Wow. I’ve often seen unspeakable idiocies causing Dopers to lapse into profanity, but that’s the first time I’ve seen it in this enlarged sense.
A good rant, and a good call, RickJay. Here’s to earnest prayers that the scales fall from their eyes.
On Saturday, Canada’s less-reliable national newspaper ran with the headline:
VATICAN RAISES STAKES IN GAY DEBATE
To me, this suggested the bizarre image of Jean Paul II sitting across the table from Jean Chrétien, heavy blue smoke curling around his elaborately-brocaded poker visor, as he impassively mumbled, “I see your ‘equal rights for all citizens’, and raise you a threat of eternal damnation.”
But gambling metaphors seemed far too inappropriate when applied to a religious institution, so the image quickly evaporated, instantly replaced by a more literal interpretation of the headline: Stern-faced clergy raising wooden stakes in a public square, and gathering kindling.
This seemed far more apt, given the Holy See’s historical reaction to burning issues like this.
RickJay and others who agree with him, correct me if I’m wrong, but is your position (stated much less colorfully) essentially that you are very upset that the Roman Catholic Church, of which you a no longer a member, has the termerity to voice an opinion concerning the propriety of gay marriages to its members and to the government, a position which is consistent with the Church’s teaching for a number of years, but which you now disagree with? Come now. It cannot be news to you or anyone else that the Church opposes homosexuality and considers such conduct to be a sin. You’ve voted with you feet and left the Church. Good for you. But it seems to me that you’re unduly upset that an organization you a no longer a part of, but which still has a number of other members left in it, has refused to change its beliefs, even after you’ve left it. What did you expect? That the bishops and the Pope would say, “Hey, look, RickJay doesn’t come to Sunday Mass anymore? We’d better find out why he doesn’t show up and change all our tenets in order to appease him!”
As for the Church’s public failings (and by the way, the schools cannot be considered one of them, judging from the test scores of children from American Catholic schools and American public schools), so what? Even with such outright failures, the Church has by and large been a positive force for good in the World.
Make no mistake, I’ve got my beefs with the Church too, the child-abuse & coverup scandals, the requirement of priestly celibacy and the failure to ordain women as priests chief among them. But I’ve got no problem with the church’s public opposition to gay marriages.
I have no problem with the Church opposing gay marriage. As an institution, they can do that. Their recent document has really bothered me though - I have not yet had time to read it in full (I’m finishing up summer classes, so it’s on my agenda to read Thursday), but I’ve gotten the impression that it contains an encouragement to governments to legislate against gay marriage.
If accurate, this may well be the straw that takes me from being Catholic to being non-Catholic. I have other issues with them as well, but I felt like I could deal with them, that they were minor when compared to my faith. Now, however, I just, well…I don’t know that I can stay Catholic anymore when I disagree so strongly with this statement.
Patrick, I’m sorry, but that is clearly not my position, and I stated it clearly and without ambiguity.
The church’s position on homosexuality is theirs to take. I happen to disagree with it, but as I specifically said, that’s fine. I disagree with them on a variety of things but people cand disagree on things. Such is life. you don’t see me ranting about the rule that only men can be priests. I disagree with it but it’s not rant-worthy. It’s their club and they’re free to do that.
My problem here is twofold.
The Church is behaving with glaring hypocrisy. The government is not threatening to force the Catholic church to marry gay couples. It is moving to act in accordance with the law of Canada, which is that discrimination by the government on the basis of certain criteria is illegal.
As I pointed out, the Roman Catholic Church appears to be perfectly fine with the government allowing many things, SCORES of things, that would be sinful according to Catholic doctrine, but which must be allowed in a free and open society. To use my stated examples and to cite a few more:
It is sinful, according to the RCC, for a couple to live together without being married. The RCC opposes this. But I have never heard the church demand that it be made illegal.
It is sinful, in accordance with the RCC’s own doctrine, for a person to not attend Mass. Yet I have never heard the RCC challenge Canada’s laws protecting religious freedom, which allow us to not attend Mass or attend services at other churches if we please.
It is sinful, in accordance with the RCC’s doctrine, to take the Lord’s name in vain. Yet I have never heard the church demand it be made illegal.
In these three cases the Church has clearly adopted a policy of separating their doctrine, and what they expect of their worshippers, from what the civil government of this country must do in accordance with the principles of freedom and justice. This isn’t a Catholic country, and the Church has accepted that. The Church is here demanding - actually, they are THREATENING - politicians for changing what is a civil affair that does not in any way impinge on the Church’s ability to teach and do as it pleases. That’s my problem. Well, the first problem.
Of course, the Church leading a campaign against unjust laws that cause suffering is fine by me. For instance, the Church has opposed capital punishment. But in that case they are not actually demanding that other Canadians have rights or freedoms denied them because it violates Church doctrine.
The Church has taken, in Canada, a remarkably strong stance that THEY know better than their parishioners what marriage is, and that homosexuality is perversion. I find this arrogant to a near-comical extent. I maintain that the clergy does not have a goddamn clue what marriage is in any real sense, and I maintain that an organization that has bred some of Canada’s most notorious sexual criminals and has as an organization tried to cover up and facilitate their heinous crimes is not in any position to tell me what is or isn’t sexually kosher. It is exactly akin to the Enron Board of Directors lecturing me on business ethics. The fact that it is from a church that has done much to harm Canada in the past makes it all the more galling.
Furthermore, I may as well mention it now; I do not believe the Church is behaving in a Christian manner, being as they are apparently obsessed with the letter of the Word and none of its spirit, but that is a matter for another debate and it wasn’t really part of my rant.
