Please help Australian Catholics

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He has via his Bishops in Australia. We are to vote no. Marriage between a man and a woman is Doctrine which means no man on earth has the power to change that.
 
It doesn’t appear that all the Bishops of Australia are speaking with one voice on this, so I do not see a clear position from the Pope “through his bishops” on the voting question, although it is clear that in the Catholic Church, the sacrament of marriage will continue to be between one man and one woman, only. Which, like I said, Fr. Brennan is also not disputing.

https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2017/09/17/australian-bishop-sex-marriage-listen-signs-times/
 
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Doesn’t matter…it’s a Doctrine which can never be changed by any man. Any Catholic who votes YES to same sex marriage is uncatholic and directly challenging Christ. We are all responsible for our own salvation, clergy included.

You didn’t reply to my question, does the Pope support same sex marriage?
 
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I mean no hostility asking this, but I would like to ask an Australian Catholic a question.

Do you not think the Catholic Church in Australia campaigning for NO is going to do more harm to NO than good? I know in Ireland when the NO campaign began to fire up there were many voters at the time during the TV debate that highlighted the “hypocrisy” of the Church in this area, that after the sex scandals how dare they claim to have any moral authority to speak on matters of sexuality. I recall one woman that stuck in my mind interviewed on a late night show who actually claimed “I hate faggots, buggery is disgusting; but if those child molesting XXXXXXXXX are against it I’m all for it!”

Considering the legacy of Cardinal Pell etc, do you not fear your involvement on an official level will do more harm than good in Australia? I really couldn’t comment on the depth of feeling there on this issue, in Ireland hostility to Catholicism while not a leading factor did have some influence in regards to both Catholic and non-Catholic individuals who might have otherwise voted NO.
 
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What kind of harm are you talking about? It doesn’t bother me what people think about the Catholic Church. If people are going to vote YES based solely on their hatred, suspicion or mistrust of the Church that’s on them. If they are going to be so narrow minded as to judge an institution based on the actions of less than 1% of the clergy that’s their business.

They may as well vote YES because teachers vote YES after all a higher % of teachers abuse children worldwide. Cardinal Pell hasn’t been found guilty of anything. Lots of rumours and stories but he hasn’t been tried and found guilty in a court of law.
 
SAVINGRACE said:
You didn’t reply to my question, does the Pope support same sex marriage?
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The Pope clearly does not support same-sex sacramental marriage in the Catholic Church. However, your entire thread is not about marriage in the Church. it’s about civil same-sex marriage. I asked if the Pope had expressed a position on this, stating that I honestly did not know.

Has the Pope made any statement on civil (as opposed to sacramental, in the Church) same-sex marriage initiatives in Australia or other parts of the world?
Google searching this brings up conflicting viewpoints and unreliable sites. Some say he does not object to it or even approves of it in the civil context. Others say different things.
As the Pope does not have authority in civil matters, this would be the Pope just giving his opinion of a state matter, but I figured someone on this site would know if he had said anything definitive.
i do not seem to be getting a response here to this, and we are going in circles. If I knew the answer to your question as regards the topic of the thread (civil marriage), I would have answered it.

Good day.
 
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It is widely known that when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, Pope Francis (then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio) was publicly critical of the government’s push to legalize homosexual “marriage,” but privately signaled he would be willing to live with civil unions as a compromise measure.

Last month in a new book-length interview, the Pope reiterated his strong opposition to same-sex “marriage,” but recommends using the term “civil unions” instead.

“Let us call things by their names. Matrimony is between a man and a woman. This is the precise term. Let us call the same-sex union a ‘civil union,’” he said.

Pope Francis made the comment during more than a dozen conversations with French journalist Dominique Wolton, who published the Pope’s words in a 432-page book titled Politics and Society. It was published in French on Wednesday. The Catholic Church teaches that since homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered,” Catholics cannot approve of same-sex civil unions.

We already have civil unions in Australia, the gay community has all the rights of a married couple. The current vote is to redefine the word “marriage”.
 
Thank you, then you answered your own question and you didn’t really need me to answer it.

I can appreciate why the Pope would favor “civil unions”. I used to also; however from a legal perspective, they cause a big problem in some countries by requiring the creation of an entire new body of law basically paralleling marriage law, just for the sake of changing a word, when you’re not really changing the legal status of what you’re trying to do.
This varies country to country, as some countries already have well-established civil-union-type laws for people who are in long-term relationships but do not choose to get legally married…still that’s not quite the same thing.

All in all, it’s a problem for the legal system and the state to solve.

I will pray that God guides Australians to do what will ultimately lead to the best result for all.

Have a nice weekend!
 
Verdanty said:
I mean no hostility asking this, but I would like to ask an Australian Catholic a question.
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Thank you.
Verdanty said:
Do you not think the Catholic Church in Australia campaigning for NO is going to do more harm to NO than good?
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I don’t know, but when society is making a grave mistake in this regard, and we are supposed to know better as Catholics, then we have a duty to say something. If they don’t listen and go down this path regardless, then the fault rests entirely with them.

What is shameful and treacherous, is when you have Catholics who claim to believe one thing (even priests), yet vote and advocate the total opposite.
Ezekiel 3:18-19
18 If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. 19 But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you will have saved your life.
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Verdanty said:
I know in Ireland when the NO campaign began to fire up there were many voters at the time during the TV debate that highlighted the “hypocrisy” of the Church in this area
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I completely agree with SAVINGRACE here -
SAVINGRACE said:
If people are going to vote YES based solely on their hatred, suspicion or mistrust of the Church that’s on them. If they are going to be so narrow minded as to judge an institution based on the actions of less than 1% of the clergy that’s their business.

