Why do so many Americans support same-sex ‘marriage’?

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

Good question.

R. Albert Mohler Jr. has an article in the Baptist Press. It is an excellent analysis of  how acceptance of so-called same sex came to be so wide spread.

“Why does same-sex “marriage” make sense to so many people? The momentum toward the full legalization of same-sex “marriage” seems to intensify with every passing month — or even faster. The moral divide in this nation is now seen most clearly in the distance between those for whom marriage is exclusively heterosexual and thus a settled issue and, on the other hand, those who honestly see the legalization of same-sex “marriage” as a moral mandate required by justice.

Given the venerable status of marriage and its universally established heterosexual character — at least until very recently — the burden of argument falls on the need to explain how such a movement for a moral revolution gained credibility, cultural mass and momentum. How did this happen?

A culture does not consist only of ideas and ideologies, but no culture exists without them. Given the complexity of any culture, a comprehensive map of these ideas, moral intuitions and philosophies is impossible to create. Nevertheless, some patterns are clear enough. We can trace the acceptance of same-sex “marriage” to at least three major ideas that have been shaping the modern mind for some time — and are held to some extent by both social liberals and conservatives. Continue reading.

Posted in Culture Wars, Homosexual agenda | Tagged | 5 Comments

House GOP Leader Won’t Rule Out Funding Planned Parenthood

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

Add this to my “Why I don’t belong to a political tribe” file: 

“(CNSNews.com) – House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) today would not rule out that the Republican House leadership would permit taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood in the final continuing resolution that Congress must enact to keep the government funded through the rest of fiscal year 2011, which runs through Sept. 30.

The CR currently funding the government–enacted by the Democrat-controlled lameduck Congress in December–expires on March 4. To keep the government funded past March 4, Congress must approve, and President Barack Obama must sign, another CR by that date.” Read more here.

Once again politicians put money and power first and think that we are too stupid to notice. I am shocked, shocked I say.

We really need a none of the above option on the ballot.

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Convert hearts don’t win arguments

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

Heather King has a beautiful and profound post, on her Shirt of Flame blog. She has   some strong words for Catholics on both the right and left who engage in heat charged rhetoric. H?T Deacon Greg.

Excerpt:

To be a follower of Christ is to accept to hold an almost unbearable amount of tension: to accept bottomless imperfection, brokenness, woundedness; to consent to any number of extremely unpromising people and situations. But this is where things get interesting. I mean we’re given all kinds of signs to let us know when we’re onto Him, and almost the first sign is that the Way, the Truth and the Life are interesting. You start to change; that’s interesting. You forgive someone you thought it was impossible to forgive; that’s interesting. The MOST unpromising person, or situation, the seeming catastrophe, turns out in the end to have helped you along in some way you could never have imagined on your own: that’s interesting. You forego a slew of money and security in order to pursue work you’re passionate about: that’s interesting.

Listening to a bunch of people try to shout each other down, especially in the name of God, is not only corrupt and depressing, but deathly boring. I once signed up for a day of “community discussion” among a group of artists where, simply in the course of the introductions, I was attacked, twice, for being a Catholic. At the break, I simply left. Not so much because my religion had been attacked but because I knew the conversation would not be interesting. I went home and worked and had a rich, lovely day.

So to be a follower of Christ is not a career move, and it’s not a social move either. It’s not about having a bevy of supportive, admiring, we’re-all-on-the-same-team friends. I can hardly imagine anything worse for a person’s spiritual development than to be told, “Whoa, dude that was a killer pro-life polemic!” or “You really nailed those pederast priests!” No-one, to my knowledge, has ever become a saint on the basis of his or her political views.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t know exactly where we stand, and why. But we stand with Christ. Christ himself neither endorsed nor supported any causes. His cause was love, his cause was truth, his cause was beauty. His cause was to lay down his life for his friends. Being a follower of Christ is not about convincing, it’s about converting. And the heart you should be most concerned about converting is your own.

