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When Adrienne did such a good job doing it yesterday:
If we neglect our duties to God, which is a sin by the way, eventually the curtain will begin to be drawn around our souls. Our “system” will be overwhelmed, our intellect dulled, and we will be unprepared for the battles we will surely face in the upcoming years. The powers of darkness are fierce, unrelenting, and working overtime.
Yup that’s about right.
Years ago I knew a local priest he was an ND Alum and fiercely proud of it, he was known for a tone of speech that just reeked of intellect. I always liked him. He had been particularly kind to me and my then fiancee in a tough spot involving our marriage. His reassurance made our lives easier and I’ve never forgotten it.
About 15 years ago I went to him for advice on a family matter that conflicted with Church teaching. His advice frankly surprised me but he was the priest so I took it. It turned out to be pretty poor advice and I’ve regretted it greatly over the last few years to the point where I felt I needed confession for taking it.
There are times when a Priest can be too empathetic. By looking at a situation from a worldly perspective rather than from the damage of sin a priest can do more harm than good. What must be remembered is that the job of the church is to interdict sin for the sake of the soul. Once one gets in the habit of excusing it then it becomes easier and easier. I would imagine it is a regular temptation that any priest or religious must face.
It reminded me of the UK TV show Cracker staring Robbie Coltrane. There was an episode where a woman due to guilt over an abortion combined with her husband’s frequenting prostitutes set her on a killing spree of hookers. When confronted by the priest she talked about how to tore her to get her abortion particularly since there WAS enough money to support another child if the husband wasn’t spending it on women. The priest interjected that he had been supportive of the decision to abort and the character of the woman said something that stuck with me and still does:
“I didn’t need you to be supportive, I needed you to tell me NO!”
A lot of times in life we know what the right thing is but it is very hard to do it. We don’t want to face the music or the sin in question is one of our favorites, or it involves something we really want badly. The sacrament of confession allows us both the Sacramental support of Christ in resisting sin but gives us the human reinforcement of the priest to keep us in the right direction. If one goes regularly that reinforcement is even stronger.
Saying no to oneself is one of the most difficult tasks a person has. When the church helps one do this it is a source of sanctifying grace. When it chooses to go with the flow for the sake of ease it not only harms the person in question it harms the entire body of Christ.
This is why this type of thing is so bad. Temptation is always around us, it is the Church’s job to help us resist rather than take the easy way out (giving in). As Christians we owe it not only to ourselves but to others to help resist things we know are wrong no matter how much they might feel right at the time. At times it can be a rough duty, but as we must carry it.
That is the difference in a nutshell between the narrow path and the wide one.
Choose wisely!
Update: Miss Attila Gets it.
Looking at this story about Anne Hathaway leaving the church I simply shake my head realizing how lucky we are she didn’t head for holy orders, as she is very unclear on the nature of sin. So lets review a little:
First lets remind her of what the church actually says about homosexuality…
Chastity and homosexuality
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,140 tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”141 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.
As is clear, the church differentiates between homosexuality and homosexual acts. What the church doesn’t accept is the sin, not the orientation.
And that is no different than the church not accepting breaking one’s wedding vows, or spreading calumny about another, or shoplifting, or not honoring father and mother or rejecting God, or drunkenness, or porn, or any of a bunch of other sins that the church has always talked against.
One mistake that people of religion often make is the “holier than thou” bit. There are people who never take a drink that burst out into anger at the drop of a hat. There are people who are absolutely faithful to their wives who dip into the till at work, there are people who are drug dealers, who wouldn’t think of missing mass, and there are people who would happily swindle their partner but wouldn’t ever think of gossiping about a neighbor.
The bottom line is we all have our own sins to deal with, that’s what confession is for. If people obsess about homosexuality but ignore their own sins it is their souls that are in danger.
One week at confession I mentioned to the priest that I was frustrated because I seemed to be repeating the same sins week after week. He had an interesting answer:
What do you want to be committing new sins?
Anne’s brother like everyone else has a particular sin that he is vulnerable to, by removing himself from the church and the sacrament of confession he instead of confronting his sin chooses to celebrate it.
Tell me Anne, if your brother liked to steal, if he enjoyed it, would you leave the church because the church refused to “accept” his thievery?
Your brother’s homosexuality is something he has to deal with, but the real dangerous sin that both he and you are dealing with is PRIDE. The departure from the church is a sign of narcissism, it’s the same mistake that Andrew Sullivan makes, instead of doing one’s best to fight one’s sin (and no matter what the sin is, it can seem to be a losing battle believe me I know) they choose to re-define what sin is and condemn the Church. And with the number of denominations out there you can always find one that will celebrate whatever particular sin you want to keep doing without guilt.
