Tag: same-sex marriage

Either You Are Catholic or You Are Not

On By Paul RoyIn Catholicism, Religious Freedom5 Comments

You are either Catholic or you aren’t. No, this isn’t an attempt to convert everyone out there to Catholicism, but rather it is directed to those who claim to be Catholic, yet don’t follow the teachings of the church. They pick and choose which tenets of the faith to follow and decide the others aren’t right.

This is especially a problem when it is very public figures who claim they are devout Catholics yet believe in things such as abortion or same-sex marriage. Of course at the top of this list for me is Nancy Pelosi the House Minority Leader from the San Francisco area. Why Nancy even believes she is more catholic than San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. She recently sent him a letter asking him not attend the March for Marriage event.

“We share our love of the Catholic faith and our city of San Francisco,” Pelosi wrote to Cordileone, who, as head of the 560,000-member Archdiocese of San Francisco, has become the Catholic bishops’ point man against gay marriage. She urged him to abandon an event in which some of the participants show “disdain and hate towards LGBT persons.” – SFGate.com

I’ll make one point on this then move on from my minor rant about Pelosi and go onto my main idea. The debate about same-sex marriage as far as the Catholic Church goes has nothing to do with “disdain and hate towards LGBT persons” but the fact that the Catholic Church believes it is against the teachings of our Savior Jesus Christ. They have always taught this and they aren’t going to change it now. Catholics, and any one else for that matter especially Christians, don’t “hate” anyone, rather they hate the sin and love the sinner. But enough of my political rant against another democratic politician who thinks she has all the answers and is smarter than the rest of us.

The problem is this: If you claim to be Catholic, then you should be following all the teachings of the Church, not just the ones you agree with. And for the record, I used to be one of those who claimed to be Catholic, who picked and chose the teachings I would follow.

The Catholic Church has taught the same things since its inception after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Whether the Catholic Church is the “true” church of Jesus can, and has been debated, but the fact remains Catholics haven’t changed their beliefs since that time. They have never succumbed to changes in public opinion, they have never changed due to pressure from the media and certainly not because of any politician. One only needs to look at the history and beginnings of Protestantism for evidence of this. Sir Thomas More, now a saint, was beheaded because he refused to bow to the political pressure put on him by King Henry VIII and agree that the King’s divorce was okay in the Catholic Church.

If you don’t want to follow Catholic teaching, then you can leave the Catholic Church. The church should not and will not change to fit you, you can either change to fit the church or join the over 20,000 other Christian denominations out there. In fact you can even start your own if you would like.

Again, I am not claiming that Catholicism is the one true faith and all the others are wrong. What I am saying is if you don’t like what it teaches, then you should leave, not call yourself a Catholic and get on with your own life. For too long we have let groups with their own political agendas change the way we think and act, they continue to take away our religious freedoms and our right to believe what we wish to believe. This is true whether you are Catholic, Protestant, Mormon or Muslim.

So forgive my rant but at least give it some thought.

Here are some resources you might be interested in:

The Life of Thomas More

Catechism of the Catholic Church

History of the Catholic Church: From the Apostolic Age to the Third Millennium

The History Of Protestantism…

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The End of the World Again

On By Paul RoyIn Faith, MeditationsLeave a comment

Blizzard

As I sit in my living room, feeling the heat from the wood stove warming my old bones, the television is on and I am listening to the folks on the Weather Channel reporting on the latest “End of the World.” I am not sure how many ends have come this winter but it sure seems like a lot. While I know winter storms, especially ice storms in the south, can be bad, and they can certainly be destructive, but I can’t help wondering if the constant hype really helps or if it just creates more panic. 

I also wonder something else, something way more important. The reporters for the Weather Channel are talking about “a catastrophic event” and are preaching what people need to do to prepare. They need to get flashlights, batteries, generators, gasoline, non-perishable food, and on and on. Again, all good advice, but what about the real “catastrophic event” that is coming? Who is preparing for that? Where are the reporters and their live shots? Where is the expert to explain what is happening?

Look at the world around us, we kill our children through abortion, we are passing laws allowing us to kill the weak and infirm, we are destroying the true purpose of marriage, yet we don’t hear an outcry about that. We aren’t being told how to prepare for that “catastrophic event.”

The snow will melt, the power will be restored, the roads will be opened, and life will go on, but is that true with our morality? Will the culture of death be reversed? Will we continue to live in a world where we no longer put others before ourselves? Will we continue to live in a world where money is the God we worship? How do we prepare for that, how do we restore our “power” from that storm?

He answered me and said, “Measure carefully in your mind, and when you see that some of the predicted signs have occurred,  then you will know that it is the very time when the Most High is about to visit the world that he has made.  So when there shall appear in the world earthquakes, tumult of peoples, intrigues of nations, wavering of leaders, confusion of princes,  then you will know that it was of these that the Most High spoke from the days that were of old, from the beginning.  For just as with everything that has occurred in the world, the beginning is evident, and the end manifest;  so also are the times of the Most High: the beginnings are manifest in wonders and mighty works, and the end in penalties and in signs. – 2 Esdras 9:1 – 6

The Road to Extinction

On By Paul RoyIn Christianity, Politics3 Comments

For this post only, let’s change the name of this blog to something other than the Wayward Catholic because for this post I want to keep all references to religion, God, Catholicism or the Bible. So pretend its something like the Wayward Atheist. Okay, then, let’s talk about Gay Marriage and why it is wrong from a purely biological view point.

Why are there men and women? Why are they made different? What is the sole purpose that there are men and women or if you prefer males and females of any species? And no it is not the purpose of man to make women miserable or vice versa. Women were not put here to pick up men’s socks.

The reason there are men and women is very simple, so they can mate and create little males and females (who can then make their parents lives interesting if nothing else). so what happens if men only marry men and women only marry women? Can we see a problem here? Where will the little males and females come from?

Enough said.