Now correct me if I am wrong… but did you just subtly equate your dissenting position on homosexual marriage and how you choose to argue your point to Our Lord’s betrayal?
I surely hope not.
I have to point out that your tone in this thread continues to suggest an air of pride. You say you “respect” the Church’s position on this subject but I am sorry obedience is everything… of course unless the hierarchy as a whole is doing “sinful” things…which in this case you causing scandal by announcing your dissenting opinion is more sinful.
What I was suggesting is that Grace and Marc were using character assasination rather than intelligent argument.
If discourse is scandal, then the Church is in a sad place. The previous Pope stated that there are topics which cannot be discussed. That flies in the face of God-given intellect. Some posters on this forum seem to believe that Truth = whatever comes out of the mouth of the hierarchy. That’s not the tradition of the Church. You can go back as far as Acts of the Apostes to see that important decisions were made through discussion, argument. Vatican I proclaimed Papal infallibility under extremely constrained circumstances which has been used exactly once, yet Catholics want to give over their intellects in everything and rest idle in the assurrance that all they must do is obey.
Sorry, but You are a part of this institution, and you bear responsibility for it too.
You have an obligation to know the scriptures and the traditions on the basis of which we make decisions, You have an obligation to use all of the means at your disposal to grow in your understanding of the scriptures and traditions, and you have an obligation to set out the arguments in a thoughtful - not just a knee-jerk- way, not only for the sake of those who call themselves members of this church, but also for the sake of those who are not. Jesus gave all of us the commission to make disciples of everybody and teach them to follow his commandments (especially the one about loving one another- which he placed near the top of the list.)
A Pope who squelches discussion is committing a grave sin, for it has been through such discussions that the Holy Spirit has led the Church. Now, I’ll drop my cause if the new Pope reveals that he has a red phone (or maybe in his case, a white one) with a direct line to heaven. Jesus’ promise of indefectibility wasn’t made to Peter, but to the Church as a whole, and there have been many times when the leadership has gone astray, but the body has brought them back to God’s way. Even if you want to say the keys were handed to Peter, He wasn’t told to use them apart from the body of the Church, and it is only in recent times that two things seem to have come together: the wide=spread higher education of Catholics with easy access to information and the laziness that prompts those same Catholics to fail to use what God has provided. No wonder this church is losing members! No wonder non-Catholics look at the Catholic Church as irrelevant!
So, if you want to call it pride that motivates me, go ahead, but I feel an obligation to keep the discussion going, even if in the end I am proved wrong. Thusfar I have found myself challenged to think, and search through my knowledge of scripture and tradition to find arguments. I believe that’s a good thing. I have been forced to present my views in a way that responds to the views held by others who do not agree with me. That is an exercise in what I think the Church should always be doing, rather than setting up walls of proclamation that make no sense to people and enforcing silence.