More Miscellaneous Rambling
M-Cubed: My Man Morlino! You gotta check out his letter to the faithful. It's not the "pray for the victims" tripe other bishops who are stuck in the "business as usual" mode are producing. Wow, thank you Bishop Bob!
But to be clear, in the specific situations at hand, we are talking about deviant sexual – almost exclusively homosexual – acts by clerics. We're also talking about homosexual propositions and abuses against seminarians and young priests by powerful priests, bishops, and cardinals. We are talking about acts and actions which are not only in violation of the sacred promises made by some, in short, sacrilege, but also are in violation of the natural moral law for all. To call it anything else would be deceitful and would only ignore the problem further.
There has been a great deal of effort to keep separate acts which fall under the category of now-culturally-acceptable acts of homosexuality from the publically-deplorable acts of pedophilia. That is to say, until recently the problems of the Church have been painted purely as problems of pedophilia – this despite clear evidence to the contrary. It is time to be honest that the problems are both and they are more. To fall into the trap of parsing problems according to what society might find acceptable or unacceptable is ignoring the fact that the Church has never held ANY of it to be acceptable – neither the abuse of children, nor any use of one's sexuality outside of the marital relationship, nor the sin of sodomy, nor the entering of clerics into intimate sexual relationships at all, nor the abuse and coercion by those with authority.
In this last regard, special mention should be made of the most notorious and highest in ranking case, that being the allegations of former-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's (oft-rumored, now very public) sexual sins, predation, and abuse of power. The well-documented details of this case are disgraceful and seriously scandalous, as is any covering up of such appalling actions by other Church leaders who knew about it based on solid evidence.
While recent credible accusations of child sexual abuse by Archbishop McCarrick have brought a whole slew of issues to light, long-ignored was the issue of abuse of his power for the sake of homosexual gratification.
It is time to admit that there is a homosexual subculture within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that is wreaking great devastation in the vineyard of the Lord. The Church's teaching is clear that the homosexual inclination is not in itself sinful, but it is intrinsically disordered in a way that renders any man stably afflicted by it unfit to be a priest. And the decision to act upon this disordered inclination is a sin so grave that it cries out to heaven for vengeance, especially when it involves preying upon the young or the vulnerable. Such wickedness should be hated with a perfect hatred. Christian charity itself demands that we should hate wickedness just as we love goodness. But while hating the sin, we must never hate the sinner, who is called to conversion, penance, and renewed communion with Christ and His Church, through His inexhaustible mercy.
I don't sing very often, and never in public, but I'm so impressed by Bishop Morlino, I sing a song to him in the upcoming podcast.
And then there's Pope Francis. Check out his letter. No mention of homosexuality, of course. No blame cast at all. He blasts clericalism, which might be a shot in the right direction but, of course, it's so vague, who knows. Which is, I suspect, the goal of the letter: keep it vague, man, keep it vague. Dodge and weave, dodge and weave. "Pay no attention to the homosexuals behind the curtain."
Switch gears: Do not see Crazy Rich Asians. Marie wanted to do something for our anniversary, so I took it her to it. Man, it was jaw-droppingly awful. Every rom-com cliched storyline is trotted out: she doesn't know he's wealthy, she loves him even though she thinks he's poor, she's meeting his family for the first time, the mother-in-law+ rejects her, she wins over the mother-in-law. The only thing unique is that it's filled with Asian actors. That's it. Otherwise, it's just filled with numbingly over-trod ground, like the writers weren't even trying. Talk about racists: it's all about race: "Let's just do the same old crap, but use Asians. That'll make it different."
