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Saturday, December 12, 2009

Comments

anthony

Unlike islam, the mere act of calling one's self a catholic does not immediatly make one a catholic.

Simonian

The fact that there were "catholic" republicans who voted pro-abortion does not surprise me at this point. The republican party is in serious trouble. I am sick and tired of having my vote being taken for granted simply because it is the party of the lesser of two evils.

Michelle

Disagreeing with the church doctrine in one area does not make you a non-believer. Nor does it make you a victim of "double-think", it simply means YOU CAN THINK FOR YOURSELF, rather than the church doing it for you.

Midwest St. Michael

Michelle,

Please read the catechism #'s 892, 2518, 2037.

These say just the opposite of what you say. Oh, BTW, can you cite a Church document that supports your claim?

God bless you.

Cristian

Michelle, it surprises me that you think "thinking for yourself" means denying hard, scientific proof. When does the zygote, fetus or even neonate "become" human for you. By the way, you passed through all those phases on your way to adulthood, which took about 21 years when finally--only your parents know--where you independent of them, or in planned parenthood language, "viable."

Clint

Since many Democrats are pro-life and 35% of Republican women are pro-choice and 75 to 80% Catholics use birth control. That doesn't leave many Catholics eleigible to receive communion. Yet every Sunday almost everone in church goes to communion. Why only pick on Democrats. Sounds like selective discrimination.

Jeff

Clint,

Your statement means nothing. It is a classic example of a red herring. What does this post have to do with "picking on Democrats" as you so eloquently phrase it? This is simply a list of the Catholic senators and their voting record. It includes Democrats and Republicans.

Democrats tend to be singled out more simply because they tend to be pro-choice. Your memory is failing you if you can't recall the uproar that was made about Guliani's stance on abortion while he was running for president.

The so-called pro-life democrates are an extreme rarity. Certainly there a handful that claim to be pro-life, to garner votes, but turn their back on their values as soon as it suits their interests. For instance, Bob Casey voted for the Nelson admendment so he can say he is pro-life. However, now that it failed he will vote for the healthcare bill even that it will use tax payer money for abortion. Senator Nelson may be the only exception in senate to this rule, but the jury is still out on him.

Yes, Clint, we are all sinners. Whenever someone is in a state of mortal sin they should refrain from the Eucharist. For as saint Paul said they are eating condemnation onto themselves. Catholics who use birth-control should refrain from the Eucharist. However, the choice to use contraception is a "private-sin", so it can't be publically "called out" because you are not supposed to reveal other people's sin. The intelectual descion to support abortion by a prominent public figure is no longer a private sin. It is already public, so it can be spoken about in public, especially in the case where it causes scandal to the public.

Jeff

anthony

whats wrong with selective discrimintaion? democrats will be considered evil, IMHO, until they allow candidates who are not pro death to run in national races. when they change their platform I MIGHT change my opinion.

i wouldn't hold my breath though if I were you.

Midwest St. Michael

So, Michelle, the bishop in this case is wrong - in your mind - because he tells young dissenting Catholics that they are, "...distancing themselves from that communion with the Church to which they are called,"? Is he letting them think for themselves, or trying to get them to think *with* the Church?

Bishop Listecki responds to ultra-dissenting "Young Catholics for Choice"

MILWAUKEE, December 15, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The incoming Archbishop of Milwaukee, Jerome Listecki, has responded to a campaign by "Young Catholics for Choice" to promote use of contraception and abortion among Catholic youth.

Using media advertising the group is, says the Archbishop-Designate, "attempting to convey the message that Catholics can disregard Church teaching regarding contraception, abortion and human sexuality in general and remain Catholics in good standing." However, "Nothing could be further from the truth."

"While people can call themselves whatever they want, it is my duty as a bishop to state clearly and unequivocally that by professing and disseminating views in grave contradiction to Catholic teaching, members of organizations like 'Young Catholics for Choice' in fact disown their Catholic heritage, tragically distancing themselves from that communion with the Church to which they are called," added the archbishop.

Using language first employed by Catholic dissenters to Humanae Vitae, YCFC calls on Catholics to use an "informed conscience" to decide to use birth control and the morning-after-pill, also called "emergency contraception."

