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Mammoths
Guest
Sometimes analogies illustrate. I didn’t mean that God’s law is a reflection of mans for sure. I believe man can only practice law, medicine etc. Only God’s law is perfect. Only Jesus is the Great Physician.
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Mammoths
Guest
Knowledge puffs up after all. But love edifies. The tone of AL is that love,mercy, and compassion can effect conversion of a sinner more than all the Bible thumping, catechism crashing and rank rancoring in the world. this discussion reminds me of the twelve debating their rank. Jesus said that greatness is serving not asserting rank. When we are gracious to those in the grip of sin or ignorance, we earn the opportunity to speak life in a dying world.I never suggested otherwise…but that still isn’t by that fact alone a personal mortal sin.
You have confused knowingly engaging in what the Church believes is grave matter with committing a mortal sin. That makes no more sense than saying an automatic car must have a direct transmission to the wheels because why else would the wheels go round when I press the accelerator.
And some of us here who have actually studied tertiary level moral theology have been subjected to an intolerable amount of the Emporer’s clothes and it isn’t a pretty sight.
I have not stated that the persons I speak of may not be aware of what the Church teaches
Me, I prefer to follow traditional Catholic moral principles and the head Cardinal who actually has the charism of infallibility.
I see my point passed over your head. Perhaps others can explain it to you.
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Mammoths
Guest
Maybe check the original post and title.
po18guy
Well-known member
Amen! For those who do not trust the Church
maybe they will trust Saint Paul, or at least the bible.To allow communion for those who are - please pay attention - known to be in grave sin damns them! Please, someone - anyone - explain how that is charity or “justice”?
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Tantum_ergo
Guest
Oh but po18guy that was then and this is new–I mean, now.Amen! For those who do not trust the Church
To allow communion for those who are - please pay attention - known to be in grave sin damns them! Please, someone - anyone - explain how that is charity or “justice”?
Don’t you realize that Jesus was 'constrained by His times" and that much of His message was wrongly put down decades later by people who relied on ‘telephone’ memory?
And don’t you realize that all the great theologians of our times are just so much more compassionate now? Now that we’ve realized that all those poorly understood and poorly translated attempts to subvert Christ’s message have been imposed on us for centuries by patriarchical, masochistic, misogynist power hungry men, and now that we have ‘seen the light’ because of our so much vaster education and training and all round human goodness that has always insisted that Christ only cares about us and all we have to do is care back to the best of our ability and damn any made-up ‘rules’, we are so much freer! So much better! Especially better than those rigid and hypocritical people who are so mean to others, while being whited sepulchers themselves, today’s ‘neo Pharisee’ (the older term was ‘practicing Catholic’) as opposed to today’s inclusive, embracing, ecumenical Catholic who sneers at ‘old women with rosaries’ and ‘shrill rigid men and meek subservient women, with their rabbit brood of brainwashed faux modest children’ daring to insist on ‘outmoded, superstitious, ignorant claptrap’ (it used to be called The Bible’ and things like pious devotions) when they should be ditching the old and fake your great-granddad’s ways for social justice, saving the planet, and ever more fascinating articles on how to explain any given Catholic teaching which prior to approximately 1995 meant one thing now means exactly the opposite. . .on pain of not death, but being labeled as ‘rigid’.
*any reference above is meant as an example only. No reference is directed, especially in a disrespectful way, at any given individual here, nor is it in any way directed at any specific priest, bishop, cardinal, Pope, or indeed to any layperson or any group whatsoever. In other words, it is a personal ‘take’ meant to be presented as an ironic comment. Let’s see if that is still something permitted as a kind of academic exercise in today’s climate!
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Mammoths
Guest
Precisely. For some reason some people want to twist what the AL actually says and make into grounds for license. I am reminded of paul’s disclaimer that he was not saying, “let us do evil that good may come.” It seems that the Holy Father is saying something more like be discerning and compassionate. For example, suppose someone is in a disordered marriage with a joint lease and dependent offspring in the home. It may be practically unwise for a man in that situation to abandon the woman and children who depend on him for their protection and care. However he should still recognize the sin of a disordered marriage, obstain from sexual contact with the partner, confess and do penance, finally receive the Eucharist. On the churches part, we should neither excuse sin nor lean against the door of heaven to keep people out. That means when a sinner repents we receive them. If they have yet to repent we need to be the sort who persuade by our own acts of goodness. “Be ye perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect who causes His sun to shine and rain to fall on bothe the just and the unjust.”Amen! For those who do not trust the Church
To allow communion for those who are - please pay attention - known to be in grave sin damns them! Please, someone - anyone - explain how that is charity or “justice”?
