…the problem of encouraging people to conform to the right standards and of making standards conform to people.
is a
way oversimplification. It also provides a hiding place for lack of finesse. You see, it makes a dualistic choice out of what in actuality is a more broadly dimensioned dynamic. It also is a remnant from Zoroastrian religious thought as adopted into the morphing Church and conforms with the lowest level of logic outside of pure egoism or narcissism who’s one value is “ME.” And unfortunately, this two valued logic is what most fundamentalism is based on, Catholic or otherwise.
Similarly to the
sic et nonof homosexual/not homosexual assessment that denies the continuum of gender tones, including the hermaphroditic, the Good Bishop, whom I very much enjoyed watching at that time, is favoring a black vs white interpretation of morality as
you apply it here. And because this is generally misunderstood, Christians also lack a major defense of the
sic et non contradictions in the Bible and teaching. And by applying the good Bishop’s rubric here, you distort the matter at question. You are also making some assumptions that we all make when holding forth for our position.
First, you are assuming that you know what a right standard
is in this case. You have to remember that most likely you adopt your standard as part of accepting at some point in your life and enforcing by repetition a third party morality. In other words, you and others who hold your type of opinion didn’t invent the RC Church, you accepted, full blown or nearly, someone else’s invention of it over 2K years of momentum.
Second, the quote above fails to distinguish between contradictories and contraries. Sometimes, as is clear both in counseling and in jurisprudence, the standards
must be adapted to the individual circumstance or bureaucratic fascism ensues. (hmmm…)
Third, I’m guessing that you are standing where you are as an intellectual exercises as distinct from having come to your conclusion through experience with friends, family, or neighbors who are themselves homosexual. We, as humans, tend to be xenophobic, the position of moralizing on behalf of a sub-group being a manifestation of this. We need only think of the Inquisition, witch hunts, and missionary-ism by any faction to conclude that we are guilty of this mind set as a group.
Fourth, it is possible that in his speaking this dictum Archbishop Sheen was addressing a specific instance which as is very and too commonly done, you have abstracted and distributed over a much broader issue.
We can go further with this, but since many people don’t have the mental tools to see beyond dualities, and therefore live in a funda-mentalist view of religion, that’s all for now.