I have no problem at all if the Church opposes gay marriages and refuses to conduct any. They are free to do so and nobody has a civil right to be married in a Catholic church. I would, in fact, be irate if their freedom to believe this and act on it was in any way impinged. But their attempts to force their beliefs on other Canadians through threats, arrogance and hypocrisy disgusts me.
I want to thank you, RickJay, for putting that OP into words. This issue pisses the hell out of me, but I couldn’t have stated my feelings with such profane eloquence.
I sincerely hope bullshit like this doesn’t derail the Canadian government’s attempts to uphold the freakin’ constitution.
Hey, mac. Yeah you. Me and Guido, we were just talking. Just talk is all it was. And we were noticing, that’s a real nice soul you got there. Yessir, real nice soul.
Be a shame if something were to…happen to it. You can never be too careful. Things happen to souls all the time. They fall down. They get lit on fire. It’s a shame.
I’m just saying, mac. You should really think about some…insurance. You can never be too careful.
PatrickM, it seems to be that all Catholics have good reason to be angry with the Vatican’s actions, since they are ultimately likely to be more hurtful to the Catholic laity than any other group.
It seems to be that most Catholics tend to take the idea of papal infallibility with a grain of salt – after all, everybody remembers the unfortunate position on the whole Earth-going-around-the-sun thing. I think that, with very few exceptions, Catholics consider themselves free to follow their own reason and conscience. What do you think the result of the Vatican making such loud noises to the contrary, going so far as to unequivocally define the ** POSITIONS OF CATHOLIC POLITICIANS WITH REGARD TO LEGISLATION IN FAVOUR OF HOMOSEXUAL UNIONS**:
Pretty bold, that-- Direct orders for politicians. It seems unlikely that the sort of person who enters public life is likely to blindly follow such instructions. Perhaps some will, but I would expect that people who feel that their primary allegience is to the Church would have entered holy orders rather than public office, and spent their energies ministering to the spirit.
By directly intruding into the political sphere, the Vatican is in danger of giving non-Catholics (who make up the majority of the electorate in many, many places,) the impression that a Catholic politician has no individual political will, and that a vote for them is, for all practical purposes, a vote for Jean Paul II. This obliges every voter to ask themselves “Do I agree with the Catholic church on every matter of public importance?” when considering casting a vote in favour of a Catholic politician. This could well have the effect of excluding Catholics from public life altogether except in places where they make up a simple majority.
You know, I coulda sworn that the responsibilities of a politician regardless of religious affiliation is to do their duties as politicians, not as religious folk. Thus this:
Is utterly wrong. ISTM that “render[ing] to Caesar what is due Caesar” is to vote in accordance with law, not religion. Rendering to God what is due God would probably be what has happened in at least one reversing of sodomy law, i.e. “I am morally opposed to sodomy but there is no legal reason for it to be illegal.” IOW saying “I am morally against this, but legally there is no reason for that to dictate law” would be the Catholic thing to do, if that’s the belief held.
But of course, given the rampant “we must legislate morality because we believe in the Bible” bullshit here in the states, one would be hard-pressed to prove that:rolleyes:
All right RickJay, let me see if I have it now. According to you, because the Catholic Church does not lobby for the inclusion of each and every one of its religious principles into Canadian civil law, it therefore lacks standing to assert that any one of its principles, in this case the one that forbids gay marriages, be incorporated into Canadian civil law. It’s all or nothing. The gospel according to RickJay says that the Church is morally obligated to constantly expend its limited resources in order to make Canada into a wholly Roman Catholic theocracy. Anything less is hypocrisy on the Church’s part. To RickJay, any resemblence between the Pope and your run of the mill Ayatollah is purely intentional.
Furthermore, as I understand RickJay, his position is the anti-intellectual one that asserts that one cannot understand a given subject, in this case marriage, unless one experiences it firsthand. Education and study mean nothing to RickJay, only firsthand experience counts in the end. What the priests learn in the seminary about ministering to people, married or otherwise, has to be a crock, doesn’t it? There are a number of people that agree with you RickJay, but I’m not one of them. In a completely different context this argument is used by pro athletes to dismiss their critics: “They never played the game, what could they possibly know about it?” That argument is fallacious poisoning the well when the athletes use it, and it is fallacious in this context too.
Finally, I must say that I am amused by the offense RickJay takes at the Bishop’s alleged threat. All he did was condemn them to Hell. What kind of piddly little threat is that to worldly enlightened folk? I’m trying to picture the prosecuting attorney filing an aggravated menacing charge against the Bishop on behalf of the MP. Picture the trial transcript:
MP: “The Bishop threatened me!”
Defense attorney on cross-exam: “The Bishop threatened you?! I am aghast! With what? His fists, a gun, a knife, a hitman, blackmail, a tax audit? What powerful weapon did he use? Tell us, tell me and tell the jury!”
MP: “Ah, um, there wasn’t an actual weapon, per se.”
Defense attorney: “There wasn’t? Then what did he threaten you with?”
MP: “He threatened my soul with eternal damnation!”
Defense attorney: “Well, that’s the Bishop’s job, isn’t it?”
MP: “I suppose so.”
Judge: “Case dismissed!”
Maybe, but the Catholic Church has argued against “raison d’Etat” as a basis for morality since at least Machiavelli. They’d argue that if something is immoral for a private individual to do, it’s equally immoral for that person to do if he’s a public individual, or for the state to do.
Well, I suppose that if a man was hired for a job which required having sexual intercourse with women it would be justifiable to not hire a homosexual man.