Don’t Let’s Be Beguiled In The Year Of Mercy

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francis and tagle fingers

At Aleteia, in light of announced the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Fr. Robert McTeigue offers some necessary instruction. By all means we must avoid a “facile, beguiling, and impoverished view of mercy and justice.”

Very often, I hear folks speak of mercy as if it were a cancellation of justice. On this view, “justice” means, “you have to pay off your debt—or else.” “Mercy”, then, says, “About that debt—never mind!” And who wouldn’t breathe a sigh of relief when told that one’s debt has been dismissed, made irrelevant? That’s an appealing, even tempting image of justice and mercy, especially if you’ve ever been deeply in debt. Unfortunately, such a view tragically distorts justice and mercy. If left uncorrected, such a view runs the risk of making us unable to see or feel what is, to borrow a phrase from C.S. Lewis, “the weight of glory.” In other words, the roots of human dignity and the very character of God may be obscured by such a facile, beguiling, and impoverished view of mercy and justice.

To dismiss the demands of justice with a casual, “Never mind!” is not an exercise of mercy but is instead a dismissal of the moral order. To act as if mercy is a cancellation of the demands of justice is to act as if good and evil do not matter. But God is not glorified and man is not dignified by an erasure of the moral order. If the obligation to do good and avoid evil is not an ineradicable absolute, then God’s character and wisdom cannot be discerned in His creation. At the same time, that man is made in the image and likeness of God is made irrelevant. But surely no sane person could intend to bleach out the moral order with such a thoughtless propagation of such a casual and meaningless view of mercy as amoral and justice as dispensable. So, let’s try to recover the proper friendship between mercy and justice.

I agree with Father.  No sane person could intend such a thing.  So, let’s try and recover that ‘proper friendship’ in the new Time of Mercy and in the Year of Mercy.

In fact, let’s make it a crusade.

Read more….

 

 

 

Zero-Tolerance Sacrifice in Cardinal O’Malley’s Boston

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According to The Media Report, an injustice has been done to the administration and staff of a working-class Boston area Catholic school.  Apparently there’s been a group firing just because a tenured custodian went to the bathroom before a child walked in afterwards.  This sounds like a brand new low in punishing innocent Catholic employees.

Has anyone noticed that we are living in the totalitarian state they used to warn us about in school and science fiction?

In a way it was inevitable: After years of media hysteria over the issue of sex abuse in the Catholic Church, Church officials have now decided on a policy of “shoot first, ask questions later” when it comes to even the scantest allegations of impropriety.

In January of this year, in an astonishing act of injustice, Boston’s Cardinal Seán O’Malley forced the resignations of three individuals from a Catholic school in Revere, despite the fact that no one broke any law or did anything wrong.

If it were not clear already, it should be clear now: “Zero tolerance” has now fully morphed into paranoia and cruelty.

A 64-year old custodian went to the restroom just outside his office which he’d been using for 17 years.  No boys were in there at the time.  The school apparently has an unfortunate rule against adults and children using the same restroom.  (There was a time when people understood an adult monitoring a school restroom was a good thing.)

If it wasn’t for such rules and the cruel excuses for making them, mothers like the one in this story wouldn’t be frightened into lodging complaints.

Like many urban Catholic schools, Immaculate Conception School in Revere (on the working-class outskirts of Boston) lacks adequate space, so it had been a “common practice for a number of years” in the school for adults to use the student restroom so long as there was not a student already in there.

Well, at some point at the end of last year, a mother called the school to report that her kindergarten-aged son felt “uncomfortable” walking into the restroom and seeing the school’s 64-year-old custodian using a urinal. (The restroom was just steps away opposite the janitor’s office.) [Addendum, 3/18/15: The Revere Advocate reported in late January that the janitor used the bathroom in question “for upwards of 17 years without incident.”]

At no time did anyone ever report or even suggest that anyone had committed any behavior in the least bit sexual or criminal. Never.

In other words, the boy walked into the restroom and saw what anyone would see if he walked into any public men’s restroom – such as at the theater or Boston’s Fenway Park.

Probably in an effort to comply with insanely strict diocesan policy, the school eventually contacted police.  When Cardinal O’Malley was notified, he fired the principal, a parish priest, and a teacher.

The school was at a loss at how to respond to the mother’s phone call, but at some point, someone came up with the idea that the concern should somehow be reported to law enforcement. Big mistake.

Overreacting, Cardinal O’Malley and the Archdiocese of Boston immediately forced the resignations of three employees of the parish and its school: Father George Szal, the popular parish priest; Alison Kelly, the school’s principal; and an unnamed second-grade teacher.