Their ad campaign states:

"Young Catholics are having sex. We are using contraception and condoms. We are having abortions. We are bisexual, gay, lesbian, straight and transgender. And none of this makes us any less Catholic than conservative Catholics who speak out against us

"The truth is, they don't represent what the majority of Catholics - especially those of us in our 20s and 30s - think about sex . It comes down to Catholic teaching on conscience .

Basically, every individual has the right and responsibility to follow his or her own conscience - and respect others' right to do the same. With conscience and respect, good Catholic sex is not only possible, it's already happening."

The group, claiming to be a youth wing of "Catholics for Choice," admits that it's mandate is to "take action to counter the bishops' impact both in the United States and around the world. "

Archbishop Listecki concluded his statement calling for prayers for the YCFC members. "We pray that they may reconcile their position which is contrary to the Catholic Faith they claim to profess."

Simonian

Michelle we are human and thus given free will. You can chose to follow Catholic teaching or not. But you can't be Catholic and not follow the teachings. We're not running a "have it your way" Burger King style restaurant here.

Bernie

Michelle, the devil is the father of all lie and you bought into one.

Sad times

When salt stops being salt it will be trampled underfoot.

Paulist

Hey everyone, now more than ever abortion is a horible crime, because each child aborted is a person who will not have had the chance to live under the rule of Obama. The Democrats really need to rethink their position.

Brian

I am not so sure about Bob Casey being "anti-abortion." He voted "yes" for a so called health care bill that very well may allow federal funding for abortion.
I saw him being interviewed by Greta Van Sustern - he did not seem to me to be very honest. I hope I am wrong, but you may have to place his name in red.

Shin

Somehow when I saw this the 'Goodbye Bad Bishops' website came to mind.

James M. Essig

Now once thing we can come away with from Catholic Teaching on the immortality of the human soul is that even in the present Post Modern spiritually minimalist era where many theologians, most promenant social scientists, neurologists, and sadly, even many clergyman ranging from the parish Priests, to many Bishops, given the objective and factual realities that bodily death in this era and at the end of our Earthly lives does not involve the entrance of the deceased into some limbo state, nor some existential neither here nor there state as some cult of the body oriented post modern theologians, clergymen and Catholic Bishops would have us believe, we can be assured in my own opinion that the souls of aborted babies perhaps although beholding the Face of GOD in Heaven are at some mysterious level agonized when they see their fellow pre-born comrades being torn from the womb. Don't believe such an agonizing is possible? Then I might ask you to consider the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima as she appeared to the three Fatima children crying profusely over the eternal fate of many souls that are being lossed. If the Blessed Virgin Mary in all Her exalted glory can be so upset and hurt, I suggest that so can the souls of the aborted babies.

Perhaps the loss of the sense of the reality in the completeness of the existential and accidental life of the human soul after bodily death is partly the reason why so many souls in purgatory and why perhaps so many souls of aborted babies and un-baptized infants, and toddlers, and very young children are not actively prayed for by many a clergymen including Bishops and Cardinals. Could this cult of the body also be responsible for clergymen being highly permissive or lenient to their confessees for the habitual sin of artificial contraception.

The same psychological science and social science that diocesan vocation directors use to screen prospective vocation candidates for mental health issues very much supports the fact that 90 percent of Catholics who are married and are of child rearing age rely on artificial contraception or sterilization procedures. There must either by lots of Catholics receiving Holy Communion who are not properly disposed to do so during every Sunday Mass in large parishes, or these Catholics must otherwise have to be said to be un-free to control their sexual urges. Quite frankly, folks who are in line with the Vatican or claim to be inline with the Vatican cannot have it both ways. We cannot pick and choose which aspects of modern science to reject and which to except. To do such would result in erroneous conclusions based on contradictory self reference of modern science. I rather laugh at the notions of creationists who claim that the Earth's biosphere could not have developed through evolution because order cannot arise from disorder. Believe me, this childish cut and choose science completely disragards the notion that order can be concentrated in pockets of space time despite the tendency of the universe overall to disorder and that the entropy received by the Earth from the Sun is represents many orders of magnitude more disorder than any order associated with natural evolution of plant and animal life on planet Earth including that of the human body.

