Cardinal Dolan - Explaining My Decision to Serve as Grand Marshal

[Path_Finder]

St. Catherine was not in this situation and we have no way of knowing what she would think of it. She gets thrown into this sort of discussion a lot, even though her life seldom applies. From all I have read, she was polite and low key with her advice, offering advice and persuasion, not defiance and public skewering.

She is both a Saint and a Doctor of the Church. However, there is not indication that this was based in anyway upon anything other than her life of holiness, spirituality and her insightful writing. She is one of two people who have been used as an excuse for all sort of disobedience to Church authority. I do not think this honors her true example of sanctity to us.

That seems very well said. Thanks for adding this to the conversation.

 

[Path_Finder]

Breaks what rule - one banner.

Again, everything they espouse is already on their websites for every catholic in the world to see. Please spend some time and scroll to the bottom of their facebook page.

Three gay marriage stories from three different states , each showing a gay couple getting married is not a problem. This is their facebook page.

Another story, two men experiencing the birth of their first child is not a problem?

facebook.com/OUTNBCUniversal

twitter.com/hashtag/prideNBCU?src=ha

Thank you for the response, undoubtedly what you state is morally wrong. It’s a complex situation which I will study.

If I could vote for participating in the parade or voting against it, I would vote against it. I did find the Cardinal’s statement compelling though.

 

[WilT]

When you mix Church and State things like this are bound to happen. My understanding is that this Irish (Catholic) parade is run by non-believers and by city officers. The time well shared together is becoming over.

 

[WilT]

Even within our Faith we get things wrong. We take down crosses in classrooms and halls in many Catholic institutions. We can’t seem to get things down right.

 

[twoshoes]

When you mix Church and State things like this are bound to happen. My understanding is that this Irish (Catholic) parade is run by non-believers and by city officers. The time well shared together is becoming over.

Maybe it’s time to take the Church and it’s name out of the parade and call it the Irish parade. No church involvement at all. A member of the Church Clergy does not need to be involved in the blurring the line of sin to give comfort to sin. Any sex outside of marriage in the Church is a sin and does not need to be given comfort or passive acceptance by Catholics Clergy, it only bring confusion and scandal to the Church. It is the duty of a sinner to reconcile his sins with God, not the Churches responsibility to weaken Gods requirements for a make believe salvation. We seem to want our sin and salvation on our terms not Gods.

Since the sixties, we have been dancing around the pinhead of sin, especially sins of the flesh. Look at what it has brought us, abortion, porn, sex trafficking, children having children, one parent families, adultery, the breakdown of the family, the scandal in the Church which will take decades to over come. How many Souls have been lost to God. I take no comfort in my sins, only sorrow for the pain Jesus suffered for me, and I certainly do not parade my sin to glorify it. We seem to apologize for calling what is sinful a sin instead of exposing it as sinful. I like my devil loud not as a snake coming quietly in the night. This seems to me to be another step down the wrong path.

 

[zz912]

St. Catherine was not in this situation and we have no way of knowing what she would think of it. She gets thrown into this sort of discussion a lot, even though her life seldom applies. From all I have read, she was polite and low key with her advice, offering advice and persuasion, not defiance and public skewering.

She is both a Saint and a Doctor of the Church. However, there is not indication that this was based in anyway upon anything other than her life of holiness, spirituality and her insightful writing. She is one of two people who have been used as an excuse for all sort of disobedience to Church authority. I do not think this honors her true example of sanctity to us.

She was polite but she was also to the point. She exhorted the Pope to be a man of God and to fulfill his duties instead of shirking them.

So take a lesson from the true father and shepherd. For you see that now is the time to give your life for the little sheep who have left the flock. You must seek and win them back by using patience and war—by war I mean by raising the standard of the sweet blazing cross and setting out against the unbelievers. So you must sleep no longer, but wake up and raise that standard courageously. I am confident that by God’s measureless goodness you will win back the unbelievers and [at the same time] correct the wrongdoing of Christians, because everyone will come running to the fragrance of the cross, even those who have rebelled against you most.

Up, father! Put into effect the resolution you have made concerning your return and the crusade. You can see that the unbelievers are challenging you to this by coming as close as they can to take what is yours. Up, to give your life for Christ! Isn’t our body the only thing we have? Why not give your life a thousand times, if necessary, for God’s honor and the salvation of his creatures? That is what he did, and you, his vicar, ought to be carrying on his work. It is to be expected that as long as you are his vicar you will follow your Lord’s ways and example.

 

[zz912]

Maybe it’s time to take the Church and it’s name out of the parade and call it the Irish parade. No church involvement at all. A member of the Church Clergy does not need to be involved in the blurring the line of sin to give comfort to sin. Any sex outside of marriage in the Church is a sin and does not need to be given comfort or passive acceptance by Catholics Clergy, it only bring confusion and scandal to the Church. It is the duty of a sinner to reconcile his sins with God, not the Churches responsibility to weaken Gods requirements for a make believe salvation. We seem to want our sin and salvation on our terms not Gods.

