In Declining Culture, Normalcy has become Evangelism

By Brother Andre Marie, M.I.C.M.
8/31/2011
Catholicism.org (catholicism.org/)

The Apostolate of Being Normal

Sins against Christian chastity and modesty are one thing, but sins against nature are quite another. I am not an advocate of either, but there is a relative gravity among sins. The important hedge of moral outrage ought to grow in proportion to the severity of the crime.

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RICHMOND, NH (Catholicism.org) - We live in a hypereroticised culture. And it's getting worse. Examples abound, but from the last fortnight or so of news, we can cite the controversy of a ten-year-old model posing provocatively in Vogue magazine, just like a "grown up," with poofy lips and all. Another hint of the growing cult of Eros, this one of the homo- variety, would be the effort to pressure the producers of "Sesame Street" to have Bert and Ernie get married on that children's show.

Worst of all is the case of Bishop Raymond Lahey, whose crimes I'll not mention because they are so disgusting. (They are the worst, not merely because of their nature - which would be enough - but also because of the exalted office of their perpetrator.)

In all three of these instances, children are being exploited. In one, a pre-pubescent girl is showcased in a lurid tabloid meat market; in another the goal is to desensitize children to the perversity called "same-sex marriage"; in the last, a guilty bishop has made a fetish out of little ones.

It appears that the producers of Sesame Street are withstanding the pressure to marry off the muppets (thank God for small favors), but the effort to press the issue bears a strange resemblance to certain interested parties' claims about Cardinal Newman a few years ago. Some homosexuals cannot bear the thought that two normal men can love each other as friends. Either chaste, masculine love is intolerable to them, or an obsessive interest in advancing their own agenda leads them to slander normal men's friendships, or both. I suspect both.

What our three cases have in common is not only that they victimize children, but that they are all abnormal. Sins against Christian chastity and modesty are one thing, but sins against nature are quite another. I am not an advocate of either, but there is a relative gravity among sins. The important hedge of moral outrage ought to grow in proportion to the severity of the crime. (It is this moral outrage that Bert and Ernie's nuptuals, and similar acts of political correctness, are intended to neutralize.)

To draw a moral equal sign between a couple engaging in heterosexual pre-marital relations and what Bishop Lahey did would be monstrous moral theology. I choose the word abnormal for good reason. I mean it as synonymous with unnatural or disordered. The word is not to be confused with common. Nine out of ten men in a room might have a sixth finger on their right hand (perhaps it's at the meeting of a club of such people). That does not make the condition "normal"; it only makes it "common" in that particular crowd. The five-finger hand still remains the norm. So, too, homosexual relations and viewing children as objects of venereal pleasure are both abnormal, even pathological.

Are we getting to a point at which normalcy will begin to stand out? By that, I mean normal friendships, normal marriages, normal families, and normal gender roles. Maybe. It could well be that much of this is manufactured. Most people are not homosexual. Most people still probably find prurient interest in ten-year-olds to be depraved. Witness the outrage over Vogue's stunt. But "most people" are not the movers and shakers that determine the content of the drool we call popular culture.

There are people with an agenda, who push the performance envelope in every medium they fund. Then there are the oligarchs, the ones who know how easily led an erotically distracted people are. Distinguishing the conspirators from the mere useful idiots is not something I'll try. I know who the ultimate Conspirator is: that preternatural Revolutionary, compared to whom the most cunning human conspirator is but a useful idiot.

Supposing we are getting to the point of normalcy becoming uncommon. I propose a silver lining to that menacingly dark cloud. It is this: When normalcy stands out, if the normal ones are normal because of their Faith, they will be a powerful force for conversion. This scenario may seem naive in the midst of the universal depravity it assumes. But it is not so. The reason is that no matter how depraved things are, human nature has not changed.

Neither has the natural law written on men's hearts. Neither has the drive for a man and a woman to come together as man and wife to raise a family for the preservation of the species. In spite of all the diabolical assaults against it, the family is ingrained into human nature. When the Church stands alone defending it, as she has stood virtually alone defending the marital act against the unnatural sin of onanism, then souls of good will may ...