Now, the human soul is directly and immediately created during the process of conception. The conceived child is at this point ontologically born. The child grows in the womb eventually to be born outside the womb if all goes well. The child lives and grows to adulthood, and then passes through old age or whatever, and eventually undergoes bodily death.

We can view this bodily death in the same manner as we view the difference between the child having lived out his or her fetal life in the womb and the cross over to life in this world outside the womb. This is true even for the case of the souls who must first be cleansed in Purgatory.

For the souls who pass through Purgatory, the process of purification might be considered like the process of a child in this life passing into and through adolescence with all of the new found experiences of human sexuality.

I give the analogy of human sexuality here because of the fundamental deep routedness of human sexuality within the hearts, psychodynamic makeup, and physical aspects of the human psyche and body. Modern human culture would not be so sexualized by the media if the latent hyper-sexuality that seems to be present in modern culture was not already present. And No!, we cannot blame everything on Satan and the demons. The sacramental life can lead one to develop purity and most definately should, but modern social science indicates that the reception of the Sacraments will never erase or eradicate human sexuality nor should it.

Another way of looking at Purgatory is to compare it allegorically with the birth of a child from the womb and the child’s future general life long development up until the point of natural death. The souls who enter Purgatory are more alive then we are in this life even though they lack bodies. I would like the reader of this post to consider that perhaps the powers of cognition, memory, affect, emotion, and will are far more advanced and capable then our psychodynamic powers on this side of the curtain of bodily death.

Regardless of whether one passes first through Purgatory or goes directly to the state or state and place of Heaven, the entrance into the Glory of the Beatific Vision might be compared ontologically, existentially, and/or accidentally to the difference of the state of the human soul before the reception of any and/or all of the Sacraments that imprint a Sacramental Seal, i.e, Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders, and the state after the reception of such Sacraments, but I would hazard a guess that the difference between the before and after state of entering Heaven is more like the difference between the complete negation of the Human Person before His or Her creation at conception and His or Her ontological status after completion of the creation process, in all cases even for persons who enter Heaven without ever being a Baptized Catholic nor even a Christian. The difference might just be nearly so extreme.

Now what about the Final Resurrection of the Dead when absolutely all human persons will be Resurrected as a union of soul with the self same body they possessed while on Earth before the Final Resurrection. My opinion is that such a transformation will be most like the difference between the pre-conceived status of negation and the conceived status of having a spiritual and immortal soul united to a brand new and genetically fresh body which nonetheless exist in an embryonic state.

In reality, all persons that eventually get to Heaven experience multiple births in a very real sense. For those not Baptized into the Catholic Faith, these are: First, the initial embryonic conception; Second, the birth from the womb; Third, the full development of human sexuality which is usually but not always complete by mid to late adolescence; Fourth, the leaving of this life and entrance into Purgatory, Fifth, the entrance into Heaven from Purgatory, or the admittance directly into Heaven, and Sixth, the Final Resurrection of the Dead at the End of Time.

For Catholics, the additional discreet steps of the instillation of the indelible seals at the reception of the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders marks three discreet stages of rebirth during this life although in many cases if not virtually all cases, there is no subjective instantaneous change in the affective, volitional, or cognitive aspects of psychodynamic inner life during the reception of these Sacraments that can be discerned as separate from the phenomena of natural happiness that one typically can feel as a result of acquiring a new status or from having accomplished something of discreet and notable significance in their lives. I felt good after having received the Sacrament of Confirmation, but I did not have any form of supernatural experience of consciousness expansion or raising, nor did I have a sudden infusion of conscious wisdom, nor any other paranormal, preternatural, or supernatural experience. The most profound grace in terms of conscious experience was the ordinary confidence I experienced after having been Confirmed and knowing that due to some great trials and difficulties that I experienced previously in my adolescence, I was lucky and thankful to be alive and to have been here to have received the Sacrament.

