11 - 20 of 44 Comments

1. techwreck

   1 year ago

   mgm, Vice President Cheney has a daughter who is a practicing homosexual, so we can understand, but not agree with his views on same sex marriage. President Bush has nothing to do with Cheney's views, and I am surprised that you took a politician shot at him in a serious discussion of a moral problem. Cheney, Biden, and Obama clearly demonstrate the shallowness of their principles when they are willing to advocate behavior that is against the word of God, the natural law, and a civilized society. In all of human history, those societies that went against God's command to "Be fruitful and multiply." (Genesis 1:28) did not prosper because they sacrificed future generations for sexual pleasure. Cheney, Biden, and Obama are wrongly advocating this same path for our society.

2. Jim

   1 year ago

   Where would "A Person" come up with such thinking? How can people call themselves Catholic, let alone Christian, and say, "If people are committed and in love (same-sex or otherwise), why should they be denied of something that is our God- given right?" I don't see anywhere in the Scriptures or the Church's Tradition that God has given us a "right" to same sex marriage. In the Book of Genesis it mentions "Adam & Eve"....NOT "Adam & Steve". And when God was done with His work, particularly the creation of united man and his helpmate, He saw it was "VERY GOOD..." (Gen 1:27-31)
   
   If those who are so antagonistic to the Church's teaching on the Sacrament of Marriage and demand "rights without responsibility and duty", why not consider the following “marital arrangements” as having equal protections under the law as well?:
   
   Group marriage (say, five men and three women or vice versa). Why define marriage as involving two persons “committed” to each other?
   Incestuous marriage (e.g., a father and a daughter, a mother with a son, a brother and a sister).
   Bestial marriage (e.g., a human with a dog, cat, or horse). Why think that humans can’t marry nonhuman animals? This could be considered speciesism—inappropriately favoring your own species over others.
   Pedophilia (an older man marrying and having sex with a prepubescent child).
   Polygamous or polyandrous marriage (a man with multiple wives or a woman with multiple husbands).
   Marriage to self. A person may oppose “numbersism”—the prejudicial assumption that marriage must involve at least two persons.
   Marriage with non-consenting adults. Who says marriage has to involve consenting adults? Why not have a harem of sexual partners (“spouses”) who are physically restrained from leaving?
   Nonsexual marriage. Why not call university fraternities or sororities or two brothers sharing an apartment a “marriage”?
   Marriage to material objects. Perhaps we can recognize a person for being married to his money, his job, etc.
   
   If the government doesn’t recognize any of these categories to be considered “marriages,” is that “unfair” and “discriminatory”? If marriage is just a socially constructed arrangement as a result of human choice and preference, it’s hard to see how any marital arrangement can rightly be banned.
   
   We’d be wise to listen to the historian Tacitus (AD 55–120), who wrote of Rome: “The more corrupt the Republic, the more numerous the laws.” Many Christians and Catholic alike, have put their trust in changing laws rather than, with God’s help, changing hearts of fellow sinners for whom Christ died (1 John 2:2).

3. Jonathon Toni

   1 year ago

   I guess it's true what Bishop Fulton J. Sheen said:
   “There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.”
   ― Fulton J. Sheen

4. Theresa H

   1 year ago

   Obama's declaration yesterday is no surprise at all; he has been pro-contraception, pro-abortion and pro-homosexual marriage all along. With these three, we have a sure "recipe" for our self-destruction as a nation; they are also in direct contradiction to the first Principle of our Founding as a nation. There are other significant betrayals of this Presidency that could be enumerated, but his positions on "life" and "marriage" (the 4th, 5th, 6th and 9th Commandments) strikes at our roots as a nation and the Natural Law! We must vote this man out of the Presidency this fall or we will see the total destruction of our nation in the next four years.

5. Mike

   1 year ago

   mgm, the temptation of same sex attraction in itself isn't a sin. But, to act on those same sex attractions is a sin.

6. Jonathon Toni

   1 year ago

   The Roman Catholic Church needs to step in more for these issues. I'm sick and tired of my European Catholic friends calling me a "Cafeteria Catholic." The Catholic Church in this country needs to show that we aren't going to allow god's vineyard be abused any more. It is not our will that should be done on earth, it is God's will. Obama and his adivors Anti-Catholic movement ought to be stopped. "And Jesus threatened him, saying: Speak no more, and go out of the man. And the unclean spirit, tearing him and crying out with a loud voice, went out of him." Mark 1: 25-26

7. Chris

   1 year ago

   This was John Paul II's very first homily saved on the vactican's web site which speaks for itself about why God uses families, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, as a model for society. Not Jesus, "Steve" and Joseph!
   
   HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II
   
   Sunday, 31 December 1978
   
   
   
   Beloved Brothers and Sisters,
   
   First of all I wish to greet all present here, Romans and visitors, who have come to celebrate the closing of the year 1978—to celebrate it religiously. I address my cordial greeting to the Cardinal Vicar, to the brother bishops, to the representatives of civil Authority, to the priests, to the men and women religious, especially those of the Society of Jesus with their Father General.
   
   1. The Sunday within the Octave of Christmas, that is, the present Sunday, unites, in the liturgy, the solemn memory of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The birth of a child always gives rise to a family. The birth of Jesus in Bethlehem gave rise to this unique and exceptional Family in the history of mankind. In this Family there came into the world, grew and was brought up the Son of God, conceived and born of the Virgin-Mother, and at the same time entrusted, from the beginning, to the truly fatherly care of Joseph. The latter, a carpenter of Nazareth, who vis-à-vis Jewish law was Mary's husband, and vis-à-vis the Holy Spirit was her worthy spouse and the guardian, really in a fatherly way, of the maternal mystery of his Bride.
   
   The family of Nazareth, which the Church, especially in today's liturgy, puts before the eyes of all families, really constitutes that culminating point of reference for the holiness of every human family. The history of this Family is described very concisely in the pages of the Gospel. We get to know only a few events in its life. However what we learn is sufficient to be able to involve the fundamental moments in the life of every family, and to show that dimension, to which all men who live a family life are called: fathers, mothers, parents, children, The Gospel shows us, very clearly, the educative aspect of the family. "He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them" (Lk 2:51).
   
   This submission, obedience, readiness to accept the mature examples of the human conduct of the family, is necessary, on the part of children and of the young generation. Jesus, too, was "obedient" in this way. And parents must measure their whole conduct with this "obedience", this readiness of the child to accept the examples of human behaviour. This is the particularly delicate point of their responsibility as parents, of their responsibility with regard to the man, this little and then growing man entrusted to them by God himself. They must also keep in mind everything that happened in the life of the Family of Nazareth when Jesus was twelve years old; that is, they bring up their child not just for themselves, but for him, for the tasks which he will have to assume later. The twelve-year-old Jesus replied to Mary and Joseph: "Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" (Lk 2:40).
   
   The deepest human problems are connected with the family. It constitutes the primary, fundamental and irreplaceable community for man. "The mission of being the primary vital cell of society has been given to the family by God himself", the Second Vatican Council affirms. (Apostolicam Actuositatem, 11). The Church wishes to bear a particular witness to that too during the Octave of Christmas, by means of the feast of the Holy Family. She wishes to recall that the fundamental values, which cannot be violated without incalculable harm of a moral nature, are bound up with the family. Material perspectives and the "economico-social" point of view often prevail over the principles of Christian and even human morality. It is not enough, then, to express only regret. It is necessary to defend these fundamental values tenaciously and firmly, because their violation does incalculable harm to society and, in the last analysis, to man. no experience of the different nations in the history of mankind, as well as our contemporary experience, can serve as an argument to reaffirm this painful truth, that is, that it is easy, in the fundamental sphere of human existence in which the role of the family is decisive, to destroy essential values, while it is very difficult to reconstruct these values.
   
   What are these values? If we had to answer this question adequately, it would be necessary to indicate the whole hierarchy and the set of values which define and condition one another. But trying to express ourself concisely, let us say that here it is a question of two fundamental values which fall strictly into the context of what we call "conjugal love". The first of them is the value of the person which is expressed in absolute mutual faithfulness until death: the faithfulness of the husband to his wife and of the wife to her husband. The consequence of this affirmation of the value of the person, which is expressed in the mutual relationship between husband and wife, must also be respect for the personal value of the new life, that is, of the child, from the first moment of his conception.
   
   The Church can never dispense herself from the obligation of guarding these two fundamental values, connected with the vocation of the family. Custody of them was entrusted to the Church by Christ, in such a way as leaves no doubt. At the same time, the self-evidence of these values—humanly understood— is such that the Church, defending them, sees herself as the spokesman of true human dignity: of the good of the person, of the family, of the nations. While maintaining respect for all those who think differently, it is very difficult to recognize, from the objective and impartial point of view, that anyone who betrays conjugal faithfulness, or who permits life conceived in the mother's womb to be wiped out and destroyed, behaves in a way consistent with true human dignity. Consequently, it cannot be admitted that programmes which suggest, which facilitate, which admit such behaviour serve the objective well-being of man, the moral well-being, and help to make human life really more human, really more worthy of man; that they serve to construct a better society.
   
