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RoderickA
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Dakota helped me with the links provided you. I was looking for a succinct and concise statement by the pope, that didn’t attack, while also expressing love for the individual. No small task, I fully understand. But within the text of the first link I found this:
“The human person, made in the image and likeness of God, can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation. Every one living on the face of the earth has personal problems and difficulties, but challenges to growth, strengths, talents and gifts as well. Today, the Church provides a badly needed context for the care of the human person when she refuses to consider the person as a “heterosexual” or a “homosexual” and insists that every person has a fundamental Identity: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life.”
I used it in my response to an individual who was attacking the pope on a wide range of issues following an article (at the link below). My thanks, again, to Dakota.
ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/papabile-day-men-who-could-be-pope-2#.USoWTjKT2d0.facebook
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RoderickA
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You are absolutely correct. Benedict XVI, and any pope that succeeds him, is charged with protecting, guarding, and passing on, all that has come down to us through the Sacred Scriptures, the teachings of the Fathers, and Tradition.
Dakota helped me with the two links provided me. I was looking for a succinct and concise statement by the pope, that didn’t attack, while also expressing love for the individual. No small task, I fully understand. But within the text of the first link I found this:
“The human person, made in the image and likeness of God, can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation. Every one living on the face of the earth has personal problems and difficulties, but challenges to growth, strengths, talents and gifts as well. Today, the Church provides a badly needed context for the care of the human person when she refuses to consider the person as a “heterosexual” or a “homosexual” and insists that every person has a fundamental Identity: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life.”
I used it in my response to an individual (Anne) who was attacking the pope on a wide range of issues following an article (at the link below). I just couldn’t let the rant go without a response (I have never responded to these in the past). My thanks, again, to Dakota.
ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/papabile-day-men-who-could-be-pope-2#.USoWTjKT2d0.facebook
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Chan26
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If you define love as being “willing what is absolutely - using your considered and wise judgement - best for the other person,” then things get a little more challenging.
In the first instance, that kind of love is consistent with giving in to a drug addict who refuses to rehabilitate because the unquestioning assumption is that you simply will what they will because what they will for themselves is always the right thing.
In the second instance, love is decided, independently of what they will for themselves or what you will for them, but based upon what is best for them.
So, real love could conflict with automatically assuming that the other person always wills what is for their own good, because often people do not. In fact, it might be our moral responsibility to advise them that what they are willing for themselves is actually bad for them. Same sex behaviour, being contrary to the natural purpose of sexual desire, fits this description.
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Chan26
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My priest taught me that there is a difference between loving someone and approving of what they do. I believe, Jesus pointed that out when he said to the effect, what reward is there in loving those you already love. Loving your enemy and the lesser task of loving someone whose thoughts and behaviour you disapprove. That means you give as freely to the woman who is an alcoholic or drug addict and is homeless on the street as you would to the monk who has given up all possessions and asks for food. In both cases it would be loving to also ask, either of them, "Is there anything else you need? But my priest says, in any way sharing your disapproval of where their life has brought them is unloving–they know where their life has brought them.
This lesson is well played out in the early parts of Les Miserables The priest doesn’t give unsolicited advice, he only gives. It’s what Jesus did on the cross, to the woman about to be stoned, to the Centurion, whose slave boy was dying.
Don’t think for a minute i have accomplished my priest’s lesson. Disapproval and condemnation constantly creeps into my thoughts and while I am not a theologian or even well read in the bible, I find what my priest says is the path to pursue. Afterall, how can i truely forgive as Jesus said in the Lords Prayer if my heart is full of disapproval.
I share this not to confront but only for one purpose, to listen and consider another point of view so that i can continue to evolve spiritually.
thank you
chan
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speakttruth
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I think some people confuse love with enabling and we have to make sure that we don’t do that either. You give a fish to a man to eat for a day or to teach him to fish to eat for life.
I hope I said that right.
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Chan26
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I am in complete agreement. Seems to me teaching one to fish is a loving act. However, if they are hungry, perhaps we should give them some fish to eat now while they are learning and waiting for a catch. What I believe, John XXIII said was lecturing them that they should learn to fish may not be loving, they may be ignorant, they may not know how or have the equipment to fish., etc.
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Peter_Plato
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I understand your point here. However, what if you come across a person who is using illicit means to catch fish, such as throwing dynamite into the water? I am not clear that loving a person who persists in doing wrong means letting them do so without clearly addressing the issue. What if the person was catching a large number of fish, killing them and then throwing them back into the water? Are you saying we should simply stand by until they learn to do better on their own without explaining to them why their actions are wrong?
I have to disagree, if that is the case. Sometimes we need to clearly point out the truth and state in no uncertain terms why some things are wrong, That line is to be drawn at actions that are immoral and that every moral human being has an obligation to refrain from immoral actions.
That was, in fact, the lesson learned by Jonah who tried to avoid what was his God authorized responsibility to point out in clear and certain terms to the Ninevites that they were doing evil.
We don’t do anyone any favors by allowing them to believe their immoral actions are tolerable. My suspicion is that this kind of enabling of wrong action comes from our own unwillingness to face and root out the evil compulsions that rule our own lives.
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Chan26
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There is no disagreement with the point i believe you make, however, things that seem so clearly wrong are often simply the product of perspective.When I was in So America, rain forests were being burned as the means to farm within the ashes to raise food for a near starving population. Rain forests are like the lungs of the earth, destroy enough and we all die. Yet, pointing that out to hungry people wasn’t a solution for them. Alternatives to how they farmed might be one answer but that answer, such as hydroponics, require advanced technology etc and ideas. That is what we did.
I was in China where the sea is considered a garbage pit for plastics. Entire coastlines swirl in plastics. Wrong? Yes. Another ecological disaster but for families that live in 200 square foot homes, where do they put the plastics that government or corporations use to package food, drink etc.
I’m only saying that few things are so unequivocally bad that a loving response is to point out someone’s evil ways. There are evil people but most, i find, are not,
chan26
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