An example: as a teenager I attended a church where there was a couple with a disordered marriage. I only discovered this when I went over once to visit their son. His dad was reading in his bedroom equipped with a twin sized mattress. Another peer asked how his parents could share such a small bed. Apparently before he was born his parents had married improperly and he was the fruit of that marriage. Since they had a shared responsibility to raise their son, they repented of their sin but continued to live together as brother and sister. No one that I know of excluded them or was hard on them in the life of that church. However, at some point before, they were not yet repentant. Someone must have been gracious enough to draw them into the church so they could learn of the need for repentance and be converted. If on the other hand all they heard was how unacceptable they were and not how worth saving, they might have rejected the gospel and yet be in their sin.
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Blue_Horizon
Guest
Maybe re-check my phrase “sub-topic.”
Yes, a slight deviation but if one is going to engage then one ought to engage on the terms given.
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Blue_Horizon
Guest
The Magisterium has never given me any reason to believe that Communion access (or not) is a litmus test for the presence of sanctifying grace (or not).
The same cannot be said of some of CAFs more outspoken contributors who seem to believe they are directly inspired by the Holy Spirit and they do not need any formal moral theology training to so confidently express their monolithic views.
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sudy
Guest
Romans 1:26-27 For this reason God gave them up to dishonourable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error
Haydock: Ver. 26. God delivered them up. Not by being author of their sins, but by withdrawing his grace, and so permitting them, in punishment of their pride, to fall into those shameful sins. (Challoner) Ver. 27. Receiving in themselves the recompense…due to their error. That is, were justly punished for their wilful blindness and error, by which they had worshipped and adored creatures, instead of the Creator, idols instead of the one true God. (Witham)
Matthew Henry: 1:26-32 In the horrid depravity of the heathen, the truth of our Lord’s words was shown: Light was come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil; for he that doeth evil hateth the light. The truth was not to their taste. And we all know how soon a man will contrive, against the strongest evidence, to reason himself out of the belief of what he dislikes. But a man cannot be brought to greater slavery than to be given up to his own lusts. As the Gentiles did not like to keep God in their knowledge, they committed crimes wholly against reason and their own welfare. The nature of man, whether pagan or Christian, is still the same; and the charges of the apostle apply more or less to the state and character of men at all times, till they are brought to full submission to the faith of Christ, and renewed by Divine power. There never yet was a man, who had not reason to lament his strong corruptions, and his secret dislike to the will of God. Therefore this chapter is a call to self-examination, the end of which should be, a deep conviction of sin, and of the necessity of deliverance from a state of condemnation.
1 Corinthians 6:9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals,
Haydock commentary: Ver. 8-11. Defraud…your brethren. That is, you still make yourselves much more guilty by the injustices done to one another: for the unjust, and all they who are guilty of such crimes as I have mentioned, shall not possess the kingdom of God. And some of you were guilty of part of them, which have been washed off by your conversion, and your baptism, when you were justified. (Witham) — And such some of you were. It is probable that this was added by the apostle, to soften his preceding words, lest he might seem to accuse all the Corinthians of each of these sins, and he likewise adds, such indeed you were, but now you are washed, &c. &c. (Estius; St. Thomas Aquinas)
Matthew Henry Commentary: 6:9-11 The Corinthians are warned against many great evils, of which they had formerly been guilty. There is much force in these inquiries, when we consider that they were addressed to a people puffed up with a fancy of their being above others in wisdom and knowledge. All unrighteousness is sin; all reigning sin, nay, every actual sin, committed with design, and not repented of, shuts out of the kingdom of heaven. Be not deceived. Men are very much inclined to flatter themselves that they may live in sin, yet die in Christ, and go to heaven. But we cannot hope to sow to the flesh, and reap everlasting life. They are reminded what a change the gospel and grace of God had made in them. The blood of Christ, and the washing of regeneration, can take away all guilt. Our justification is owing to the suffering and merit of Christ; our sanctification to the working of the Holy Spirit; but both go together. All who are made righteous in the sight of God, are made holy by the grace of God.