   3. This Sunday is also the last day of the year 1978. We have gathered here, in this liturgy to give thanks to God for all the good he has bestowed on us and given us the grace to do during the past year, and to ask his forgiveness for all that, being contrary to good, is also contrary to his holy will. Allow me, in this thanksgiving and in this request for forgiveness, to use also the criterion of the family, this time, however, in the wider sense. As God is the Father, then the criterion of the family has also this dimension; it refers to all human communities, societies, nations and countries; it refers to the Church and to mankind.
   
   Concluding this year in this way, let us give thanks to God for everything that—in the various spheres of earthly existence—makes men even more of a "family", that is, more brothers and sisters, who have in common the one Father. At the same time, let us ask for forgiveness for everything that is alien to the common brotherhood of men, that destroys the unity of the human family, that threatens it and impedes it.
   
   Therefore, having always before my eyes my great predecessor Paul VI, and the most beloved Pope John Paul I, I their successor, in the year of the death of both, today say: "Our Father, who are in heaven, accept us on this last day of the year 1978 in Christ Jesus, your Eternal Son, and lead us forward in him in the future, in the future that you yourself desire: God of Love, God of Truth, God of Life!".
   
   With this prayer on my lips, I, successor of the two Pontiffs who died during this year, cross, together with you, the frontier which, in a few hours, will divide the year 1978 from 1979.
   
   
   
   

8. Esther Marie Ventura Ferencz

   1 year ago

   I am not one bit surprised as to this POUS actions on gay marriage. This has been his belief ALWAYS. He has been a man w.a socialist agenda. One in which anything goes. Sadly Archbishop Dolans letter and personal meetings fell on deaf ears and I will go so far as to state, a laughing uproar among OBAMAS staff.
   
   I am though quite shocked as to comments on this piece on COL....Actually HORRIFIED that you have commentaries stating as to all the WHYS the Catholic Church isnt just accepting of this RIDICULOUS and SICK act as a normal means of marital love. I guess, not meaning offense and respectfuly said, BUT ITS amazing the numbers of people who I assume are of the faith and think this is all fine are IGNORANT of our FAITH and Gods teachings. VERY VERY SAD.
   
   These are FACTS...they can be googled and found out . Firstly Homosexuality was deemed a mental illness as so stated in the Mental Health Diagnostic Books..from way back in the 40s and 50s up till late 70s..........This ended in the late 70s from pressure from the lobbying groups of ACT UP etc, and Homosexual physicans as well, thus leaving way for the lifestyle to be fully recgnizable as a borned accepted state. THE CHAPTERS on this mental illness was REMOVED...Thus WE all should accept, and in ways celebrate this form of marital love.
   
   We KNOW as told by God that this is an abomination. Many places in scripture SAY this. We stand firm as a FAITH. SO the continual attacks as Catholics increasing and increasing. AS soldiers of Christ we cannot only accept this as a normal, we must work to defeat the laws enforcing peoples of FAITH to adhere to an 'abomination' as stated by GOD. SO stop saying its 'us Cathoics'. ITS what our God ordered us to do and how to live in a marital state.
   
   I have no more tolerance for this type of behavior by the govt. Its a disgrace that when so many people are hurting as to no work, national scandals all over the place, wars, and bankruptsy looming we actually have a president who takes the time to speak of such sick and perveted lifestyles . THIS speaks as to Mr. Obamas fundamental lack of leadership. His lack of human decency, and his lack of respect for ALL faiths that believe in God and follow His laws, HE MUST BE DEFEATED and the 60% of Catholics who voted this man in? ONCE AGAIN know this mess rests in your souls now. BTW THANKS ALOT, all should go the way of Ipso Facto excommunication.
   
   
   I also think a possible smaller church might be a healthier church. SO bring on the split and NO CONSESSIONS ALLOWED.

9. Daniel

   1 year ago

   Homosexuality is defined by sex. Heterosexuality is defined by God. Homosexuality cannot be defined by love. It cannot be defined by marriage. And it cannot be defined by children. It is defined by a perverted sexual act between two folks of the same sex. Were sex not involved the relationship could not/would not be homo-sexual. Homosexuality is defined by sex. Heterosexuality is defined by God.

10. Fred Penar

    1 year ago

    Why was this Dolan letter to Obama kept under wraps from 20 Sept 2011 until today?
    Why was it not read or highlighted at every Sunday Mass when it was sent?
    
    Keeping such important communications 'private' is not helpful to the faithful. In fact I would argue that it is harmful.
    
    Our Bishops are really slow to learn that this administration cannot be trusted. The rest of us discovered this duplicity early in 2009 in the passing of ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, and the raft of despotic executive orders that were issued.
    
    Rather than trying to 'lead' in arenas where they have no competence, perhaps they should consider their duty to teach the faith and promote the Catechism of the Catholic Church Second Edition.
    '
    If they are interested in politics, let them leave the priesthood and become politicians.

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