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1 - 8 of 8 Comments

Kathy
1 year ago
Thank you Brother Andre Marie, M.I.C.M. That is interesting.
David Carlon
1 year ago
Is the you St. Isaiah... or is it you St. John the Baptist? Great post!
Spencer
1 year ago
We must fight against the stratagem of attacking moral norms – by the technique of constant and pervasive criticism – that was developed by Marxists to overthrow Western Judeo-Christian societies. This movement to corrupt and destroy the traditional morality of the West, gained momentum in the 1960s -- and is ongoing. We must fight against political correctness, which is a technique developed by the Marxists to censor moral and religious speech, by making it seem that a taboo has been violated when one expresses anything moral or/and traditional. We must not allow moral, religious beliefs to be kept to oneself and not be expressed. If Catholics and other Christians are too intimidated to witness, then how is the culture ever going to change? We also must fight back by being like the early Christians were in the Roman Empire. We must be so decent and moral that it causes the depraved to want Christian peace and joy. And finally, we must take back the institutions that were taken from us. We must show the world that what the Founding Fathers created was not a pagan country, but a free and moral country – one steeped in Judeo-Christian values.
Brother Andre Marie, M.I.C.M.
1 year ago
Kathy,

Thank you for your comment. I think it's a good opportunity for some instruction on the much neglected teaching of the Church in the matter. Many will be surprised to learn that the Church actually has an infallible definition on the subject. It's from the Council of Trent, on Matrimony, Canon X:

“If anyone sayeth, that the marriage state is to be placed above the state of virginity, or of celibacy, and that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity, or in celibacy, than to be united in matrimony; let him be anathema.”

You can find this online here: http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct24.html

Trent's definition also agrees with the teaching of St. Paul in the seventh chapter of I Corinthians. The fact that the celibate priesthood and monastic life are commonly referred to as "a higher calling" shows in common parlance the perennial Catholic mind on this subject. When Trent defined it, the Council was defending tradition against the novelties of the Protestant heresiarchs, who contested the truth, just as St. Jerome had defended it against the heretic Helvidius.

Again, we're not talking about a "good" versus an "evil," but a greater good as contrasted with a lesser good. The dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church defends the good of matrimony, and also asserts the greater good of virginity and the celibate state.
K C Thomas
1 year ago
Only the Catholic Church is fighting against the slush pleasure culture . We catholics should wake up and strengthen the movement
Kathy
1 year ago
I take issue with the claim in this article that the "good of marriage" is a "lesser good" than the "good of absolute chastity".

"Absolute chastity for man" may be the highest good for one man but it does not necessarily follow that it is the highest good compared to marriage.

If a man and woman didn't come together in the love of a marriage to procreate and give birth to the new life of a "man" in the first place, there would be no man to practice absolute chastity and the worship of God.

Procreation in marriage comes first and creates new life. And I would suggest that perhaps it is even more of a challenge and offering to God to live in holy matrimony than it is to live in absolute chastity.
Nesta Callahan
1 year ago
I was grateful that this article was written. Why? Because it is time for our people to stand up and to thwart all of the things that people are misusing. They should be taught that their rights as a child of God are theirs to choose from the beginning of their life. The fact is that there are so many broken marriages of this time, that they have gotten themselves in a lot of trouble with their parents, with their friends, and with those of whom they would like to be friends. The thing about that facination with the same sexed people is a form of the child who is born sucking their thumb. Even tho it is quite natural for a baby to suck a thumb, it is quite unnatural to see an adult suck his thumb. The thing is that the schools have been trying to make all the UN-natural things become Natural. If they are natural, it is Okay! Just like the Government making Marriage between two same sexed people Okay, It is not okay in God's mind nor has it ever been ok. The fact is that with whichever sex becoming "Married", it will always be between a man and a woman under the EYE of God!
Osita
1 year ago
I wonder where this world is heading to. People are shying away from normalcy to annoying abnormal things. Is it that the Anti-Christ is gradually entering the world? Personally, I am afraid, but then, the situation of things in the world today calls to be vigilant, steadfast and more prayerful in order to avert the plans of the enemy, the devil.

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