Here’s how, in my experience, you know you’re becoming a follower of Christ. You begin to want to be seen less, not more. You begin to want to be quieter, not louder. Knowing you’re on the right track doesn’t come from scoring points among your “friends.” Knowing you’re on the right track doesn’t come from winning  useless arguments. You find yourself making tiny sacrifices. You find yourself experiencing tiny moments of joy. You find yourself mysteriously drawn to the Gospels, to Confession, to Mass. Do read the whole post.

Heather gets it. Saints are not Republicans or Democrats. Saints are not left wing or right wing. Saints are disciples. Saints—even those who teach the faith—don’t win arguments. Saints win hearts by letting Christ act and speak through them.

One of my biggest struggles is to not engage in religious arguments. Hey I was born in New York. I am ashamed to say that I was never one to shut up and walk away from a war of words.

But some time ago, when I wasn’t paying attention, Christ changed me. I can remain silent without even biting my tongue.

But I sometimes relapse. It is often difficult to keep my ego in check and not revert to type.

Heather, however, is not saying that we should not speak the truth. She clarifies in the comment section:

“To avoid the right and the left as a way to IDENTIFY myself, as a human being, as a Catholic, doesn’t mean not having convictions and opinions–quite the opposite. A preferential option for the poor, the promotion of universal health care, the elimination of abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, war, the prison industry are to me deep concerns: again, as a human being, as a Catholic. Having been a lawyer, I have a perhaps more than ordinarily dim view of the ability of politics or the law or any outside organization or institution to change people’s hearts. But the idea is not to avoid DISCUSSION (obviously, or I wouldn’t have written such a long piece!), but to avoid putting ourselves, rather than Christ, at the center of it…”

It is about thee my Lord not me.

.

Posted in Apologetics, Catholic Identity, Holiness, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

8th Sunday in ordinary time year A

Posted on February 26, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

Deacon Greg has a homily up:

Excerpt:

God goes out of His way to walk with us.

The first reading from Isaiah assures us that, no matter what, the Lord will not forget us.

And in the gospel, Jesus goes further.  Don’t worry, he says.  Our heavenly Father knows what we need.  He will look out for us. Don’t be concerned about where you have to go tomorrow, or how you will get there.

Because we are not walking alone.

Like that old man with the young boy, God walks with us.

In our uncertainty, in our anxiety, in our grief, in our joy, whether we understand it or not, whether we sense it or not…God is beside us.

So, Jesus reminds us: don’t be concerned about what the future may bring. Take one day at a time, one moment at a time.  God knows our needs and will care for us.

We often forget that. We have this need to always feel as if we are in control of everything.

Guess what:  we aren’t.

The other day, I saw a bumper sticker that summed this up perfectly.  It said: “If God is your co-pilot, you’re sitting in the wrong seat.”

But do we trust Him enough to let him take the wheel?

So often, we don’t.

A popular saying in Alcoholics Anonymous says: “Let go and let God.”

Well, if we summon the courage to do the first part, what happens in the second?  If we let go, then we let God…do what?

To begin with: we need to let God be God.  Let God be our Creator, our Father, our Inspiration, our Guide.  Let Him do His divine work.

Let God challenge us.  Let God ask us to be stronger than we realized we could be.  Let God take us where we may not want to go. Let God make us what we were meant to be.

He knows what we are capable of – but do we understand what HE is capable of?  The God who feeds the birds and clothes the flowers parted the Red Sea, gave sight to the blind and raised His only son from the dead.

Do any of us think the difficulties we are facing are greater than any of that?

So: let God be God.

Let Him work miracles in our lives. And we can only do that by letting Him INTO our lives.  We need to let Him in. Let Him love us.  Let Him comfort us. Let Him help us carry our burdens.

The psalm we sang this morning cries out: “Rest in God alone, my soul.”  Or as St. Augustine once prayed: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”  Our restless hearts will only find their rest by trusting in God’s love and mercy, by turning to Him in our fear, and having faith.

