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Rau
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Would that bring you comfort?
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Rau
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How should sin be addressed? Your response is to declare it not sin!
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Tomdstone
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I think that this is true, at least in the USA and Europe. The Muslim family in our neighborhood has six or seven children, which contrasts rather sharply with the size of many Roman Catholic families.
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Rau
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The trend in the vast majority of cases is to smaller families. Catholics, Presbyterians, Calvinists, Congregationalists, Lutherans, Anglicans, Uniting Church goers, Methodists, Shintoists & Buddhists (note: Japan has a rapidly falling population) and so on and so on. It seems to be a “modern” thing, rather than a Catholic thing, Tom.
Of course, the issue is not family size, but the means employed.
We all have anecdotes of course. I well remember a former girlfriend of mine who had 8 siblings. Not muslim though.
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Rau
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A “moral truth” is not the same thing as a judgement about the morality of an act. For example, it’s a moral truth that abortion is evil (always and everywhere), whereas to execute a dangerous criminal, or to make a large donation to charity, may be a moral or immoral act depending on the Purpose and the Circumstances. You can read a little about moral theology here Tom:
vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a4.htm
To my great loss, I have never studied history and thus can’t speak to the matter of how this practice of burning arose and was justified, and who held that it was moral and what circumstances supported that conclusion. In any event, that 's about the judgement of whether an act is moral, not a “moral truth”.
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Rau
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I believe your numbers Tom, its just that I don’t have any idea what the stats on divorce are by religious groups, nor the availability and adoption of nullity procedures in other faiths.
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Rau
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Today, I should think not, since it is not a crime today to be a heretic!!
The only moral truth at issue is that States are not forbidden to use capital punishment when to do so would be a moral act.
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Rau
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A fundamental driver of social teaching is in the words of Jesus: “whatever you have done for one of these least brothers of Mine, you have done for Me.” An exhortation to care for others.
I would have thought that there is a very wide consensus that progressive taxation systems [what you descrribe as “redistributive, confiscatory tax structures”] are reasonable in principle, though will always be debated in respect of their specifics. I also think there is very wide acceptance for some “large government programs” - eg. I think it is a good thing that very many States take the view that every child should be able to have 13 years of school regardless of the financial circumstances of their parents. Now what I personally disapprove of strenuously is companies deciding to make charitable donations, or publishing their “position” on an issue such as SSM, with no approval whatsoever of their shareholders. That to my mind is “confiscatory”.
That sounds odd. In my jurisdiction, the Church occasionally provides information about candidates voting patterns or similar, but does not “tells” people which social alternative to vote for. Matters such as you raise appear to be matters for the judgement of the voter, guided by his understanding of the circumstances and by moral principles.
Please show me the Catholic teaching that obliges you not to form a school fund-raising group, or to vote for property taxes. Most schools where I live have P&F (parents and friends) groups who raise money for their local school. The school, part of the Catholic system, is most grateful.
Please show me the Church teaching that supports illegal immigration and slave labour. The Church advocates love, generosity and a welcoming attitude - but all the consequences need to be weighed up to make good choices.
Well, that would be wrong. The death penalty is not intrinsically evil, and thus there can be times and circumstances when it may be justified. Consequently, the morality or otherwise of it hangs on a judgement about the circumstances - and that judgement can certainly evolve, and thus, over time, we may conclude it is less and less likely that its use is wise, or even moral.
If you’ve read Laudato Si, some 40,000 words I believe, then congratulations! Did you know the Pope mentions air-conditioning exactly once, in this paragraph:
55. Some countries are gradually making significant progress, developing more effective controls and working to combat corruption. People may well have a growing ecological sensitivity but it has not succeeded in changing their harmful habits of consumption which, rather than decreasing, appear to be growing all the more. A simple example is the increasing use and power of air-conditioning. The markets, which immediately benefit from sales, stimulate ever greater demand. An outsider looking at our world would be amazed at such behaviour, which at times appears self-destructive. Perhaps what you heard was a beat-up in a tabloid newspaper?
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Tomdstone
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In the year 2012, in the USA (not including California, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana, and Minnesota). there were 851,000 divorces in a population of 248,041,986 with a rate of 3.4 divorces per 1000 population. In the year 1929, there were 199,335 divorces granted in the USA, 57,148 to the husband and 142,187 to the wife. (Marriage and Divorce volume 3, US govt. printing office). At that time the population of the US was 121,767,000 . So the divorce rate was 1.2. In other words, the divorce rate for the general population increased by a factor of 3 over the period from 1929 to 2015. However, take a look at the increase in the Catholic marriage annulment rate over the same period- it went from 9 per year to as high as 50,000 per year in some recent years.
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Rau
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You’re not a student of Stats are you Tom! What were the prevailing attitudes of Catholics about separation (let alone divorce) in 1929, and how did that compare to the rest of the population.
You can’t look at “changes” Tom unless you normalise for all the prevailing factors!
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catholic1seeks
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I coming in late on this thread, but i also struggle primarily with the teachings that the OP mentioned.
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SilverLight
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I never agreed with the whole masturbation is a sin thing. That birth control is wrong or sex before marriage is bad. There are so many loopholes in them.
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Tomdstone
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I think that moral truths do change. For another example, take the moral truth about torture. At one time it was morally true that torture (although with limitations) was acceptable to extract confessions from a heretic; however, today the moral truth is that torture is morally wrong.
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Rau
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Don’t know about that one Tom. I’ve never seen a “pro-torture” teaching. And the issue of “limitations” is just what makes distinguishing “torture” from “not torture” a bit difficult!
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