Thoughts on the Latest Papal Media Tempest

If you haven't already heard, there's some media coverage on the Pope allegedly saying in a private phone call that a woman married to a divorced man could receive the Eucharist. Given the hearsay nature of who reported things, I'm operating under the assumption that as a faithful son of the Church, whatever the Pope said, it didn't involve violations of Church teaching... Hell, if the Pope wanted to make sure that the woman received the Eucharist, I'm sure that he would have contacted the Pastor.

One thing I see from the Catholic blogging is a number of people claiming that the Pope needs to be more careful in what he says.

Personally, I think everyone should remember that every person is obligated to find out what was meant by a speaker before judging him or her. The media fails to do their research, whether through negligence or choice. We should be aware of this failure. Every time the Pope made headlines from something he said, the final result was the discovery that the media got it wrong.

When the media presents the Pope as radically changing Church teaching, we need to recognize their deficiency and their consistency in getting it wrong.

Otherwise, we're guilty of rash judgment.

Thoughts on the Latest Papal Media Tempest

If you haven't already heard, there's some media coverage on the Pope allegedly saying in a private phone call that a woman married to a divorced man could receive the Eucharist. Given the hearsay nature of who reported things, I'm operating under the assumption that as a faithful son of the Church, whatever the Pope said, it didn't involve violations of Church teaching... Hell, if the Pope wanted to make sure that the woman received the Eucharist, I'm sure that he would have contacted the Pastor.

One thing I see from the Catholic blogging is a number of people claiming that the Pope needs to be more careful in what he says.

Personally, I think everyone should remember that every person is obligated to find out what was meant by a speaker before judging him or her. The media fails to do their research, whether through negligence or choice. We should be aware of this failure. Every time the Pope made headlines from something he said, the final result was the discovery that the media got it wrong.

When the media presents the Pope as radically changing Church teaching, we need to recognize their deficiency and their consistency in getting it wrong.

Otherwise, we're guilty of rash judgment.

Loving Christ Requires Change

The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted. Then Jesus approached and said to them, “It's ok to go on living as you did before. Just be nice to people and don't make judgments on whether behavior is right or wrong." Then he led them [out] as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are being victimized by your intolerance."

As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven. They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy. Matthew went back to collecting taxes. Peter and Andrew went back to fishing. The woman caught in adultery went back to her lover, telling the Pharisees not to push their morality on her. The Samaritan woman moved back in with the guy she was living with, working on making him husband number six. It was all okay because all that Jesus wanted was for us to be nice to each other and not judge.

--The Gospel according to... absolutely NOBODY.

The above passage is of course a perversion of Matthew 28, John 20 and Luke 24. It runs entirely against what Jesus actually said. But this is the Jesus the modern world seems to think exists. The world takes two passages from the Bible: Matthew 7:1-5 ("Judge not") and 1 John 4:8 ("God is love") and uses them to justify their own behavior, rejecting the concept that they are sinners who need to respond to God's love and gift of grace.

Thus, when the Church speaks about the moral obligations that come from God's love, like John 14:15 ("If you love me, you will keep my commandments"), the response is to condemn the Church for being judgmental, homophobic, anti-woman... basically to accuse the Church of being in opposition to Christ.

That's a mindset that puts souls at risk of eternal damnation. Jesus didn't come to tell people "be nice to each other." He came to save us from our sins.

But that action tells us a couple of things:
■ There are actions we do that are sins.
■ We are to respond to this by amending our lives, turning from evil and seeking to live as God commands (both with the seeking and depending on His grace).

Indeed, the modern world makes a mockery of His actions when they reduce His teaching to the Wiccan  'An it harm none, do what ye will.' It presumes other people are the problem because WE don't harm anybody (at least not anyone that matters), but THEY are trying to keep us from doing what we want.

But Jesus wasn't a "nice guy." He spoke very clearly about sin and Hell and the need to repent. Salvation comes to the penitent who knows his sin and is sorry for it. Not to the arrogant who believe they have nothing to be sorry for (Luke 18:9-14).

The arrogant aren't only the Pharisees. They can be found wherever the person refuses to consider his or her own behavior as being in conflict with God.

Think about it...

Loving Christ Requires Change

The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted. Then Jesus approached and said to them, “It's ok to go on living as you did before. Just be nice to people and don't make judgments on whether behavior is right or wrong." Then he led them [out] as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are being victimized by your intolerance."

As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven. They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy. Matthew went back to collecting taxes. Peter and Andrew went back to fishing. The woman caught in adultery went back to her lover, telling the Pharisees not to push their morality on her. The Samaritan woman moved back in with the guy she was living with, working on making him husband number six. It was all okay because all that Jesus wanted was for us to be nice to each other and not judge.

--The Gospel according to... absolutely NOBODY.

The above passage is of course a perversion of Matthew 28, John 20 and Luke 24. It runs entirely against what Jesus actually said. But this is the Jesus the modern world seems to think exists. The world takes two passages from the Bible: Matthew 7:1-5 ("Judge not") and 1 John 4:8 ("God is love") and uses them to justify their own behavior, rejecting the concept that they are sinners who need to respond to God's love and gift of grace.