Faith that our future really is in His hands.

Let go, and let God…and let God be God.

Pray for that sense of trust, the same trust that will lead us to say in just a few moments: “Thy will be done.”  Embracing that can save us all a lot of sleepless nights – freeing us to face every tomorrow without fear, and so continue our journey.

The journey is long.  And it isn’t easy.

But take heart, and have hope: we do not walk alone.

Read more here.

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Anti Abortion Billboard Removed

Posted on February 26, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

You may have heard about an anti-abortion billboard in New York that was taken     down after massive pressure.

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan has weighed in with some Unpleasant Truths .

(H/T Deacon Greg).

Excerpt:

“Here in New York, a billboard was recently displayed, that simply stated “The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb.” This message was accompanied by a photograph of a young, African-American girl.

Is that message unpleasant?  Is it upsetting?  Does it get our attention?

Yes!

Because the message is somberly true. The City of New York’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene recently released its vital statistics from a year ago which showed that 59.8% of African-American pregnancies in New York City ended in abortion. That’s even higher than the chilling city-wide average of 41% of pregnancies ending in abortion. (I joined other community leaders from a diversity of religious and ethnic backgrounds at a press conference sponsored by the Chiaroscuro Foundation about this a few weeks ago.)

So why has the billboard suddenly been taken down? What was it that moved many of our elected officials to condemn this ad and call for the gag order. Are they claiming that free speech is a right enjoyed only by those who favor abortion or their pet causes? Do they believe that unpleasant and disturbing truths should not be spoken? Or are they afraid that when people are finally confronted with the reality of the horror of abortion, and with the toll that it is taking in our city, particularly in our African-American community, that they will be moved to defend innocent, unborn, human life?

Perhaps I’m more saddened by this intolerance right now because on Monday I will be celebrating the funeral mass for Doctor Bernard Nathanson, that giant of the pro-life movement, who died earlier this week. If you don’t know Dr. Nathanson’s story, you should. At one time, he fought hard to promote and expand abortion on demand in this state and in our country. He was one of the founders of the National Abortion Rights Action League.  He ran what he called the “largest abortion clinic in the Western world,” and bragged about personally performing thousands of abortions. But, when Dr. Nathanson was confronted with the undeniable truth, when he could see the unborn baby in the womb through the use of ultrasound technology, he abandoned his support for abortion and became a crusader for the protection of the life of the baby in the womb.

His courage and bravery should be an inspiration to us, especially when we have to face unpleasant and sobering truths.” Read more here.

Deacon Greg has more links to the controversy.

Posted in Culture of Death, Pro life | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Lent is “biblical thing, not a made-up Catholic thing”

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

Well now.  I am so relieved. From the Associated Baptist Press:

“It’s a biblical thing, not a made-up Catholic thing,” says Kyle Henderson, pastor of First Baptist Church in Athens, Texas, acknowledging a robust Baptist suspicion of spiritual practices seen as too closely associated with the Roman Catholic Church or its distant cousins, the Anglicans.

Lost treasure

Some Baptists say they sense those suspicions — in part a legacy of the Protestant Reformation — have left them with a diminished spiritual vocabulary.

“There is an uneasy sense that something got lost,” says Phyllis Tickle, whose 2008 book, The Great Emergence, chronicles the blurring of denominational distinctions in late 20th- and early 21st-century American Christianity.

Every 500 years or so, says Tickle, the church metaphorically holds a great rummage sale, “getting rid of the junk that we believe no longer has value and finding treasures stuck in the attic because we didn’t want them or were too naïve to know their true worth.”

The Reformation was one of those rummage sales and the current “great convergence” is another, she maintains. For evangelicals, the long-forgotten treasures in the attic include a wide array of spiritual disciplines — including Lent — with roots in the church’s first centuries. Continue reading here.

Now if they discover the rest of the cast off treasure, maybe they will come home.