Why must we speak out against the process of artificial contraception? Because when contraception is used during sexual intercourse, children who were determinably on track to be conceived are out right prevented from ever being created. This is the ultimate kind of death. When we use artificial contraception, we do not simply kill a human soul, we kill the possibility for it to ever exist, including the possibility for it to experience Heaven and the Final Ressurection. And no! Reincarnation does not occur. If you do not believe me, do a search in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church. Reincarnation from body to body is a nonesense myth now elevated to the status of a New Age paradigm that even many of otherwise good intentioned and noble Catholics now indulge in. Quite frankly, the idea of Reincarnation is complete BS.

Even though I have definitively chosen to remain single and have never had sex (and do not get me wrong, I do in fact have a full and vibrant completely and solely heterosexual sexuality that is of high enough intensity such that as a youth, and young adult, I found the need to very frequently suppress my sexually arousing thoughts about members of the opposite sex and even had issues of addiction to pornography as an adolescent and young adult), my gut feeling is that if Catholic Couples adhered by the rules of the Church regarding artificial contraception, they would have a much stronger, deeper and more fulfilling sexual experience while having sex than they would otherwise have, and without the feelings of guilt associated with disobedience of Church Teachings on the matter.

Abortion, Artificial Contraception, Co-habitation, Adultery, Fornication, Breaking of Professed Vows of Celibacy, etc, they are all related and feed off one another as a general phenomenon which I am sure is being orchestrated by Satan and His followers to destroy the Church’s effective authority and teaching regarding human sexuality, especially that of its authentic and proper expression. You don’t believe, then consider the 90 percent of married child bearing age Catholics who practice artificial contraception, and the clergymen and Bishops who openly dissent from the teaching of the Holy Father on this matter, and the much greater number of clergymen and Bishops who do not give sermons or homilies regarding the sinful nature of artificial contraception use, especially by Catholics who ought to know better.

I hope I did not offend anyone by this post, but I felt I had to make this statement. We not only have legalized abortion in this country and throughout much of the Globe, but in this country, we have a few states, 4 so far if my memory serves my correct, that have passed assisted suicide bills. Folks, we are headed down a very, very slippery slope from which we may not be able to return. GOD is all loving and merciful, but HE is also fair and just. Those guardian angels whose children are now being aborted must be in agony in their own way, and sad and hurting also. And yes, angels have feelings and emotions also, perhaps even feelings and emotions that are much more intense then ours being that they are not limited by a body and brain, and are not naturally ordained to have a body and brain. These angels behold the face of GOD on behalf of their child.

Ever wonder how a little child feels about the prospect of eventually being told that they would be given a cute lovable pet puppy from the next litter of their family friends' pet Golden Retriever or Black Labrador only to learn that the female dog that was intended the bear the litter was fixed and so that no cute baby puppy would be theirs to love and nurture. Well, that is how many of angels feel when a conception is prevented that was determinably on track to occur. These angels behold the face of GOD. GOD has been very merciful to we citizens of the United States, but we are not pre-ordained to maintain our global leadership in scientific, technological, and military capabilities. Let every child, every adult, every teenager, every clergyman, every religious, in short every citizen of this great nation including myself put GOD more fully back in their lives. Only then will we remain and truly become ever more a great nation.

When you feel down and weary about the weight of Catholic Teaching regarding Human Sexuality, remember that you are in a real sense predestined by GOD to undergo at least the six allegorical births described above. We can however choose not to follow GOD's will, but given all that we have to gain by ever greater conformity with GOD's will, I hope that I have made a case for you that I hope will inspire all of you who would be pre-disposed to be offended by this post.

GOD BLESS!

Jim.

PS

For those of you who are not Catholic but who would like to become a Catholic, feel free to let me know or let any Catholic you may know. I can give you some advice on who to contact regarding the starting of the initial catechetical formation process of preparing for Baptism and the reception of the Sacraments of Penance, First Communion, and Confirmation. For those of you who want to become married within the Catholic Church, marriage within the Catholic Church is elevated to the level of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, which although different from the Sacrament of Holy Orders or the Clerical State, is nonetheless, in no way inherently inferior to the Clerical State and has its own unique associated graces. For those of you who are disposed to consider a life as a Priest or a Religious, which ordinarily requires a life long commitment to vows of at the very least, celibacy and obedience to the teachings of the Churchas it definately should, contact the vocation director of your diocese. In the Diocese of Arlington of which I am a member, the Director of Vocations is Father Brian Bashista. I have met him before and let me tell you, He is a cool guy who I am sure you will be able to relate to.

