I don't particularly want to discuss the sinfulness of homosexual genital activity, it is pretty obvious if you have a Catholic understanding of the nature of marriage as something open to the procreation and upbringing of children, that such relationships are at the least problematic and are indeed disordered, and sterile by their intrinsic nature.
My concerns are:
The denial of parents right to discriminate against or in favour of any group for the sake of their children. Catholic adoption agencies do not pick up children off the streets but from people who want their children brought up in the Catholic faith. Nowadays the birth parents of a child are expected to continue there involvement with the child as far as is possible.
This seems to place homosexual civil unions on the same level as marriage, it seems to be part of an agenda to force an acceptance of same sex relationships, increasingly we find the state agencies including the police are used to enforce this agenda.
I do not feel it fair for a child who often has enough painful baggage because of the break up of his/her birth family which has led to being placed for adoption should also have to deal with his/her adoptive parents' sexuality as well.
18 comments:
I entirely agree with you, Father. I've just news headlines that say 'Blair over-rules the Catholic Church'. In other words, he has not supported the Church's request for exemption, which is supported by leading Anglicans as well as Muslims.
Instead, he has decided to go with the liberal view that whatever homosexuals want they should have - in direct contravention everything the Church stands for in this moral matter.
They claim to think this is in the best interetss of the child - as if the Church hasn't always put the welfare of children first.
My guess is that in 10, 15, 20 years time, we shall see the unravelling of today's liberality with appalling consequences.
I'll add a fourth one, Father: child psychologists have remained silent during this debate on whether it is psychologically damaging for a child to have two parents of the same gender, whilst, at the same time, missing one of the other.
Don't get me wrong, I grew up in a single-parent household, but there's a different between circumstance and deliberate change. I am not convinced it is healthy for any child to have two mums or two dads.
Does Tony Blair REALLY want to become a Catholic?
Does Ruth Kelly, as a member of Opus Dei, REALLY take her Catholic faith into her daily work life?
Are we becoming like the US where Catholics in public life vote against all of the social issues touching on the Catholic faith just for the sake of political expediency?
The only MP I can see who has really stood up for the Catholic faith on this issue is Ann Widdecombe, who, though not in Government, has the integrity and honesty to denounce this policy for what it is.
Augustinus, what are you thinking?
To check I've got it the right way round: the "liberals" will go off to boot camp?
In my own adult lifetime, we have come from the decriminalization of homosexual acts "between consenting adults in private" to the wholesale acceptance by the opinion forming classes of the so-called alternative lifestyle as something equal in all respects to marriage between a man and a woman, with the effects we see today.
The debate concerning the purpose of legislation, namely "the enforcement of morals" versus "the right regulation of society" has, rightly or wrongly, long been decided in favour of the latter. Unfortunately, in prosecuting its politically correct agenda, government has now legislated for a particular moral viewpoint, but one which is profoundly anti-christian.
Mark, no, I don't think the 'liberals' will go off to boot camp. My guess is that we will be seeing the psychological damage done to children placed in the care of people in homosexual relationships - and maybe some consequential damage done to society. How it will manifest itself, I don't know - it's just my guess that there will be long-term issues emerging from this.
Ann Widdecombe also made the very pertinent point on BBC News last night that, unless we're careful, this issue marks the end of freedom of conscience in this country.
Thank you Father. Society desperately needs clear moral teaching and I wish that more voices like yours were heard.
Also:
- adoption agencies regularly discriminate on the basis of race.
- in this country you are not allowed to become head of state if you are a Catholic.
It is starting to look as if the bishop's are wavering, and back-pedalling on their threats about closing the agencies down.
If the Church does not now maintain it's resolve to close down all of it's adoption agencies, it will lose whatever credibility it has left, and objective moral truth will become (like New Labour itself, please God) a thing of the past.
Let us hope that in 21 months time, we have clear-sighted leadership in place with the backbone to take the correct stand.
In the meantime, perhaps Church leaders will find the humility to see if agencies abroad can assist us with the placement of some of the children. And launch a campaign to have this decision repealed, as Blair himself will soon be resigned to history, and Brown; Cameron/Duncan-Smith etc. will be in Downing St.
The sad thing is that Blair, comparatively speaking, had little to lose by giving the Church the exemption it requested. Career-wise that it.
"increasingly we find the state agencies including the police are used to enforce this agenda"
Yes, I remember Sir Iqbal Sidiqi was interviewed by the police over his views on civil partnerships. New Labour is becoming scarey, it is tending towards the totalitarian.
Be afraid, be afraid, be very afraid.
The Scottish Catholic adoption agencies, apparently, are going to carry on as normal and wait for someone to take them to court. Then they'll use the Human Rights Act (which guarantees religious liberty) to defend themselves. I think it's called civil disobedience. Good luck to 'em!
I don't see our English bishops choosing the palm of martyrdom. Instead they will persevere with the policy of sucking up to the Establishment no matter how many times they end up getting kicked in the teeth.
Mother of 4,
New Labour was scary from the very beginning, harping constantly about "the people's" this and that (think of princess, peers, panels, &c.). Where my folks come from, anything prefixed by the words "the people's" sends a shiver down the spine!
It's said that Tony Blair wants to convert to Catholicism after he leaves office. Given his enthusiasm for abortion and gay rights I hope the Cardinal will show him the door!
I posted this to the Daily Telegraph site this morning:
"There are two ways in which to raise a religious objection to civil laws. The first is when an individual is convinced that God imposes on him a law which he and everyone else must obey on pain of eternal punishment and cannot change. He applies that law to a moral situation and reaches a judgement of what he must and must not do. At that point he is convinced that he must not obey a conflicting civil law.
But what of the conscience of the suicide bomber, whose religious beliefs command him to murder? At that point the Catholic Church has to fall back on natural-law arguments. Divine law trumps his conscience in that case and brands him as dishonest.
It also trumps a conflicting civil law or court judgement. And what authority has the Catholic Church to determine divine law? The Church is by the will of Jesus Christ the infallible teacher of the truth that sexual activity outside marriage is evil.
Now is the time for the Church to stand, publicly, on those credentials."
"I don't see our English bishops choosing the palm of martyrdom. Instead they will persevere with the policy of sucking up to the Establishment no matter how many times they end up getting kicked in the teeth."
I don't really care how many times individual bishops of E and W get kicked in the teeth. I do care when the Church, She whom they should be defending, is also kicked in the teeth, ridiculed and dis-honoured.
Let's pray that this most recent debacle will bring about a step-change of heart in the attitudes of our bishops and they will defend the Church and all She stands for. we, for our part, must also defend the Church at all costs.
Plum,
I am not sure getting into a scrap on someone elses blog, serves much purpose. This is obviously the vehicle for his own prejudices - which I suppose is the nature of blogdom.
I'm gay, Catholic and relaxed about my sexuality. The reason for posting a comment on your enjoyable blog is that among my gay friends nobody who might want to adopt a kid (and none of them do but they've been talking about this issue because its hit the press) would ever consider going to a Catholic adoption agency. There are plenty of others to choose from where there is no hassle. Anyway, the number of gays who want to go down this path is insignificant. Its more likely to be lesbians who want to adopt and many would make great mums. Its the political element that are likely to cause trouble and most of them are fruitcakes.
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