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Teach Teens about Sin

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

This is not an easy thing to know. My favorite deacon is the youth minister for our   parish.  He truly loves the kids, but he worries about them.  Young people today have bought into a culture that denies sin. But they need to learn about the deadly consequences of sin and that not all choices are good.

Over at The Catholic Lane, Mary Anne Moresco has an insightful article posted. She begings:

I never cease to be amazed by what can be included in a high school “health” curriculum these days. I was recently looking at a health course for ninth graders, which included such topics as “contraception,” “decision-making” skills, “sexual orientations,” as well as “what to know about health care facilities, costs and sources of payment.”

A Smorgasbord of Deadly Choices

Now, why would the school system seek to educate a ninth-grader in how to pay “health care” facilities? This particular school district has a problem letting the school nurse give your teen a Tylenol for a headache, but has no problem inviting Planned Parenthood in, with all their cajoling ways, to teach kids to pay for their own “health care.” Once in, Planned Parenthood happily demonstrates for the freshmen, in a co-ed setting, the various methods of contraception. As disturbing as this is, what is more disturbing is that these teens, many of whom are Catholic, will have likely been taught next to nothing about sin or the deadly effect of sin on their immortals souls. And it is precisely this ignorance that makes teens so very vulnerable to the call of Planned Parenthood’s preaching. This article is not about the fact that parents have a responsibility to know exactly what their children are being taught in “health” class — though they do. Nor is it about the horrors that Planned Parenthood has propagated on our young — great though these horrors may be. This is an article about the dire need to begin to teach teens the deadly truths about sin.

Teaching about sin is an ongoing process that ideally begins early in life. But if not begun early then there is no better time to gently begin than right now. We forget sometimes that teens are children searching for truth, and they need adults to help them discover what life and truth are all about. They may bear an outward confidence, but it’s good to remember that a mere 160 months ago, these confident beings were little bundles who could not walk, or talk or sit up on their own. Children are guided, not born, into adulthood.

Some guidance of late has been directed at helping teens make “choices” for themselves. The problem with this is not just that teens often lack the experience and discernment to be making the plethora of choices thrust before them. The problem is not just that God’s plan for their lives is often not included in this decision-making process. These problems are compounded by the fact that many of the choices thrust before today’s teens are gravely immoral. Thus some “health” classes educate teens about their sexual “preferences,” or birth control “options,” but fail to educate them in concepts of sin. Teens are thrown in over their heads and left to make decisions about choices for which they are ill-equipped to decide. Once a bad decision is made to sin, there are those in society who seem to pop out of the woodwork to help turn a teen’s bad decision into a truly dirty deed. Such individuals will happily take teens by the hand and just as happily guide them down an evil and immoral path, loudly tooting their “pro-choice” horns and ringing their “freedom” bells all the way. Continue reading here.

Note. Yikes. I am not as shock proof as I thought. I googled the word teens to get a picture for this post. Oh my.   Nothing but links to teen porn sites.  We really need to pray for our young people.

Posted in Catholic Moral Teaching | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Virginia bill may force abortion clinics to close

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

This is excellent news.  H/T New Advent

DENA POTTER – Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Virginia took a big step Thursday toward eliminating most of the state’s 21 abortion clinics, approving a bill that would likely make rules so strict the medical centers would be forced to close, Democrats and abortion rights supporters said.

Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican and Catholic, supports the measure and when he signs it into law, Virginia will become the first state to require clinics that provide first-trimester abortions to meet the same standards as hospitals. The requirements could include anything from expensive structural changes like widening hallways to increased training and mandatory equipment the clinics currently don’t have.

While abortion providers must be licensed in Virginia, the clinics resemble dentists’ offices and are considered physicians offices, similar to those that provide plastic and corrective eye surgeries, colonoscopies and a host of other medical procedures.

Democrats and abortion rights supporters said the change would put an estimated 17 of the state’s 21 clinics out of business. Most of the clinics also provide birth control, cancer screenings and other women’s health services.

