Social injustice - worst kind?

[East_and_West]

I see your references to homosexuality and I agree to a certain point. However, I feel like a hypocrite as I have a brother, whom I love very much, who is homosexual. He is not a blatant homosexual and would never dream of imposing his beliefs on my children. One of my children is old enough (18) to understand that his uncle is homosexual and accepts it. At the same time, he understands that this is not normal. He loves his uncle, though.
I have two smaller children who ask once in awhile why their uncle is not married, and I just explain that he has a very demanding job. They seem to accept that, but I know that one day they will know. I don’t think it’s right to impose this sort of information on a child until they are old enough to understand this. I am torn between the love I have for my brother and my personal beliefs about homosexuality in the church. He used to be very religious when he was younger and has stopped worshiping God because he feels rejected for his feelings. He tells me he resisted this for many, many years and even went to a psychiatrist. He says that he would never CHOOSE to be a homosexual; he just is. He says it is horrible to have to be overt about your sexual preferences for what people might think in a personal and professional arena. I see how this has affected my parents as well. They love their son but are torn… Would God really reject His own children?

I have struggled with same sex attraction for many years. In fact, I used to live the Gay life. But I do NOT delude myself into thinking that God wants me to engage in homosexual acts. I know that such behavior is not from him, nor is it in accord with his holy will.

 

[LCMS_No_More]

Yeah, the principles of the republican party are usually aligned with the teachings of the Church. Interesting, isn’t it?

Only to give the appearance that Republicans are for good morals and such. It’s like the snow-covered dung heaps Luther talked about. Love of money is the core principle of the Republican party (the dung). The issues that the Republican party flogs in order to gain Catholic and non-Catholic Christian votes (the snow) don’t cost the Republican party anything, but get them enourmous power.

My post was meant to be sarcasticm. Sorry your sarast-o-meter is broken.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Really? I think this is a modernist concept. There have been countless people throughout the ages that who have supported them selves without much of an education. I think education is great. But not everyone can or wants to live up to the demands of a good education and, yet these people support themselves none the less. It may be harder for them to do so, but that is a result of the choices that they have made.

What’s your point?

Clearly, education is a right – and all state constitutions say it is.

Clearly we are not educating many children.

Clearly, the children who are overwhelmingly not getting an education are in the poorest neighborhoods.

Clearly, these children grow up to be just like their parents – poor and dependent on society to feed, house and clothe them.

Clearly, they contribute little to helping other people.

Now, Social Justice is all about getting people out of fixes like this, making them self-supporting and positioning them so they can help the rest of us support those who truly can never support themselves.

Therefore failing to educate children is the double-whammy. We not only fail our duty to social justice, but we also do not add those children to the ranks of those who produce and contribute to help others.

 

[rpp]

This is a right posited by the state. It is not an inaliable right that is intrinsic to human nature. Justice does not require that we provide an excellent liberal arts education to all people.

Much as it annoys me (hey Vern: ) I am afraid I am going to have to side with Vern here. This is from the Catechism.

1911 Human interdependence is increasing and gradually spreading throughout the world. The unity of the human family, embracing people who enjoy equal natural dignity, implies a universal common good. This good calls for an organization of the community of nations able to “provide for the different needs of men; this will involve the sphere of social life to which belong questions of food, hygiene, education, . . . and certain situations arising here and there, as for example . . . alleviating the miseries of refugees dispersed throughout the world, and assisting migrants and their families.” 29

The ellipses after "education is in the original. The quote is from Gaudium et spes, from the Second Vatican Council. It reads.

Gaudium et spes 84 § 2
To reach this goal, organizations of the international community, for their part, must make provision for men’s different needs, both in the fields of social life-such as food supplies, health, education, labor and also in certain special circumstances which can crop up here and there, e.g., the need to promote the general improvement of developing countries, or to alleviate the distressing conditions in which refugees dispersed throughout the world find themselves, or also to assist migrants and their families.

I think it is significant that a magisterial document would put education right after food and health and before labor. And this is in the context of government’s social responsibility to it’s people, so the context is relevant to this discussion.

You may be able to claim that the Catechism is not infallible, but Gaudium et spes is infallible, being a document from an ecumenical council.

East and West, initially I agreed with you. However, in doing fact checking before posting, I came across these and had to change my mind. Oh well.

 

[ribozyme]

What’s your point?

Clearly, education is a right – and all state constitutions say it is.

Clearly we are not educating many children.

Clearly, the children who are overwhelmingly not getting an education are in the poorest neighborhoods.

Clearly, these children grow up to be just like their parents – poor and dependent on society to feed, house and clothe them.

Clearly, they contribute little to helping other people.

Now, Social Justice is all about getting people out of fixes like this, making them self-supporting and positioning them so they can help the rest of us support those who truly can never support themselves.

Therefore failing to educate children is the double-whammy. We not only fail our duty to social justice, but we also do not add those children to the ranks of those who produce and contribute to help others.

You are making too many generous assumptions. Some of those people are the dregs of the bell curve so they cannot help themselves and must be supported by the government.

 

[catharina]

You are making too many generous assumptions. Some of those people are the dregs of the bell curve so they cannot help themselves and must be supported by the government.

Hi, Mr. NegativeMan,
I suppose you know each by name -
those who are “the dregs of the bell curve?”

Seriously -
some deserve limitiations, so limit many to catch the few?

Wowser dowser, fella.

 

[vern_humphrey]

You are making too many generous assumptions. Some of those people are the dregs of the bell curve so they cannot help themselves and must be supported by the government.

Until you get a job and start producing and find out where you are on the bell curve, you might want to withhold judgement on other people’s shortcomings in this area.