James M. Essig

As someone who enjoys thinking about theoretical and very abstract mathematical principles such as the notion of infinite Cardinalities wherein the Cardinality of Aleph 0 is the number of integers which is infinite, the Cardinality of Aleph 1 is the number of real numbers which is infinitely greater than the number of integers, and likewise, the ever greater Cardinalities of Aleph 2, Aleph 3, and so on in an unending series, I also enjoy thinking about what I call will call Trans-Cardinal or Super-Cardinal quantities which might be defined as super-infinite quantities.

Now techically, the Cardinal infinite numbers refer to the size of infinite sets and not integers, however to the extent that there can exist a one to one paring of elements of an infinite set such as the set of integers or the set of real numbers etc., with some form of set of ordinals, then the Cardinality of Aleph 0, effectively is the number of integers such as the cardinity of the set {a,b,c} is three because the latter set has three elements.

Modern mathematics is ill-equipped to deal with super-Cardinal values or values that cannot be symbolically expressed or defined in terms of the notation of Cardinality nor defined by expressions involving Cardinality, regardless of how large such expressions may be. However, I ask the reader to consider that regarding the number of currently unknown aspects of GOD, modes of DIVINE BEING, qualities of GOD, and the like, the numbers of such aspects, modes of DIVINE BEING of GOD, and qualities of GOD is not even remotely graspable by the notion of super infinite, nor super-cardinal quantities. Moreover, the qualitative exalted extent and nature of each of such aspects, modes of DIVINE BEING, and qualities of GOD cannot be remotely expressed by the qualitative analogues of such super-Cardinal infinite values. I suppose that the same situation applies to heuristic constructs that are neither quantitative nor qualitative and that the set of such constructs of which quantity and quality are just two elements of a set which contains an absolute super Cardinality number of elements does nothing to bound the extent, existential and ontological size, or might of GOD.

Truly, GOD is THE ETERNAL FATHER who dwells in Unapproachable light. God is the SON, who has taken on a Human Nature and who will be the Father of the World to Come. GOD is the HOLY SPIRIT, the often neglected THIRD PERSON of the HOLY TRINITY, but not by me since I would not be writing this post and ending it with an exhortation to give renewed emphasis on the often neglected HOLY SPIRIT.

I will thus continue with one of my callings as a physicist to explore the operating principles of possible manned interstellar space craft that can enable mankind to reach ever distant locations from our Sun, and spread out into this vast universe, which is likely just one of unccountably many universes, so that all the more spiritual and immortal Human Souls can be created, indeed so that all the more Human Persons Body and Soul can be created, and so that there can and will exist ever more Beautiful and Resurrected Human Persons, Body and Soul, at the Final Resurrection of the Dead. As a middle aged single guy who has definitively chosen to remain single, I still relish the fact that I will be able to have Heavenly Communion with all the more beautiful Resurrected Human Female Persons, albeit in a completely pure manner.

The point is that we have forgotten the proper relationship between creature and Creator. Many Pantheistic New Age movements adhere to some nonesense that we are a spark of the Divine or that we are DIVINE and therefor we are our own GOD. This is absolute nonesense to the greatest extent.

Many of those involved in New Age UFO religions think or would like to believe that any existent ETI persons and so-called UTI persons are GODs and that such beings are going to come down and rescue us. Although I believe in the possibility of ETI and UTI bodily persons, these would be persons would be creatures simmilar to us, and are definately not God and definately not Gods.

Modern popular culture is so full of BS that it is no wonder why so many persons have fallen away from proper respect of DIVINE laws and are disobedient im matters of Church Doctrine on the subjects of artificial contraception and abortion, both of which are definatively No No's.

GOD BLESS!

Jim

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