realizations throughout the history of salvation, the difficulties arising from sin and its renewal "in the Lord" in the New Covenant of Christ and the Church.86

Marriage in the order of creation

1603 "The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws. . . . God himself is the author of marriage."87 The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes. These differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics. Although the dignity of this institution is not transparent everywhere with the same clarity,88 some sense of the greatness of the matrimonial union exists in all cultures. "The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life."89

1604 God who created man out of love also calls him to love the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being. For man is created in the image and likeness of God who is himself love.90 Since God created him man and woman, their mutual love becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man. It is good, very good, in the Creator's eyes. And this love which God blesses is intended to be fruitful and to be realized in the common work of watching over creation: "And God blessed them, and God said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.'"91

1605 Holy Scripture affirms that man and woman were created for one another: "It is not good that the man should be alone."92 The woman, "flesh of his flesh," his equal, his nearest in all things, is given to him by God as a "helpmate"; she thus represents God from whom comes our help.93 "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh."94 The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been "in the beginning": "So they are no longer two, but one flesh."95

Notice what the Catechism doesn't say? Yes, I thought so. Here's what the Catholic Church teaches regarding homosexual activity:

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. 2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

The Catholic Church Foolishly equates homosexual activity with immoral behavior. "Gay marriage" equates this immoral behavior with the union of man and woman that manifests God's love for us all. Therefore, the Catholic Church refuses to sanctify this latest pursuit of the One Thing that Matters (2.0) This Foolishness is clearly unacceptable to the enlightened and Reasonable editors of the Herald. Since religion has no basis beyond any individual's perspective, it must be purged from the empirically rigorous Public Square. It is inconceivable that anyone who takes God seriously should have anything meaningful to propose to society. Therefore, let the little Fools blather in the walls of their own Churches.

Of course, the MSM elites know they can't come out and directly say any of this. They tack into the wind instead. They utter emotive and distortive diatribes like this one. They assume an authority they have no right or understanding to claim to justify their ridiculous claims. They refuse to grant the legitimacy of debating what they've already decided society must embrace.

Thus, they violate their own raison d'etre. They compromise their own integrity while posing as a champion for the oppressed. They'll continue to distort their position--and their opponents--with the most Orwellian turns-of-phrase they can muster. Expect this and more in 2006. The mouth-foaming continues, while the carpet of civility becomes saturated. And they'll still fall into the mess of their own making, mouths wide open as our Foolish laughter shatters their designs.

The Devotees of today's fashionable Nihilism can hurl themselves at the Baroque of Peter again and again. They'll merely crash against the Rock of Ages upon whom she rests. While the Dictator rules for the moment, the tyranny with which he rules has long been shattered. More and more Fools will awaken to the ridiculous pomposity of the Reasonable elite's ideology. Their laughter will liberate the world. Watch for it, more and more, this year, too.