Sunday, June 10, 2012

The Crackdown

While outrage on behalf of Sister Margaret Farley, as in the treatment of Sister Elizabeth Johnson some months ago, may be appropriate, great good has emerged from both experiences. In both cases, rather than strike when the books were published, church authorities waited several years before they pounced. My guess is that they don’t really pay that much attention to theological books as they come out. Rather they wait for them to catch on, have influence, and be taught in the colleges. The someone somewhere writes to Rome warning high officials that the church’s truth is in danger.Then the crackdown becomes a public event, the media tell the  people in the pews what is happening. Students who have loved the books and teachers speak up. I worked on the Fordam campus for four years without meeting Elizabeth Johnson. Now I have read her book and have joined her fans. I have heard of Margaret Farley, but now I’ve had a long talk with one of her graduate students, her book Just Love is on my desk, and I’ll read it this weekend. The Washington Post today reports that overnight her Amazon sales ranking soared from 142,000 to 16. Thousands are talking about Farley’s ideas who had never of her before. This public reaction demonstrates that there is a great hunger among Christians and others for a sexual ethic that is grounded in the human experience of the 21st century as well as in the tradition of the church.
Link (here) to piece by Fr. Raymond Schroth, S.J. at America Magazine

10 comments:

Maria said...

THE BASIC DEMONIC LIE. The most fundamental untruth which the devil has sown in the minds of modern man is the denial of genuine freedom.


What the evil spirit does not want us to believe is that our freedom depends on the truth. Christ teaches us just the opposite. We are first to know with our minds what God expects of us. We must use our free will to direct the mind to seek and find the will of God. Then, and only then, are we truly free to use our liberty of choice in submitting our wills to the will of the Almighty. This is what the Savior meant when He told us, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”(John 8:32).


By these words, Our Lord means that He came into the world to teach us the truth. Once we know that, we are in a position to use our free will to choose. In other words, our wills can be enslaved if they do not know what God wants us to choose. But if we are duly enlightened by Christ in knowing what to choose, we have true freedom; we have the liberty to choose what we are expected to choose on the way to our eternal destiny.


All of this the devil has been trying, and how successfully, to convince human beings that they, and not God, have the right to decide on what to choose.




THE EPIDEMIC OF ERROR.


Pope John Paul II is relentless in exposing the widespread dissemination of error in moral teaching. He identifies professedly Catholic universities and seminaries as a seedbed of these errors. He stresses the fact that these errors are especially in the area of sexual and conjugal ethics. So called Catholic moralists are claiming that each person is to decide for himself what is right or wrong regarding contraception, direct sterilization, homosexuality, masturbation, pre-marital sexual relations, and artificial insemination. One result of this moral iconoclasm is to reject even the constant moral teaching of the Church’s magisterium.


The Pope leaves no doubt how believing Catholics are to react to these satanic ideas. They must be condemned as contrary to the truth about man and his freedom. They contradict the Church’s teaching on the unity of the human person, whose rational soul is essentially the form of his body. We are destined for a heavenly eternity in body and soul. We are therefore to serve God here on earth both in body and soul. We are to submit our bodily desires to God’s revealed truth about human pleasure here on earth.

Servant of God Fr. John Hardon SJ

Anonymous said...

Oh Fr. Hardon--talk about "demonic": he advocated for the harboring of a sexual predator.

Maria said...

We believe there must be a deep meaning to the cross. Why? Because God the Creator became one of His own creatures in order to be able to be crucified.

Who is our hope?


In whom can we finally trust? In Jesus Christ and Him crucified.


Jesus Christ crucified is our highest motive for love.


God who was scourged and crowned with thorns and nailed to the cross, He died on the cross because He loved us.


For the love of those whom God has put into our lives: difficult people, unkind people, thoughtless people.


Why? So that by loving them we might proclaim to them our love for Jesus crucified. \


Lord Jesus Christ, you died on your cross out of love for me. Give me the grace to die on my cross because I have proclaimed you, the Incarnate Truth, to everyone who enters my life. Amen

Servant of God John Hardon SJ

Anonymous said...

"Give me the grace to die on my cross because I have proclaimed you, the Incarnate Truth, to everyone who enters my life."

Sounds like Fr. Hardon was lobbying God by reminding God of all the good he--the padre--had done.

Talk about "difficult people, unkind people, thoughtless people." I wonder: did he ever write a prayer about the poor children who were sexually abused?

Jan said...

Thank you, Maria, for your love of God and His servant, Fr. Hardon S.J. Please, pray for me, that I will be able to consider well a vocation, which attracts me to the Society of Jesus, st. Ignatius (...) and Fr. Hardon.

Maria said...

Jan: Oh, how wonderful! I will most assuredly put you on my prayer list, Jan. Spend time with our Lord in adoration and ask Fr. Hardon to lead you...

There are not words to explain how St. Ignatius and Fr. Hardon helped me on to the Mercy of God after a life, of many decades, steeped in sin . God bless you. I would recommend " A Prophet for the Priesthood" by Fr. Hardon, if you have not read it.

Mel said...

Yes, pray the Church changes her teaching to be more reflective of 21st century society. Yes to abortion, contraception, gay marriage. You all thought Pope Paul VI would do that in '68 didn't you? Surprise, surprise. The Holy Spirit guides the Church and "the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it."

Anonymous said...

Fr. Hardon as a spiritual guide---what an odd choice. He has much for which to answer.

Ioannes said...

The Church does not bend to the will of the World nor does it follow the sign of the times. The Church is Eternal, and it is eternally in conflict with the World.

Anonymous said...

"The Church is Eternal, and it is eternally in conflict with the World."

It's time for you to (re)read PACEM IN TERRIS.