They may as well vote YES because teachers vote YES after all a higher % of teachers abuse children worldwide. Cardinal Pell hasn’t been found guilty of anything. Lots of rumours and stories but he hasn’t been tried and found guilty in a court of law.
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Thank you for reading
Josh
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
We can’t create civil institutions with a bunch of civil legal rights attached to them, and then make them available only to adherents of one faith or even a group of particular faiths. When we do things like that, we are like the oppressive Muslim countries.
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So many fallacies in this.

We did not create civil institutions only available to adherents of one faith or group of particular faiths. Any man of age can marry any woman of age and vice versa, we recognize basic biological reality, we know only a man and a woman can create new life, we know that children are best raised with their loving biological mother and father. It is incumbent on society to encourage the union of biological mother and father and to the children they produce together, this is at the very foundation of society, and as marriage and family fall apart, so does the rest of society.

Catechism of the Catholic Church
II. THE FAMILY AND SOCIETY
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a4.htm

Please continue to next post -
 
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/benjamin-wiker/benedict-vs.-the-dictatorship-of-relativism
In his homily to the 2005 conclave that would soon choose him as the successor of Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger warned those attending, “We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.”

This is a warning that Pope Benedict has not tired of repeating during his pontificate.

Relativism is a poison. It attacks our most human capacity, the capacity to seek and know the truth, including the moral truth. A dictatorship of relativism imposes by real cultural force (and even by political force) a no-standard standard, a command that all must imbibe this poison.

At first blush, it would seem contradictory to have relativism united to dictatorship. Isn’t relativism just a healthy dose of humility, a way to cool the intellectual or religious hot-head who insists, “I, only I, have the truth”?

The proof of the pudding of relativism is in the eating. How has it fared?

“In recent years I find myself noting,” Cardinal Ratzinger said in his Without Roots, “how the more relativism becomes the generally accepted way of thinking, the more it tends toward intolerance. Political correctness … seeks to establish the domain of a single way of thinking and speaking. Its relativism creates the illusion that it has reached greater heights than the loftiest philosophical achievements of the past. It presents itself as the only way to think and speak — if, that is, one wishes to stay in fashion. … I think it is vital that we oppose this imposition of a new pseudo-enlightenment, which threatens freedom of thought as well as freedom of religion.”

That last point is key. While appearing to be the very essence of neutrality and equity — “all views are equal and equally valid” — it actually undermines both the freedom of thought and the freedom of religion. As to the latter, it does so (ironically) as a new religion itself, “a new ‘denomination’ that places restrictions on religious convictions and seeks to subordinate all religions to the super-dogma of relativism.”

As Cardinal Ratzinger noted in his Truth and Tolerance, “relativism … in certain respects has become the real religion of modern man.” It has become, especially in Europe, but now increasingly in America, the religion that stands at the heart of modern secular civilization in the way that Christianity defined the heart of Christendom.

It is the religion, Pope Benedict insists, which the Church must combat in the third millennium for the sake of civilization itself. A civilization built upon dogmatic relativism is one that ensures its own destruction. It is also a civilization in which Christianity — challenging dogmatic relativism with the proclamation that Jesus Christ himself is the Way, the Truth and the Life — must be persecuted.
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Thank you for reading
Josh
 
josh987654321 said:
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Tis_Bearself:
We can’t create civil institutions with a bunch of civil legal rights attached to them, and then make them available only to adherents of one faith or even a group of particular faiths. When we do things like that, we are like the oppressive Muslim countries.
Click to expand...
So many fallacies in this.

We did not create civil institutions only available to adherents of one faith or group of particular faiths. Any man of age can marry any woman of age and vice versa, we recognize basic biological reality, we know only a man and a woman can create new life, we know that children are best raised with their loving biological mother and father. It is incumbent on society to encourage the union of biological mother and father and to the children they produce together, this is at the very foundation of society, and as marriage and family fall apart, so does the rest of society.
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No matter what how often you say it or how loud you shout it, civil unions and civil marriage are not equal.

A failed experiment’: Why civil unions are no substitute for marriage equality

While a civil union provides many of the same protections that a marriage offers to both same-sex and heterosexual couples, the biggest difference between a civil union and a marriage is the fact that these protections are only recognized where the union takes place and won’t be recognized when you cross national borders.
 
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SAVINGRACE said:
I have emailed his Bishop
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You have emailed the wrong person. He doesn’t have a bishop. As a Jesuit, you have to email his superior, or the Superior-General of the Jesuits.

Jesuits are an institue of Pontifical, and not Diocesan, right, they don’t fall under the authority of the local bishop but under the authority of their provincial superior. The bishop cannot discipline him. The best he can do is complain to his superior, with whom ultimately any disciplinary authority resides.
 
Numerous Muslims disagree. Doesn’t that make you islamophobic and racist by your own standards?
josh987654321 said:
ncregister.com

Benedict vs. the Dictatorship of Relativism

In his homily to the 2005 conclave that would soon choose him as the successor of Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger warned tho…
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Man, you are on FIRE!
 
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Perhaps the best that can happen after this pontificate ends is for the new Pope to take the name Clement XV, canonize Clement XIV, and do what Clements do best. This time, perhaps, permanently.
 
  1. Stop making cheap excuses and twisted logic that nobody buys
  2. Take up your cross and defend the family.
 
I’m sorry that having a discussion seems to bring out the side of you that likes to give orders.
It’s not a very persuasive strategy among adults.

Edited to add, like I said earlier, it’s actually more of a “cross” to take up a position that is definitely not popular on this board, whether it’s about gay marriage, women priests, or anything else, than it would be for me to just go along with “the crowd”.

God bless
 
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Eh, now you’re just issuing personal attacks for no good reason. Best to stop at this point. I’ll be sure to say an extra prayer for us both and for Australia at the 40 hours devotion tonight.
 
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