Skip to main content

On The Other Hand

Once you get past the hot-button issues, (abortion, adultery, fornication, homosexuality) there are those for whom Catholicism is a fashion accessory for their place in the culture war. The only way they feel secure is the knowledge that these sins are more grave objectively than others. However, if you pile enough situationally grave sins together, you still end up in hell.

The problem for their erstwhile critics on the "cultural Left" let's call it, is that those sexual sins are actually sins. No amount of raging against Right-wing myopia changes that.

The reason I don't call myself "conservative" anymore is that politics is no longer about thinking through issues with a Christian anthropology, and doing the best for the common good; it's about indicating that I'm not Them. And yes, to my mind, the Right is worse about this than the Left right now.

And as soon as you call someone to virtue, either in rejecting these silly binaries, or in actually engaging seriously with issues they've ignored, you're "virtue signalling". Well, I'll just embrace that. Better to signal virtue than to embrace vice. When Jesus asks you what you said and did for refugees and Muslims (often the same people) are you going to shrug and say, "At least I was not an abortionist"?

As long as there's some foolish parent trying to make their 5-year-old into the opposite sex, there's probably enough noise to ignore the force of my objection. It still sits there, awaiting an answer. In the end, this is why I don't have the stomach for lectures from "conservative" Catholics; I never changed my position on the things I listed, and still, there's a will to ignore any moral intuition (not to mention, Church teaching) from anyone "impure".
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hilarious Com-Box Quote of The Day: "I was caught immediately because it is the Acts of the Apostles, not the Acts of the Holy Spirit Acting Erratically."--Donald Todd, reacting to the inartful opposition of the Holy Spirit and the Magisterium. Mark Galli, an editor at Christianity Today, had suggested that today's "confusion" in evangelicalism replicates a confusion on the day of Pentecost. Mr. Todd commented after this reply , and the original article is here. My thoughts: By what means was this Church-less "consensus" formed? If the Council did not possess the authority to adjudicate such questions, who does? If the Council Fathers did not intend to be the arbiters, why do they say that they do? At the risk of being rude, I would define evangelicalism as, "Whatever I want or need to believe at any particular time." Ecclesial authority to settle a particular question is a step forward, but only as long as, "God alone is Lord of the con
17 comments
Read more

A Friend I Once Had, And The Dogmatic Principle

 I once had a friend, a dear friend, who helped me with personal care needs in college. Reformed Presbyterian to the core. When I was a Reformed Presbyterian, I visited their church many times. We were close. I still consider his siblings my friends. (And siblings in the Lord.) Nevertheless, when I began to consider the claims of the Catholic Church to be the Church Christ founded, he took me out to breakfast. He implied--but never quite stated--that we would not be brothers, if I sought full communion with the Catholic Church. That came true; a couple years later, I called him on his birthday, as I'd done every year for close to ten of them. He didn't recognize my number, and it was the most strained, awkward phone call I have ever had. We haven't spoken since. We were close enough that I attended the rehearsal dinner for his wedding. His wife's uncle is a Catholic priest. I remember reading a blog post of theirs, that early in their relationship, she told him of the p
Post a Comment
Read more
My wheelchair was nearly destroyed by a car last night. That's a bit melodramatic, I suppose, because it is intact and undamaged. But we'd left my power chair ("Red Sam" in the official designation) in-between the maze of cars parked out front of Chris Yee's house for Bible Study. [Isn't that a Protestant Bible study?--ed.] They are good friends, and it is not under any official auspices. [Not BSF?--ed.] They're BSF guys, but it's not a BSF study. Anyway, I wasn't worried; I made a joke about calling the vendor the next day: "What seems to be the problem, sir?" 'Well, it was destroyed by a car.' As it happened, a guy bumped into it at slow speed. His car got the worst of it. And this only reinforces what I've said for a solid 13 years [Quickie commercial coming] If you want a power wheelchair that lasts, get a Quickie. They're fast, obviously, and they're tanks. Heck, my old one still would work, but the batteries ar
13 comments
Read more