Thus does sin multiply. Christ was pretty explicit about this on two occasions:
He said to his disciples, “Things that cause sin will inevitably occur, but woe to the person through whom they occur. It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’ you should forgive him.” Luke 17:1-4
There is a warning to those who lead others to sin, but also a reminder to those that we MUST forgive sin when one asks. Both ARE explicitly said by Christ, If Anne ignores the first two verses and those who condemn her ignore the second two then both are in danger, but remember the words “if he repents” those words actually mean something.
And remember this applies to any type of sin. Those who try to use this only against homosexuality are deluding themselves as it was said in the Screwtape letters #12:
You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,
However there is an even more explicit message that Anne and her family might want to take note of:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man ‘against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s enemies will be those of his household.’ “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Matthew 10:34-39
Anne you may realize that there are some differences between the Catholic Bible and the one that the Episcopal church uses, but none of those differences are in the New Testament.
If you and yours decide to discard your cross rather than bear it you will be celebrated. You will be feted at the best parties. The media will love you, it will lead to prestige for you in Hollywood and everywhere on the talk show circuit. And if you choose to keep on this path, when your obituary is written the style and media writers will mention how brave you were to defy the church. The media will celebrate you for all the rest of your days…
…after that you’re on your own.
I’ll say a rosary for you, I invite others to do the same or whatever prayers you prefer.
Update: Linked by Adrienne’s corner. Thanks
At the corner this morning this question is asked about John Brown on the 150th’s anniversary of his raid on Harper’s Ferry.
Was Brown a hero of black freedom or a bloodthirsty terrorist?
One could argue that he can be both. The cause of abolition was certainly just, no rational person would make an argument against that today.
Fredrick Douglas certainly considered him heroic:
“The true question is, Did John Brown draw his sword against slavery and thereby lose his life in vain? And to this I answer ten thousand times, No! No man fails, or can fail, who so grandly gives himself and all he has to a righteous cause. No man, who in his hour of extremest need, when on his way to meet an ignominious death, could so forget himself as to stop and kiss a little child, one of the hated race for whom he was about to die, could by any possibility fail.
“Did John Brown fail? Ask Henry A. Wise in whose house less than two years after, a school for the emancipated slaves was taught.
“Did John Brown fail? Ask James M. Mason, the author of the inhuman fugitive slave bill, who was cooped up in Fort Warren, as a traitor less than two years from the time that he stood over the prostrate body of John Brown.
I have a hard time thinking that way because of slightly mitigating fact that Brown was a murderous bloodthirsty bastard.
At the Doyle farm, James and two of his sons, William and Drury, were dragged outside and hacked up with short, heavy sabres donated to Brown in Akron, Ohio. Mrs. Doyle, a daughter, and fourteen year old John were spared. The gang then moved on to Allen Wilkinson’s place. He was ‘taken prisoner’ amid the cries of a sick wife and two children. Two saddles and a rifle were apparently confiscated. The third house visited that night was owned by James Harris. In addition to his wife and young child, Harris had three other men sleeping there. Only one of them, William Sherman, was executed. Weapons, a saddle, and a horse were confiscated from the house. While members of the rifle company, including four of Brown’s sons, asserted that their Captain did not commit any of the actual murders himself, he was the undisputed leader and made the decisions as to who should be spared.
Nathaniel Hawthorne said no man was more justly hanged. That’s a generalization but there no question that Brown no matter how right his cause of abolition was a bloodthirsty killer and deserved the punishment he got. His cause in no way mitigates the crime or the sin of murder and can’t be used to justify either. I can’t join in the celebration of Brown that Douglas has. I don’t have the stomach for it.
And for those who would dispute my position because of the lives saved and the evil that ended because of his actions lets play a game and substitute the words “Scott Roeder” for “John Brown”.
Lets say that Roe v Wade is overturned and someday in the future a prominent opponent of Abortion gave a speech quoting the names of people alive because of the repeal of Roe v Wade and the good they had done. What would you think if that person asked used that example and asked if Scott Roeder died (or more likely was imprisioned) in vain?
Personally it would make me sick.
Scott Roeder and John Brown are two heads on the same coin. Bloodthirsty murderers who killed using the cloak of a just cause to try to justify evil deeds. The study of Brown is justified and necessary as his actions were a turning point in American history.
I think the idolization of either of those men is obscene. Any Catholic in particular who would consider it should re-read this post.
Update: Honesty in Motion flatters me. You are too kind.
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