“This is not about safety for women. This is about ideology, and this is about politics,” said Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia. “The women of the commonwealth are going to be the ones left to suffer.”

Abortion rights supporters warned of legal challenges while supporters heralded it as a way to make the procedures safer. Continue Reading here.


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The wonder of mystery

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

At the beginning of every RCIA year, I always tell the inquirers that I will never  answer their questions with the big Catholic cop out:

It’s a mystery!

But God is completely other. His self revelation to us is clouded in mystery. Gods ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts.  We grow in understanding, but we still see through the glass darkly.

Msgr. Pope has a post on the Magnificence of Mystery. He begins:

In the secular world a mystery is something which baffles or eludes understanding, something which lies hidden or undisclosed. Now the usual attitude of the world toward mystery is to solve it, get to the bottom of it or uncover it. Mysteries must be overcome! The riddle of “who-done-it” must be solved.

In the religious world mystery is something a bit different. Here mystery refers to something partially revealed, but much of which lies hidden. Mystery may partially,  or in some cases, completely escape what we can know by our intellect alone and unaided by God.  So, a  mystery is something partially revealed by God but much more of which lies hidden.

Mysteries are to Be Savored, not Solved. For the Christian then, mysteries are not something to solved or overcome so much as to appreciate and reverence. In the worldly notion of mystery it is something to approach with  perseverance and the smarts to conquer. But the mysteries of faith are something to be considered with humility and reverence realizing we can never exhaust their meaning or capture and conquer their full essence. A few thought on the mysteries of faith: Continue reading….

He also posted this lovely video.


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Catholics must oppose President Obama’s refusal to defend marriage.

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Susan Kehoe

Deacon Fournier has an article up on Catholic Online where he discusses the latest  assault on marriage by our President.

The President’s decision to no longer defend marriage is a threat to the common good and must be opposed.

Excerpt:

The President’s Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters at an afternoon briefing that the President has always opposed the Defense of Marriage Act but that personally he is “still wrestling” with his view on “gay marriage.”  This kind of false dichotomy between the President’s “personal opinion” and his executive leadership reminded me of his contrived “moral” struggle over abortion. President Obama is the most Pro-Abortion President in the history of the United States. His policies make that clear, no matter what his rhetoric tries to pretend. He still has the audacity to speak of his “moral” concerns over the matter. In 2008 he said, “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.” Now, look at what he has done. To use an old adage, he cries “crocodile tears.”

Here is the game plan: make defending life and marriage sound “religious” and then argue that “religious” positions have no place in public policy. However, the truth about human life is written in the Natural Law and confirmed by medical science. We operate on our youngest neighbors in the womb. We prosecute criminals who kill them during the commission of another crime. Defending the intentional killing of these children at any time and for any reason is based on a notion of “freedom” as a raw power over those who are vulnerable and not wanted. The civil law manufactured a profane “right” to kill them.

Now the assault on marriage is underway with full force. Marriage is not simply a “religious” construct.  The Natural Law reveals – and the cross cultural history of civilization affirms – that marriage is between a man and a woman, open to children and intended for life. Marriage is the foundation for the family which is the privileged place for the formation of virtue and character in children, our future citizens. The family is the first society, first economy, first school, first civilizing and mediating institution and first government.

All other government grows out of – and must support and not usurp – the primacy of this first government, the marriage bound family. The effort to force giving equal legal status to relationships which are incapable of being marriages and using the Police Power of the State to enforce this new order is nothing less than a cultural revolution and does not serve the common good. Read more here.

I am at a loss as how to overturn the brave new world order that has been thrust upon us. The abortion war is a piece of cake compared to the the marriage war.  The newest generation of ultra sound technology has helped to advance the Pro life stance.

We don’t have the equivalent of cute pictures in the fight against same sex marriage.



Posted in Church and the Public Square, Culture Wars, Homosexual agenda | Tagged , | 4 Comments