You can’t “keep your eyes on Christ” by ignoring His Church
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You can’t “keep your eyes on Christ” by ignoring His Church

6 commentsJune 6, 20072 min read
Written by Domenico Bettinelli

Here’s an example of the woolly thinking evident among so many Massachusetts Catholics who justify their dissent from God’s revealed truth as being somehow consonant with God’s love. In this case, it’s a contributor to the liberal political blog Blue Mass Group who says he’s converted from being against the legal fiction of same-sex marriage to being in favor of it, despite his Catholic faith, because his mother told him so. She said:

“What does the church care what they do? Gays can take it up with God when they die. Otherwise, let them do what they want if it doesn’t hurt you. Just keep your eyes on Christ.”

The Church cares what they do because the Church loves all of her children as a Mother and when you’re standing before God at your judgment is too late to realize that disregarding the Church’s warnings all these years was the path to damnation. You may as well say, “What does your mother care what you do if you want to take LSD and drop acid? You can take it up with the doctor in the emergency room when you’re overdosing and on death’s doorstep. Otherwise, she should let you do what you want if it isn’t hurting anyone else. Just keep your eyes on whatever makes you happy.”

By saying “keep your eyes on Christ” while contradicting the Church’s teaching shows a seriously flawed understanding of what it means to be a Catholic and the nature of the Church.

Our canon law experts would be interested in the blundering attempts to apply canon law and the Catechism to the matter. A Catholic untrained in canon law who tries to interpret the law for himself may have a fool for a client. Most importantly, it may have eternal consequences.

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6 comments

  • Comments like this are the result of over-individualism, and a lack of concrete teaching on the reality of hell…if you don’t believe in hell, why should you believe in sins that might send you there?  You and “JC” can have a “chat” about it later and after a slap on the wrist, “come on in!” to heaven…or maybe not, if we don’t believe in that either…

  • What is so sad is with the wealth of information on the Internet, any Catholic can actually find what the Church teaches on how to treat those with same-sex attraction. Recently in my neighborhood in Lowell there was a hate crime, three black men jumped another black was was a homosexual at 3am Sunday morning. Altercations like this at night are common though.

    I recent read this article Always Our Children

    It is not sufficient only to avoid unjust discrimination. Homosexual persons “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2358). They, as is true of every human being, need to be nourished at many different levels simultaneously. This includes friendship, which is a way of loving and is essential to healthy human development. It is one of the richest possible human experiences. Friendship can and does thrive outside of genital sexual involvement.

    The Christian community should offer its homosexual sisters and brothers understanding and pastoral care. More than twenty years ago we bishops stated that “Homosexuals . . . should have an active role in the Christian community” (National Conference of Catholic Bishops, To Live in Christ Jesus: A Pastoral Reflection on the Moral Life, 1976, p. 19). What does this mean in practice? It means that all homosexual persons have a right to be welcomed into the community, to hear the word of God, and to receive pastoral care. Homosexual persons living chaste lives should have opportunities to lead and serve the community. However, the Church has the right to deny public roles of service and leadership to persons, whether homosexual or heterosexual, whose public behavior openly violates its teachings.

  • Where there is homophobia it isn’t going to improve by mandating the “tolerance” of homosexual relations as a good and the redefinition of marriage…Those prone to violence will then have more of a sense of justification for violent acts.

  • Recent article on hate crimes by former UN Jailing Thoughts

    While criminal law treats all violent acts equally, the proposed law would additionally punish the accused for any prejudice they might have toward the victim. Instead of ending discrimination, this bill would create a judicial caste system in American society by creating categories where some victims are given more consideration and attention than others. This is a direct affront to the equal protection provision of our constitution.

    As a former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, and a person who grew up fighting racism, I oppose the idea of thought crimes. In America, our Constitution guarantees everyone the freedom to think and believe whatever he or she wants, no matter how repulsive those beliefs are to others. And, our Declaration of Independence champions the dignity and worth of every individual.

    Our system of laws requires evidence and varying levels of proof for different offenses. We lock people up for criminal acts. That penalty is already established in law. This bill would allow government to further punish them for their alleged beliefs.

    As a country, do we want to be in the business of “proving” what someone thinks or denying them freedom of conscience? Do we want to rip the heart out of the First Amendment of our Constitution? Do we want to deconstruct our public square where progress has been advanced by a dialogue between faith and reason? Do we really want to embolden a 21st-century secular fundamentalism by forcing religious expression from the public square?

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