Thus, when the Church speaks about the moral obligations that come from God's love, like John 14:15 ("If you love me, you will keep my commandments"), the response is to condemn the Church for being judgmental, homophobic, anti-woman... basically to accuse the Church of being in opposition to Christ.

That's a mindset that puts souls at risk of eternal damnation. Jesus didn't come to tell people "be nice to each other." He came to save us from our sins.

But that action tells us a couple of things:
■ There are actions we do that are sins.
■ We are to respond to this by amending our lives, turning from evil and seeking to live as God commands (both with the seeking and depending on His grace).

Indeed, the modern world makes a mockery of His actions when they reduce His teaching to the Wiccan  'An it harm none, do what ye will.' It presumes other people are the problem because WE don't harm anybody (at least not anyone that matters), but THEY are trying to keep us from doing what we want.

But Jesus wasn't a "nice guy." He spoke very clearly about sin and Hell and the need to repent. Salvation comes to the penitent who knows his sin and is sorry for it. Not to the arrogant who believe they have nothing to be sorry for (Luke 18:9-14).

The arrogant aren't only the Pharisees. They can be found wherever the person refuses to consider his or her own behavior as being in conflict with God.

Think about it...

Asking the Wrong Question: A Reflection

The Wrong Question

I came across a headline which asked if Christians were out of step with the mainstream. I found that question to be very saddening. It indicates that for a certain portion of the population and the elites think that going along with the preferred position is more important than determining the truth of a position... because the two are not the same thing.

As I have cited many times in the past in my blog, Aristotle once defined truth as saying of what is, that it is and saying of what is not, that it is not. In other words, we need to explore the nature of a thing before accepting the mainstream view of it.

Why? Because the mainstream of a country can go very far astray in what it favors. The extreme example, of course, is the example of Nazi Germany. The Nazi Party came to power legally and achieved things that were popular -- righting perceived wrongs that came from the Treaty of Versailles. While the party did some things that made people uncomfortable, these tended to be dismissed as being less important than the perceived good. The opponents of the regime tended to be dismissed or attacked.

The point here is not to equate America with Nazi Germany (so spare me the flames). The point is to show that what the mainstream accepts is not necessarily good. Whether it is the acceptance of National Socialism or whether it is the acceptance of modern sexual morality in the West, the acceptance of things by the mainstream of a society is NOT an indication that the thing is good.

The Right Questions

So what are we to do about this? We have to start by asking the right questions. We don't start by asking whether Christians are outside of the mainstream. We start by asking whether the assumptions held by the mainstream are true. Truth must be the criterion for accepting or rejecting values.

Unfortunately, this is precisely what people fail to consider. When the cultural elites assert that those who champion the traditional understanding of marriage are "homophobic," they are making an assertion that needs to be proven and not assumed to be true. Very few Christians who understand the obligations of their faith properly actually hate the people who live in opposition to what God commands.  But instead of investigating what they believe, it's easier to attribute a motivation that makes the opponent look bad.

What Reason Tells Us

The result is a slew of logical fallacies which don't prove the point. It provides spurious reasoning to claim that boils down to, "anyone who doesn't agree with me is a bigot."

I find it ironic that the definition of bigot, "a person who is prejudiced in their views and intolerant of the opinions of others," fits the champions of tolerance much better than it fits the people who believe some behaviors are wrong.

As GK Chesterton pointed out, "It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong." In other words, the bigotry doesn't exist in believing right and wrong. The bigotry comes from refusing to question whether you properly understand what you oppose.

The Dilemma

Now, if one believes in the existence of objective good and evil, it is not bigotry to refuse to accept a view deemed evil as valid -- provided that you understand the nature of the issue you reject. Nor are you hypocritical to say that a sin is wrong while still loving the person who sins.

The same cannot be said for the one who takes the position that there is no objective good and evil.  If you insist others must tolerate views they disagree with, then you must also tolerate views you disagree with. If you refuse to accept the views of those you disagree with, you are guilty of what you accuse your opponents of being: bigoted (refusing to accept different views) and hypocritical (denying there are moral absolutes while holding moral absolutes). But if you actually follow what you claim to champion, you have to tolerate people who support views you believe to be wrong. If the persecutors of Brendan Eich were truly tolerant, they would have left him to his own views and not sought to oust him.

But, on the other hand, if one sees the acceptance of abortion or homosexual acts as objectively good and believes others are morally obligated to accept this, then he or she is under the same onus of proof that he or she demands from opponents. After all, if opposing abortion is "imposing values," then so is promoting it!

Conclusion

Asking if someone as being "outside the mainstream" ultimately ignores the more pertinent question: Is it good to be part of the mainstream? History tells us that oftentimes it is not.

Asking the Wrong Question: A Reflection

The Wrong Question

I came across a headline which asked if Christians were out of step with the mainstream. I found that question to be very saddening. It indicates that for a certain portion of the population and the elites think that going along with the preferred position is more important than determining the truth of a position... because the two are not the same thing.