The Cardinal’s reason for forcibly removing the trio was that the group had somehow failed to report the issue to law enforcement and the archdiocese “in a timely manner.” Shockingly, the archdiocese reportedly gave the three “an ultimatum – resign or be fired.”

Yet even after both local police and the local district attorney investigated the case and discovered that nothing even remotely criminal had occurred, Cardinal O’Malley still would not reverse his impetuous decision. The lives of four innocent people (the trio plus the custodian) would remain tarnished.

It doesn’t add up.  Aren’t there enough real scandals in the Boston Church that require action?  Is this an attempt to make some zero-tolerance quota?  Why sacrifice the innocent?

Out of control Boston school up to no good

Out of control Boston school up to no good

….or the faithful?

 

 

 

 

Sins and Heresies are Just Rejections

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acceptance poster

So many sins and heresies today are framed as an acceptance of something.  People will say, “I accept” a certain faith or I accept a scientific theory. But heresies and other fundamental falsehoods are really just rejections.  We should always see them for what they are and never let enemies of truth control our language.

Every false faith or corridor of thinking is founded upon a rejection.  Look for example:

Satan

Satan rejects God.

Jews

Jews reject Christ.  Many, particularly in our Church today give the impression that Jews of today simply practice the old faith of King David and the prophets, but those men are Catholic saints today.  The Church is the faith of Abraham regardless of whether many Jews rejected it.  Not only is the modern Jewish faith something quite different than in Jesus’ day but it is set against the Messiah himself.

Modern Catholics must learn to understand and integrate the more ancient parts of Faith and not lose what Our Lord Himself honored and embraced, nor must we equate it with modern Talmudic Judaism.

Muslims

Islam reject Christ’s divinity. It is the unfortunate child of ancient Gnosticism which used to plague the Christian lands now destroyed by terrorism.

Protestants

Protestants reject Christ’s Church. They deny her authority and because of this they have no unity or firm doctrines with each person believing differently.  To the extent that they believe in the truth it is consistent with the Church and through the grace of God.  Since they reject the Church, they also reject her saving graces and Sacraments, and the mystical union of Christ’s Church in Heaven.

Vatican II Catholics

Vatican II Catholics reject the past.  A Vatican II Catholic is someone who lets a contemporary idea or teaching trump some true teaching from before our era.  The Vatican II event is a good milestone since it ushered in a wave of heresies in the minds of Catholics, essentially cutting off the branch from the root so the leaves withered and fell.  Vatican II era Catholics make up a new church of their own which is essentially morbid, like the other Protestant professions, to the extent that it rejects the Church of the past; the living root.

Gay Lifestyle People

Gay people reject sexes.  Men and women who live and identify as gay reject the opposite sex and in so doing reject their own.  A gay man rejects loving a woman and by doing so rejects his own manhood.  A gay woman rejects loving a man and that way also rejects who she is as a woman.  Sexes truly are complimentary.  We bring things and see things differently from each other. Together we are much more than just two.

For gay identity people it’s about more than acting on an inclination, and it’s not about loving acceptance, affection, devotion or friendship either because all those things are part of marriage too.  It’s what’s omitted that matters.

The gay lifestyle requires a kind of contempt or indifference for your own sex as well as the opposite.  That’s why so many gay people awkwardly assume the mannerisms of the opposite sex, consciously suppressing their own.  Not only do they reject loving the opposite sex, but they are uncomfortable being the sex that they are.

Divorcing/Remarried People

People who divorce spouses or remarry reject their family.  A family is a structure cemented by fidelity of spouses.  This is a human type for the Holy Trinity.  It’s essential to our highest natures to have a permanent family.  Rejection of family through rejection of fidelity to one’s spouse deprives the family of it’s access, understanding of God’s love and Heaven.

Communists/Statists

Statists reject God’s commands.  The statist world is like ancient Egypt.  A free world is where Moses led.  Can you think of one of the Ten Commandments which isn’t rejected by the atheist, Leftist machine?  Do they honor God or the Church? Do they believe in family? Are they truthful about their agenda?  Do they believe in property rights or in stealing?  Are they content to let people achieve and own their accomplishments or do they cultivate envy and resentment?  Do they regulate what you do with what’s yours, what you say, who you hire, what you buy? Do they honor chastity?  Do they respect life?

Statists reject the Ten Commandments, the natural law.  To lend power or credibility to statists you must first produce an excuse because to support them is to help sin itself.

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In the end to accept or honor what’s false or wrong is to lose ground.  It’s not about judging or being unmerciful.  It’s about going backwards as a group.  To follow Christ we must also lead others in the right direction. If they won’t follow Christ, perhaps they’ll follow you in His direction.  That will never happen if you just keep chasing them, hoping they’ll turn around when they see how much you ‘care.’

To stray from the Faith is always a rejection.  There’s nothing to accept about it.