An appeal to Darwin and observations of human sexuality and the bodily makeup of the sexes certainly tells us something is amiss when one man seeks out another for the formation of a sexual relationship. However, I don’t know whether this scientific reality itself can serve as a basis to conclude the sexual acts in question are morally wrong.
It’s worse than that. Opposing same sex marriage has the exact opposite effect of what PraiseChrist is trying to achieve. Just read this blog from Fr. Peter Daly from january 2015:
I encourage everyone to read the entire blog. It is very illuminating.
Why on earth would a gay person, seeking to live their Catholic faith, be not welcome?
Part of the reason we have lost the battle is because being “welcoming” is more important to some than to be a saving evangelizing church with the charge to spread the gospel and lead others away from sin and to salvation.
The issue that came up over and over again - according to Fr. Daly - was the treatment of LGBT people. I’m just saying that if PraiseChrist (or anyone else) wants to defend the traditional marriage, he or she should be aware of the consequences for the Catholic faith. And those consequences are that young people are incredibly turned off by it. A Catholic blogger at patheos summed it up as: “It basically boils down to, ‘as soon as the Church stops being the Church, I’ll come back to church.’” That is a tough challenge.
If your proposition (1) is that the moral teachings should be tuned to popular opinion, I hope you can see the absurdity of that.
It’s the second one. Proposition 1 is not something that I would do if people turned away from humanism, although it would signal the time for self criticism. I merely want to warn PraiseChrist and others that defending traditional marriage can have some very undesirable consequences such as young people turning away from the faith. I must also note that if I were the chairman of the humanist association and I lost members at the same rate as the Catholic Church, then I would be out of a job within days.
And who would put you out of a job?
Probably the general meeting of the members.
True. But I think it’s strange that there seems to be no consequences for bishops and cardinals whose flock is leaving in droves. A few years back, the archbishop of Utrecht, cardinal Wim Eijk, announced that the archdiocese of Utrecht had to close 280 of its 300 churches, leaving only 20 open. Rik Torfs, the rector magnificus of the Catholic University of Leuven called for Wim Eijk’s resignation, but the cardinal is still the archbishop of Utrecht. I think the Catholic Church could benefit greatly from more accountability. But I’ve gone way offtopic now. Sorry about that.To teach falsehoods because they are popular would have rather worse consequences than loss of a job.
One must be held accountable for the right thing. Jesus accepted that his message would be Rejected by many. He did not advocate adjusting the message to maximize adherents. But that seems to be what you advocate. How can a bishop be held accountable for the loss of those who leave because they choose to reject the tenets of the faith? There can be causes to discipline Bishops - but you conflate these separate issues.
It’s true that people won’t accept Catholicism because of these and many other hard teachings, I agree, but those people who are doing so aren’t forced to leave Catholicism. They have free will, to reject the Catholic Faith or not. But if Catholicism truly changed its teaching on gay marriage (but there is no chance of that happening) I’d leave Catholicism, because it means that latest new infallible doctrines are contradictory to the old infallible doctrines. Through Faith, we Catholics believe that Jesus promises that his Church won’t fail Though from a statistical level, many people don’t believe or practice their hereditary faith; I trust that, if this is the religion God made, then it would persevere.