1355 In the communion, preceded by the Lord’s prayer and the breaking of the bread, the faithful receive “the bread of heaven” and “the cup of salvation,” the body and blood of Christ who offered himself “for the life of the world”:181
Because this bread and wine have been made Eucharist (“eucharisted,” according to an ancient expression), "we call this food Eucharist, and no one may take part in it unless he believes that what we teach is true, has received baptism for the forgiveness of sins and new birth, and lives in keeping with what Christ taught."182
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
Haydock: Ver. 26. God delivered them up. Not by being author of their sins, but by withdrawing his grace, and so permitting them, in punishment of their pride, to fall into those shameful sins. (Challoner) Ver. 27. Receiving in themselves the recompense…due to their error. That is, were justly punished for their wilful blindness and error, by which they had worshipped and adored creatures, instead of the Creator, idols instead of the one true God. (Witham)
Matthew Henry: 1:26-32 In the horrid depravity of the heathen, the truth of our Lord’s words was shown: Light was come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil; for he that doeth evil hateth the light. The truth was not to their taste. And we all know how soon a man will contrive, against the strongest evidence, to reason himself out of the belief of what he dislikes. But a man cannot be brought to greater slavery than to be given up to his own lusts. As the Gentiles did not like to keep God in their knowledge, they committed crimes wholly against reason and their own welfare. The nature of man, whether pagan or Christian, is still the same; and the charges of the apostle apply more or less to the state and character of men at all times, till they are brought to full submission to the faith of Christ, and renewed by Divine power. There never yet was a man, who had not reason to lament his strong corruptions, and his secret dislike to the will of God. Therefore this chapter is a call to self-examination, the end of which should be, a deep conviction of sin, and of the necessity of deliverance from a state of condemnation.
1 Corinthians 6:9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals,
Haydock commentary: Ver. 8-11. Defraud…your brethren. That is, you still make yourselves much more guilty by the injustices done to one another: for the unjust, and all they who are guilty of such crimes as I have mentioned, shall not possess the kingdom of God. And some of you were guilty of part of them, which have been washed off by your conversion, and your baptism, when you were justified. (Witham) — And such some of you were. It is probable that this was added by the apostle, to soften his preceding words, lest he might seem to accuse all the Corinthians of each of these sins, and he likewise adds, such indeed you were, but now you are washed, &c. &c. (Estius; St. Thomas Aquinas)
Matthew Henry Commentary: 6:9-11 The Corinthians are warned against many great evils, of which they had formerly been guilty. There is much force in these inquiries, when we consider that they were addressed to a people puffed up with a fancy of their being above others in wisdom and knowledge. All unrighteousness is sin; all reigning sin, nay, every actual sin, committed with design, and not repented of, shuts out of the kingdom of heaven. Be not deceived. Men are very much inclined to flatter themselves that they may live in sin, yet die in Christ, and go to heaven. But we cannot hope to sow to the flesh, and reap everlasting life. They are reminded what a change the gospel and grace of God had made in them. The blood of Christ, and the washing of regeneration, can take away all guilt. Our justification is owing to the suffering and merit of Christ; our sanctification to the working of the Holy Spirit; but both go together. All who are made righteous in the sight of God, are made holy by the grace of God.
1355 In the communion, preceded by the Lord’s prayer and the breaking of the bread, the faithful receive “the bread of heaven” and “the cup of salvation,” the body and blood of Christ who offered himself “for the life of the world”:181
Because this bread and wine have been made Eucharist (“eucharisted,” according to an ancient expression), "we call this food Eucharist, and no one may take part in it unless he believes that what we teach is true, has received baptism for the forgiveness of sins and new birth, and lives in keeping with what Christ taught."182
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
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Ender
Guest
Hardly. We have no obligation to assent to anyone’s prudential judgments. This example has nothing whatever in common with the situation of someone who chooses to act contrary to the moral principles the church has enunciated.
