Wednesday, December 27, 2023

A Catholic Inclusion Apocalypse

The Catholic Church in Africa and eastern Europe is in open revolt against the pope who is all about listening and being inclusive, especially towards marginalized voices. I guess the Africans weren't all that marginalized after all. Who knew?

Meanwhile, the West is a free-fire zone. See the letter from a large group of American clergy below.

So much love and acceptance! So very equitable!

This is ChatGPT's vision for an Inclusion Apocalypse. Winning!

Dig this.

In text form:

The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy (USA) wishes to address the recent turmoil over the proper interpretation and application of Fiducia Supplicans from the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith. We unite our concerns with those of our brethren in the British Confraternity of Catholic Clergy as stated in their public announcement. Sinful behavior and disordered inclinations can never be blessed or condoned. Even the appearance of endorsement of any moral evil must be avoided at all cost lest one infer that the one giving the ‘blessing’ is also a formal cooperator in evil, which is always forbidden.

The distinction that individuals can be blessed without approving their lifestyle and moral activity is certainly valid. Inmates in prison are frequently ‘blessed’ but always in the context that Divine assistance is being invoked on the persons themselves, not on their criminal behavior. At the same time, however, great care is warranted lest the façade be made that not only the person but also their actions and beliefs are also receiving an ‘imprimatur’ of sorts. Cohabitating couples (heterosexual or homosexual) if blessed together give the impression that their relationship is acceptable in the eyes of the Church, which it is not. While a cleric can ‘bless’ any human person, he cannot bless immoral or disordered behavior. Loving the sinner does not mean loving the sin. Jesus commanded the woman caught in adultery to “sin no more.”  He did not ‘bless’ her lifestyle but He forgave her sins.

Likewise, as we cannot bless abortions, pornography, marital infidelity, child abuse, terrorism, and all grave evils (like fornication and adultery), we must also avoid conflating immoral things with those who commit them. Prudence requires us to avoid sending the wrong message. Moral truth is as precious as dogmatic truth. Yes, the Church has not changed her perennial teaching on human sexuality and the sanctity of marriage, but we should neither muddy the waters, either. 

Admonishing sinners is still a work of mercy and obscuring their moral vision is not; even if it is called a ‘blessing.’

This is an absolutely perfect example of the postmodern left. From anti-racism to tolerance to inclusion to diversity to affirmation, they set everyone at each other's throats because they cannot admit the existence of irreconcilable differences except when it comes to straight, white men vs. everyone else.

The postmodern left is dismissive of all ideas other than their own.

Bonus War Zone Report

Over in Philly, Archbishop Chaput is having none of it

“Deliberate or persistent ambiguity—anything that fuels misunderstanding or seems to leave an opening for objectively sinful behavior—is not of God,” Chaput stated.  

Please, spare us from any more synodality. 

2 comments:

Ilíon said...

Do you think that the typical internet Rah-Rah Catholic will learn anything from these events? I mean specifically, instead of their typical invective about Protestantism and/or toward Protestants, something more along the lines of, "Oh! I get it now".

I expect that you'd rather not see this point, and I certainly understand that it would be a painful thing to acknowledge, but the fact is, if the Chief Bureaucrats of The One True Bureaucracy of 2023 had access to the sort of military power as their predecessors did in 1517 relative to the then-existing secular powers, these protesting bishops, and much of their flocks, would not be long for this world.

Ilíon said...

... *we* did not "destroy Christian unity"; we were driven out, hunted down, murdered.