Since the sixties, we have been dancing around the pinhead of sin, especially sins of the flesh. Look at what it has brought us, abortion, porn, sex trafficking, children having children, one parent families, adultery, the breakdown of the family, the scandal in the Church which will take decades to over come. How many Souls have been lost to God. I take no comfort in my sins, only sorrow for the pain Jesus suffered for me, and I certainly do not parade my sin to glorify it. We seem to apologize for calling what is sinful a sin instead of exposing it as sinful. I like my devil loud not as a snake coming quietly in the night. This seems to me to be another step down the wrong path.

 

[estesbob]

Maybe it’s time to take the Church and it’s name out of the parade and call it the Irish parade. No church involvement at all. A member of the Church Clergy does not need to be involved in the blurring the line of sin to give comfort to sin. Any sex outside of marriage in the Church is a sin and does not need to be given comfort or passive acceptance by Catholics Clergy, it only bring confusion and scandal to the Church. It is the duty of a sinner to reconcile his sins with God, not the Churches responsibility to weaken Gods requirements for a make believe salvation. We seem to want our sin and salvation on our terms not Gods.

Since the sixties, we have been dancing around the pinhead of sin, especially sins of the flesh. Look at what it has brought us, abortion, porn, sex trafficking, children having children, one parent families, adultery, the breakdown of the family, the scandal in the Church which will take decades to over come. How many Souls have been lost to God. I take no comfort in my sins, only sorrow for the pain Jesus suffered for me, and I certainly do not parade my sin to glorify it. We seem to apologize for calling what is sinful a sin instead of exposing it as sinful. I like my devil loud not as a snake coming quietly in the night. This seems to me to be another step down the wrong path.

I think there is a good possibility this is the last time the Church will officially participate in this parade.

 

[Tigg]

^^ We can only hope!

 

[SirStephen]

MODERATOR NOTICE

Too many people here have sat in judgement of the cardinal without full knowledge. Remember the forum rules about attacking a catholic clergyman before you post. If you ignore the rule, your account will be suspended without prior warning.

Yes, I get this point.

I get the unilateral nature of it.

I get they hyper-reactivity of it.

As if what has to be said in the most appropriate terms will get someone booted for lack of decorum even though true and valid. Would St. Nicholas be booted from this forum?

It’s the unbalanced way I’ve seen this enforced in this forum that has caused my participation to so markedly declined. Its the minders as well. Free exchange so long as its not intense as some faith-based observations might be.

What is going on with the Cardinal is clear for all to see and sometimes needs heavy doses of relativist moral theology to obscure. Got it!

What of those whose objections can be argued from biblical, Church Councils, and Canon Law as always interpreted to counter what is clearly a walk down the path of relativism that everyone loves to condemn in the abstract?

I am only posting here because its been brought to my attention that Voris has hung the silence on this issue around the necks of the Catholic media and blogosphere - including CA and CAF - and it demands an answer. Not because Voris said it but because it is risibly out there. The nature of the questions and the substance behind their being stated demand a real substantive answer that goes beyond the ad hominem. The failure to answer endorses his claim. So will the wrong answer.

In this regard, I don’t have to endorse Voris to recognize that this is an issue that is actually simple, demands an answer, and puts the credibility of respondents on the record and on the line.

 

[SirStephen]

Maybe because he was a close associate of Cardinal Ratzinger, but as it relates to this particular thread, I think it necessary to seriously ponder the observations of the German Philosopher Josef Pieper in his Abuse of Language – Abuse of Power, 1974, (22, 29-30, 34) -

The very moment, as I have stated, that someone in full awareness employs words yet explicitly disregards reality, he in fact ceases to communicate anything to the other. This the reader may more or less have accepted. But an instrument of power? Is this not too strong and too overbearing an expression? It really implies that from one moment to the next the human relationship between the speaker and the listener changes. … Whoever speaks to another person – not simply; we presume, in spontaneous conversation but using well-considered words, and whoever in doing so is explicitly not committed to the truth – whoever, in other words, is in this guided by something other than the truth – such a person, from that moment on, no longer considers the other as partner, as equal. In fact, he no longer respects the other as a human person. From that moment on, to be precise, all conversation ceases; all dialogue and all communication come to an end.

Wherever the main purpose of speech is flattery, there the word becomes corrupted, and necessarily so. And instead of genuine communication, there will exist something for which dominion is too benign a term; … Yes, indeed: there are on the one side a pseudoauthority, not legitimized by any form of superiority, and on the other a state of mental bondage. …] The … accomplished art of flattery [is a] deceptive mirage of the political process, that is, the counterfeit usurpation of power, a power that belongs to the legitimate political authority alone.