 

[rpp]

Much as it annoys me (hey Vern: ) I am afraid I am going to have to side with Vern here.

Uh… Vern (and anyone else listening)? You know that I meant this is a good-natured way, right?

 

[vern_humphrey]

Uh… Vern (and anyone else listening)? You know that I meant this is a good-natured way, right?

Certainly. I didn’t even dispatch my usual team of assassins to hunt you down.

 

[catharina]

Until you get a job and start producing and find out where you are on the bell curve, you might want to withhold judgement on other people’s shortcomings in this area.

Ohhhhhhh.

Ribozyme is still a schoolkid?
That explains a lot.

 

[ribozyme]

Until you get a job and start producing and find out where you are on the bell curve, you might want to withhold judgement on other people’s shortcomings in this area.

How many studies have you read on this?

But these are NOT my judgments; they are the informed judgments of people such as Linda Gottfredson and Charles Murray.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Certainly. I didn’t even dispatch my usual team of assassins to hunt you down.

Good thing cuz I’m serving them for dinner. The illustrious Foreign Relations Brigade is coming over. First they get food. Then they get sprayed. Bwa-ha-ha.

 

[vern_humphrey]

How many studies have you read on this?

But these are NOT my judgments; they are the informed judgments of people such as Linda Gottfredson and Charles Murray.

How much personal, hands-on experience do you have in education and training - from the provider’s side, not the receiver’s?

 

[pnewton]

First, I think it is noteworthy that no one has mentioned racism yet. This is a good sign. Second, it was good to see abortion as most people’s first choice.

When I see the question, I like to get beyond the politics. Most injustice occurs one on one, or on the community level. I have to say that poor treatment of the mental handicapped is right up there in my book as one of our greater problems. Likewise, social stratification where the poor are considered of less worth. I am reminded of the line from Fiddler on the Roof that even a poor tailor is entitled to some hapiness. The troubling thing is that when I think of the worse social injustices, I always think of things that I struggle with or have struggled with. Justice begins at home.

 

[vern_humphrey]

First, I think it is noteworthy that no one has mentioned racism yet. This is a good sign. Second, it was good to see abortion as most people’s first choice.

When I see the question, I like to get beyond the politics. Most injustice occurs one on one, or on the community level. I have to say that poor treatment of the mental handicapped is right up there in my book as one of our greater problems. Likewise, social stratification where the poor are considered of less worth. I am reminded of the line from Fiddler on the Roof that even a poor tailor is entitled to some hapiness. The troubling thing is that when I think of the worse social injustices, I always think of things that I struggle with or have struggled with. Justice begins at home.

Indeed it does – but to get people out of the situation we have created for them, we must work together. (That’s why it’s called “Social Justice” and not “Individual Justice.”

And despite the sneering and – dare I say, racism – quality education for the children of the poor is the only hope we have.

 

[pnewton]

And despite the sneering and – dare I say, racism – quality education for the children of the poor is the only hope we have.

Spoken like a true educator. I couldn’t agree more.

 

[hasikelee]

The level and kind of education the last several generations has received…

Otherwise these indoctrinated masses wouldn’t be committing the boring social injustices that get repeated in every chapter of history…

Once the kids are being trained, we might as well count ourselves as the next “empire” to go out the door. Social injustices are just a symptom.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You are making too many generous assumptions. Some of those people are the dregs of the bell curve so they cannot help themselves and must be supported by the government.

Being near the bottom of the Bell Curve in some sense does not make one inherently unproductive. I have known many people who would be far enough down on that spectrum to be properly labeled “retarded”, yet are quite productive at simple, repetitive jobs, and at regular, albeit modest, wages. I know one lady who not only has a borderline IQ and an eighth grade education, but was also born with only one hand. She is completely self-supporting as an industrial worker.

There are not all that many people who cannot help themselves. There are lots of them who won’t, because, one way or another, they perceive, usually correctly, that they can live off others. Unfortunately, the latter all too frequently absorb the resources that should be going to the former.

 

[vern_humphrey]

There are not all that many people who cannot help themselves. There are lots of them who won’t, because, one way or another, they perceive, usually correctly, that they can live off others. Unfortunately, the latter all too frequently absorb the resources that should be going to the former.

Exactly!

 

[AndyF]

No

I am sorry if I am not understanding you, but are you saying that abortion is for the “common good”?

Society, as a fallible entity subject to God’s laws and “theoretically” bound to the Word defines what it wills since there is no institution with substance on earth that has the courage to voice an objection against it. So yes, it defines abortion has a common good if it enacts such laws. As a rule Society doesn’t exact laws for common evil, and societal discernment on what it should do can only come from examination with the Word and consultation with the Church.

So right now, while society feels it has the licence to go it alone in flaunting God given moral code in it’s decision making , evidence the Church’s unwilligness to take a forceful stance, ie: beyond the reprimand/knuckle wrapping stage we are familiar with in the matter. The correct response to it calls for courage and it should be handled no less than an individual be handled in the same case.

An individual going to confession and states he believes it is OK to abort babies and that he will continue to do so and claims the authority to do so, and now wishes sanction for his act would be in for a surprise, as he will automatically be refused absolution. Neither would the cleric feel it necessary to visit his home nor carry on amiable business as usual, as by the Word he needs to distance himself from him. In other words the Church has an entity needs to distance itself from the societal entity in the wrong. Until we see collectives in the wrong being handled like individuals in the wrong by the Church, we can never hope for change.

So we can be assured by the Church’s behaviour, that individuals will continue to receive the brunt of that force in the form of excommunication and refused absolution, something it’s partner the favored society will never see.

I think Catholics would like to see society handled with the same standard as individuals for once.

AndyF