Boston’s Mayor Tom Menino is speaking publicly for the first time about the protests against him receiving an award from Catholic Charities, despite being a pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage Catholic. And what he says is that Catholics protesting against him receiving this honor are really just mad at the Church because of the Scandal and church closings. Huh? That’s a class case of deflection and re-direction.
No, Mr. Mayor, we really are upset that you’re pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage and that Catholic Charities is intimating that it’s okay for Catholics to actively enable abortion and gay marriage as long as they also support social justice programs. The scandal we’re upset about, at least in this case, is not clergy sex-abuse, but the abuse of marriage and the ultimate child abuse.
Showing either utter ignorance or that he thinks we’re all gullible, he claims that Church teaching on abortion and gay marriage are not doctrine.
“When the pope speaks on doctrine, that is absolute,” Menino said. “I don’t think choice and gay marriage are doctrine.”
Gee, so if we could prove that so-called “choice” (i.e. abortion) and gay marriage are dealt with by doctrine, he would change his position on those teachings? Fr. Clark, you were a priest in Menino’s parish for a while. Do you buy his ignorance ploy?
Instead of Mayor Menino, insert almost any Catholic Democratic politician from Illinois, and the song and dance will be almost exactly the same. And instead of Catholic Charities, insert DePaul or Loyola or Xavier or Dominican Universities and the hosts will simply be Illinois clones of Massachusetts. The latter educational institutions are largely to blame, along with most parishes, in producing utterly stupid Catholics whose primary allegiance is to their own selves and agendas. What an utter waste of lives and souls during the last half century!!
And now Menino has committed a very public heresy, and we have a teaching moment. Archepiscopus, fulfill thy ministry!
Either Menino is too ignorant to know Voice of the Faithful from Faithful Voice, or he has been tipped off early to a negative decision on Holy Trinity’s appeal. I pray it’s the former because closing Holy Trinity would be an abomination.
I am not convinced that the Church has any doctrinal teachings on civil marriage. I am personally against it being considered anything other than a individual contract, but your Mayor Menino may have a point, it is not a matter of doctrine.
It is a shocking and vile contract, for sure, but is it doctrinal? Needs some investigation.
JBP
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030731_homosexual-unions_en.html
Sure looks like Doctrine to me.. Arguments against SSM can be made from a Natural Law perspective, so we are not “imposing” any revealed truth on society (eg. the Real Presence)
j802,
Fair enough. The Church is against same-sex marriage.
I was thinking of this “marriage” as just another civil contract; per the document the Church is stating that a civil marriage is too close to the actual sacrament, and as such reasons against it. The mayor stating “gay marriage” is definitely wrong (as was I).
Would the Church be against Civil Unions? Something completely outside of a sacrament? j802? Anyone?
JBP
The document is more wide-reaching than your reading… it is not just the similarity of civil marriage to sacramental marriage..
It even opposed civil unions based on Natural Law reasoning…
Menino sounds like he’s arm-wrestling against his conscience: he can’t even bring himself to say the word “abortion” and has to cloak it as “choice”. Must. Hide. The Word.
Menino is speaking for the vast majority of local Catholics … this is what the majority of them think here in Massachusetts.
Menino is perfectly in tune with the nuanced and equivocal statments, homilies and documents that get bandied about nowadays.
This pretense of scandal is silly. Welcome to the new Springtime.
Thomas, I can’t tell if you’re being facetious or if you’ve just realized both the political and moral reality in this state.
Others have said we get the politicians we deserve and we get the bishops we deserve.
Menino was just re-elected. What was his margin of victory? It was quite large, wasn’t it…
Ted Kennedy is up for re-election next year. What are the odds he’ll get re-elected?
Would the Church be against Civil Unions? Something completely outside of a sacrament? j802? Anyone?
John,
If you read the Vatican document again, it is referring to any legal recognition of unions between homosexuals, not just marriage.
That’s not what I heard. What I heard him say was:
“Wa the pope speash aw doctrine, tha is absolute. I don think choice and gay mawwage ahh doctrine.”
(for those not familiar with Boston, Mr. Menino has a nickname, ‘Mumbles’)
Whatever happened to separation of church and state?!
A couple of points:
(1) csprague, I refer you to my previous post (on another thread) about how it demeans us to make fun of another’s speech impediments. There is no need to cheapen the argument; the mayor’s comments are ripe for attack themselves, and there is no need to attack his vocal limitations.
(2) jasonb—are you joking? Why does a discussion of whether the mayor of Boston should be invited as a guest of honor to a CATHOLIC event in any way dredge up that old saw? Please: come to discuss, not to slogan.
(3) Hizzoner “For Mayor” Menino has learned well from the moral theologians of the loophole school (Curran comes immediately to mind). This “school” holds that in order for a teaching of the Church to be invalidated, all that needs to exist is dubium; and since I doubt its validity, there is de facto dubium and therefore the teaching is invalid.
That it’s an argument that truly begs the question is immaterial; the fact that it is planted in the consciousness of millions of listeners is what counts.
That’s how the idea that the Church’s teaching on artificial contraception (see Humanae Vitae) is still “up for grabs” came into being. Fact is, that teaching was proclaimed infallibly, as part of the ordinary Magisterium and therefore binding upon all Catholics.
But that’s a story for another day….
“Showing either utter ignorance or that he thinks werect. I apologize (this sort of thing is one of the things I need to work on).
Even non-nifallible statements must be adhered to!!
TRUE Vatican II (Not fake “spirit of Vatican II stuff):
In the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, the Fathers of the Council wrote:
that all the faithful are to accept the teaching of their bishop concerning faith and morals as being offered in the name of Christ, and are to adhere to it with a religious submission of soul. Indeed, this religious submission of will and of the intellect is to be offered in a special way to the authentic Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; offered, that is, in such a way that his supreme Magisterium is reverently acknowledged, the teaching proposed by him sincerely adhered to according to his clear intention and will, which reveals itself from the nature of the documents [he issues], or from the frequency with which he proposes the same teaching, or from his manner of speaking (Lumen Gentium, 25).