“The sophists”, he [Plato] says, “fabricate a fictitious reality.” That the existential realm of man could be taken over by pseudorealities whose fictitious nature threatens to become indiscernible is truly a depressing thought. And yet, the Platonic nightmare, I hold, possesses an alarming contemporary relevance. For the general public is being reduced to a state where people are not only unable to find out about the truth but also become unable even to search for the truth because they are satisfied with deception and trickery that have determined their convictions, satisfied with a fictitious reality created by design through the abuse of language.

 

[Marie5890]

She was polite but she was also to the point. She exhorted the Pope to be a man of God and to fulfill his duties instead of shirking them.

So take a lesson from the true father and shepherd. For you see that now is the time to give your life for the little sheep who have left the flock. You must seek and win them back by using patience and war—by war I mean by raising the standard of the sweet blazing cross and setting out against the unbelievers. So you must sleep no longer, but wake up and raise that standard courageously. I am confident that by God’s measureless goodness you will win back the unbelievers and [at the same time] correct the wrongdoing of Christians, because everyone will come running to the fragrance of the cross, even those who have rebelled against you most.

Up, father! Put into effect the resolution you have made concerning your return and the crusade. You can see that the unbelievers are challenging you to this by coming as close as they can to take what is yours. Up, to give your life for Christ! Isn’t our body the only thing we have? Why not give your life a thousand times, if necessary, for God’s honor and the salvation of his creatures? That is what he did, and you, his vicar, ought to be carrying on his work. It is to be expected that as long as you are his vicar you will follow your Lord’s ways and example.

But it’s important to remember **she did it in private. It was NOT done in a public forum. **

 

[Marie5890]

St. Catherine was not in this situation and we have no way of knowing what she would think of it. She gets thrown into this sort of discussion a lot, even though her life seldom applies. From all I have read, she was polite and low key with her advice, offering advice and persuasion, not defiance and public skewering.

She is both a Saint and a Doctor of the Church. However, there is not indication that this was based in anyway upon anything other than her life of holiness, spirituality and her insightful writing. She is one of two people who have been used as an excuse for all sort of disobedience to Church authority. I do not think this honors her true example of sanctity to us.

Thank you for this reminder.

What she did, she did not do in a public way.

 

[WilT]

While I agree, I would point out that the Catholic Church has no position on the innate nature of homosexuality. This would be a matter of science and the verdict is not in…

Sure it has a position. Here it is straight from the CCC.
CCC on HOMOSEXUALITY

Catechism on Homosexuality

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (English edition 1994)

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 [1], tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered [2].” 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 circumstance can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. [They do not choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is a trial.] 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.

note: bold text substituted for bracketed text on 8 September 1997 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, successor to the Holy Inquisition

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.

It seems quite clear to me and billion of other Catholics.

 

[pnewton]

She was polite but she was also to the point. She exhorted the Pope to be a man of God and to fulfill his duties instead of shirking them.

I see two differences. First, there is a distinct lack of politeness and propriety in the criticisms Cardinal Dolan is receiving. Second, Cardinal Dolan is not shirking any duties to God. He made a decision that he though best in an area in which sin is not the issue. Parades are not sinful. Neither walking or riding is sinful. He did not condone homosexual activity. He is taking the correct doctrinal approach that homosexual identity is not sinful.

 

[WilT]

Maybe it’s time to take the Church and it’s name out of the parade and call it the Irish parade. No church involvement at all. A member of the Church Clergy does not need to be involved in the blurring the line of sin to give comfort to sin…
I certainly do not parade my sin to glorify it. We seem to apologize for calling what is sinful a sin instead of exposing it as sinful. I like my devil loud not as a snake coming quietly in the night. This seems to me to be another step down the wrong path.

 

[pnewton]

Yes, I get this point.

I get the unilateral nature of it.

I get they hyper-reactivity of it.

As if what has to be said in the most appropriate terms will get someone booted for lack of decorum even though true and valid. Would St. Nicholas be booted from this forum?
.

The difference, unlike Voris’ business, this is a Catholic apostolate. It’s money, again unlike Michael Voris’ business, will not be allowed to promote the sins of slander and rash judgment. I listened to his tirade on this topic and found it to be very unlike Christ, devoid of charity and very brazen, in that he elevates his own opinion and judgment to a level humility should preclude.

 

[pnewton]

Sure it has a position. Here it is straight from the CCC.
CCC on HOMOSEXUALITY

Catechism on Homosexuality

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (English edition 1994)

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..

Exactly. This bolded is the point I was making.

 

[WilT]

Exactly. This bolded is the point I was making.

Yet the verdict is in for the Catholic Church. Homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered for whatever physio or psychological reasons it may have. Read the whole text. The decision has already been made.

 

[Tomdstone]

While I agree, I would point out that the Catholic Church has no position on the innate nature of homosexuality.

“…homosexual orientation is an objective disorder … and evokes moral concern.”
See:
vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19920724_homosexual-persons_en.html