How do you make a prudential judgment about doctrine? How do you agree with a universal moral principle by asserting it does not apply to you? A practicing homosexual has rejected the doctrinal teaching of the church. There is no issue of prudential judgment involved. In such instances there is no argument that those who have placed themselves in that position may be allowed to receive communion.
Ender
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Ender
Guest
As I said before, however it is best translated, even you don’t believe it literally means “Thou shall not kill.”
Ender
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Rau
Guest
Noting post #77, perhaps BH is suggesting invincible ignorance on the part of the Catholic homosexual couple.
Reminds me of the discussion on another thread some time ago about whether a person finding his conscience at odds with doctrine (of which he’s fully aware) is free to act contrary to the demands of doctrine.
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Peter_J
Guest
Well depends which direction you’re talking about. What I mean is, someone who is in a state of mortal sin should not receive communion; but if someone isn’t in a state of mortal sin it does not necessarily follow that he or she should be admitted to communion.
In particular, anyone going against Catholic teaching should not receive communion (in a Catholic church I mean) whether or not they’re in a state of mortal sin.
This statement together with many others that I’ve read or heard over the years, suggests to me that many people have higher expectations for the Catholic Answers Forum than for other discussion forums.
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sudy
Guest
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Ender
Guest
Not exactly. What I realize is that you have a tendency to change the focus of a topic, and that the change is often from the relevant to the irrelevant-and-slightly-misleading. Like your insistence that the correct translation of the Fifth Commandment is “kill”, even though that is not its meaning.
The same is true with regard to committing mortal sin. It is the public commission of grave sins that causes communion to be withheld, not whether person A can know whether person B is actually culpable for that sin. Regarding SSM we know that a grave sin has been committed, and that is sufficient.
Ender
E
Ender
Guest
True, but (again) that’s not the issue. The issue would seem to be whether public behavior in a grave matter which is contrary to church doctrine should result in the withholding of communion. That is: does Canon 915 really matter or should it simply be ignored?
If formal, moral, theological training leads one to believe that so long as we do whatever we personally believe is right we are not culpable for our sins then it illustrates the truth of Orwell’s observation that some ideas are so absurd only an intellectual could believe them.
Ender
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ThundersnowIV
Guest
The CCC does not consider killing always an evil. It is not an evil if defending/protecting yourself or family. The same goes for enemy combatants. To unnecessarily during war is evil. In other words…the way ISIS kills non-ISIS followers.
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Mammoths
Guest
Not only that but it is generally accepted courtesy not to hijack another members thread. The issues blue heron wants to discuss are worth discussing in their own thread. It seems to me that the plain answer for my question has been covered. Here is the answer to this thread as I understand it:
Open practicing homosexuals don’t receive communion in a Catholic Church until they repent and receive the sacrement of reconciliation.
Pope Francis has not said or implied the contrary but has been misunderstood by some in the media. What he actually said means that persons in a disordered domestic union may need the churches help all the more in conversion. Therefore we need to be discerning and gracious about the practical difficulties.
I am disappointed about the way the discussion has gone. Had I known I would not have started it. All this posturing about who has the most extensive moral theological background to discern on the application of terms like kill, sin, grave sin, mortal sin, sanctifying grace, culpability, full knowledge and consent, etc has no bearing on the question at hand and doesn’t change the answer. The posturing is destructive and the sincere discussion of these topics would be beneficial in several threads of their own. If we were left to figure out what the churches position SHOULD BE on ssm we would have to understand all these things. However, all I really asked and all any of us is qualified to discuss as per forum rules is what the churches position IS–and that is laid out simply, clearly and accessibly. As far as catholic forum people being held at a higher standard then secular forums–absolutely if it’s a Christian forum. “You shall be holy as I Am holy,” says The Lord.
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Blue_Horizon
Guest
When you are able to respond rationally to what people actually say instead of just venting excess pressurised steam let’s take this further.
Hint: “…coming to a different prudential judgement while still agreeing on the universal moral principles.”
Your moral analysis continues to be hamstrung by your flawed view that prudential application of moral principles to concrete actual circumstances is but a trivial and amoral phase of a complete moral act.
Both Rau and Fr Ruggero have also indicated you may need to rethink your understanding here.
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Blue_Horizon
Guest
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