As I have cited many times in the past in my blog, Aristotle once defined truth as saying of what is, that it is and saying of what is not, that it is not. In other words, we need to explore the nature of a thing before accepting the mainstream view of it.

Why? Because the mainstream of a country can go very far astray in what it favors. The extreme example, of course, is the example of Nazi Germany. The Nazi Party came to power legally and achieved things that were popular -- righting perceived wrongs that came from the Treaty of Versailles. While the party did some things that made people uncomfortable, these tended to be dismissed as being less important than the perceived good. The opponents of the regime tended to be dismissed or attacked.

The point here is not to equate America with Nazi Germany (so spare me the flames). The point is to show that what the mainstream accepts is not necessarily good. Whether it is the acceptance of National Socialism or whether it is the acceptance of modern sexual morality in the West, the acceptance of things by the mainstream of a society is NOT an indication that the thing is good.

The Right Questions

So what are we to do about this? We have to start by asking the right questions. We don't start by asking whether Christians are outside of the mainstream. We start by asking whether the assumptions held by the mainstream are true. Truth must be the criterion for accepting or rejecting values.

Unfortunately, this is precisely what people fail to consider. When the cultural elites assert that those who champion the traditional understanding of marriage are "homophobic," they are making an assertion that needs to be proven and not assumed to be true. Very few Christians who understand the obligations of their faith properly actually hate the people who live in opposition to what God commands.  But instead of investigating what they believe, it's easier to attribute a motivation that makes the opponent look bad.

What Reason Tells Us

The result is a slew of logical fallacies which don't prove the point. It provides spurious reasoning to claim that boils down to, "anyone who doesn't agree with me is a bigot."

I find it ironic that the definition of bigot, "a person who is prejudiced in their views and intolerant of the opinions of others," fits the champions of tolerance much better than it fits the people who believe some behaviors are wrong.

As GK Chesterton pointed out, "It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong." In other words, the bigotry doesn't exist in believing right and wrong. The bigotry comes from refusing to question whether you properly understand what you oppose.

The Dilemma

Now, if one believes in the existence of objective good and evil, it is not bigotry to refuse to accept a view deemed evil as valid -- provided that you understand the nature of the issue you reject. Nor are you hypocritical to say that a sin is wrong while still loving the person who sins.

The same cannot be said for the one who takes the position that there is no objective good and evil.  If you insist others must tolerate views they disagree with, then you must also tolerate views you disagree with. If you refuse to accept the views of those you disagree with, you are guilty of what you accuse your opponents of being: bigoted (refusing to accept different views) and hypocritical (denying there are moral absolutes while holding moral absolutes). But if you actually follow what you claim to champion, you have to tolerate people who support views you believe to be wrong. If the persecutors of Brendan Eich were truly tolerant, they would have left him to his own views and not sought to oust him.

But, on the other hand, if one sees the acceptance of abortion or homosexual acts as objectively good and believes others are morally obligated to accept this, then he or she is under the same onus of proof that he or she demands from opponents. After all, if opposing abortion is "imposing values," then so is promoting it!

Conclusion

Asking if someone as being "outside the mainstream" ultimately ignores the more pertinent question: Is it good to be part of the mainstream? History tells us that oftentimes it is not.

Think About It...

There's a position going around that says that freedom of speech only protects you from being arrested by the government, but doesn't protect you from being forced out of your place of employment. Basically, a position of justifying the ostracism against people holding positions which are unpopular among the cultural elites.

As it currently stands, this view is used to justify the harassment of anyone who holds the position that marriage is, by nature, to be between one man and one woman with the openness to the possibility of children.

Now, I have written before that whether or not a person's public actions justify termination of employment depends entirely on the nature of the employer. To summarize, I said that when a place of employment is explicitly established as holding that certain public behaviors running against the beliefs of the company, the violation of said behavior can justify the termination of employment. But, when the controversial behavior does not run against the established values explicitly, termination is not justified.

For example, if a person thinks Catholicism is wrong and publicly denounces it, as much as I would find such a person offensive, I would not think such a position justifies him or her being fired from a job as a pizza delivery person.  However, if that person taught at a Catholic School, such a public position does justify termination because it would explicitly run afoul of the nature of the employer.

Likewise, when Brendan Eich was forced out of his position at Mozilla, his support for traditional marriage in no way violated the policy of the company, because it had nothing to do with the essence of what Mozilla is.

However, we now have a situation where a mob can agitate to get a person holding an unpopular view ostracized and believe such a position is justified because of the unproven position that thinking a thing is wrong means the person holding it must be a bigot.

Now the danger is: if those opposed to these values can legitimately force the ostracism of the person with unpopular views, then when political fortunes change, those who wind up on top will have the same right to ostracize those who are now on the bottom.

In other words, perhaps in 2020, those people who worked against the Defense of Marriage Act might suddenly find their employer pressuring them to resign... and they will be able to make no objection without sounding hypocritical.

The key thing to remember is this: If you are unwilling to let the tactics you use against your enemies be used by your enemies against you, that is a good sign that you are behaving hypocritically and your tactics are unjust.

Think about it...