Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and 2 Peter 2

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is a good example of how the deadly 1964 Hyannisport Conclave and tragically catholic family infamously involved keep on giving and giving and giving… to the culture of death.

KKT has a relentlessly obtuse, 1300 word piece in The Atlantic with a few of the dopiest assertions I have read in a while. The premise, locked up on the title, captures the main point: the American bishops are out of step with Pres. Obama when it comes to contraception! The shock! Imagine!

Out of Step With the Flock: Bishops Far Behind on Birth Control Issues
DEC 9 2011, 9:57 AM ET 10

Even though 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women use birth control during their reproductive years, U.S. bishops are fighting it [Gosh… there’s a compelling reason to ignore natural law and the Church’s teaching.]

Last month, the Vatican issued a clarion call to all people of conscience. [Watch what she does with this.  She will redefine what “conscience” is.  Right?  Can you sense it coming down the line?] It wasn’t about contraception or masturbation or gay marriage or any of the other aspects of peoples’ love lives have drawn religious ire through the ages. Instead, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace stepped forward to question the morality of a global economic system that relentlessly enriches a privileged few while the rest of humanity struggles to keep their heads above water.  [Did you see how see conflates the Pont. Council for Justice and Peace with “the Vatican”?  I suspect she does have the slightest clue what “the Vatican” is.]

The council reaffirmed the notion highlighted in Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 encyclical on the economy, arguing that open markets — usually the engines of prosperity — can foster poverty and inequality when unscrupulously exploited for selfish ends. As a counterbalance, the council called for international standards and safeguards to stem the world’s worsening inequities in the concentration of wealth.

[Now we experience the ol’ switcheroo.  She will suggest that, instead of paying attention to the important things, bishops are mired in little things.  Liberals always do this.  Since they can’t do more than one thing at a time, they assume that faithful Catholics or conservatives can’t either.] With millions of Americans looking for jobs and struggling in this economy, you might expect the nation’s Catholic bishops to join the Vatican’s quest to level the economic playing field. However, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have other priorities. They are consumed just now with the subject of birth control. The bishops’ leadership is unhappy about a new national policy that includes birth control under preventive health care: a designation that requires new health plans to cover it in full, without the co-payments and deductibles that keep many women from using it effectively. This policy, which was adopted last summer and goes into effect next August, is both laudable and common-sense. [Thus she praises something in direct contradiction to what the bishops are trying to accomplish: defend the consciences of faithful Catholics.]

With yesterday, the 8th day of December, marking the Feast of the Immaculate Conception — which refers to Mary’s being conceived free of original sin, not the conception of Jesus [Pay attention, Your Excellencies!  You are about to be schooled in morals by a Kennedy.]it would be wise of the bishops to realize that [put your coffee cup down now! …] the conception of Mary by her human parents, Saint Joachim and Saint Anne, is a reminder that woman are people of conscience and can decide for themselves when it is best to conceive. In fact, birth control use is universal, even among Catholic women: 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women use birth control during their reproductive years.

[Did you just see what I saw?  She is using the Immaculate Conception as an argument against the US bishops and in favor of taxpayer funding abortifacients.  Did I get that right?  But wait!  There’s more!]

Yet the more conservative bishops don’t approve. So they’re working with congressional Republicans to undermine this new benefit[“Benefit”… unless you are the newly conceived child being aborted by the taxpayer funding abortifacient.] If they succeed, millions of women — Catholic and non-Catholic alike — will miss out on the promise of the new health care law. [Pay no attention to the millions of children who will never will to grow up to be taxpayers to fund all these entitlements.]

[…]The bishops’ ploy is yet another indication of how out of step they are with their flock. In the mid-1960s, [the same period as the Hyannisport Conclave] Pope Paul VI authorized a commission to make recommendations about the use of birth control. The laypeople on the commission voted 60-4 for change, while the clerics voted 9 to 6. Despite the majority of both clerics and laypeople in favor of change, Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, argued that this change would undermine Church authority, because it would look like the Church could not discern eternal truths.

[…]

There is a lot more of this rubbish.

Here is the verse that popped into my mind as I read the last paragraph I cited: 2 Peter 2 with its memorable conclusion the memorable verse 2 Peter 2:22:

For, that of the true proverb has happened to them: The dog is returned to his vomit: and, The sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire.

Hardly a surprise that she would run back to her roots in the Hyannisport Conclave.

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62 Comments

  1. Rich says:

    For catholics obsessed with women’s ordination, birth control and gay rights, any issue but those – be it feeding the poor, providing shelter for the homeless, or whether or not you and your loved ones are going to heaven or hell – is insignificant.

  2. Beau says:

    Your link to the Hyannisport Conclave is not working…

  3. Scott W. says:

    Even though 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women use birth control during their reproductive years

    Uhh, what is her source on this? It seems this number goes up every time someone tackles this question.

  4. Ms Townsend is an example of an erroneous assumption in the life of American Catholics, one that maintains that being a member of a family, one of whose number just happened to be the first American president who was Catholic, automatically makes you an authority on the subject, no matter how ill-informed you are. The average student at Christendom or Steubenville could wipe up the floor with her on a Monday morning, after spending the weekend cramming for midterms and partying in between. Some years ago she took John Paul II to task for knowing so little about matters of human sexuality. I’ve always wanted to mail her a copy of “Love and Responsibility.” There are certain pages I would bookmark, of course. Some of you know which ones.

    Until she is put to the test on a level playing field — like that’s ever gonna happen — she’s good for a headline about once every other year, whatever gets her motor running that day.

  5. Gregg the Obscure says:

    If the numbers quoted for that 1960s commission are correct, all that indicates is some extremely bad catechesis in the decades before the 1960s. Surprised they haven’t tried to “update” Scripture by adding “I was inconvenient and you aborted Me” after “I was in prison and you visited Me”.

  6. Ralph says:

    Father, I can’t help but think of Isaiah 5:20:
    “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who change darkness into light, and light into darkness, who change bitter into sweet, and sweet into bitter! ” NAB translation

    If this doesn’t sum up the above article, and many of the “progressive” in the Church, I don’t know what does.

  7. The last 2 links (of 3) to the Hyannisport Conclave are relative links. They work only from the website itself and not from any feed. FWIW – it won’t help to fix it now as the content has already been snagged by FeedBurner.

  8. Sam Schmitt says:

    The bishops were “out of step with their flock” fighting racial discrimination in the 1950s and 60s. If only they followed the lead of Catholics like KKT. . . . .

  9. disco says:

    It’s so infuriating to read this garbage. The Kennedys ought to be ashamed of themselves. The other thing that gets me is the sob stories about not being able to afford birth control because of the copays and how that should be covered, not to mention the extraordinary cases where women suffer from unbearable periods and need it for that reason. Well someone has to pay for it and i for one think that the person actually making use of the product is a pretty good default. After all it’s not like these idiots are putting anything in the collection plate because they are spiritual and don’t believe in organized religion. Well neither should Catholics of informed consciences be forced to surrender any of their resources to fund your lifestyle you ignorant twit.

  10. pm125 says:

    “It wasn’t about contraception or masturbation or gay marriage or any of the other aspects of peoples’ love lives …”

    The term ‘love life’ in conjunction with the above aspects blatantly reveals the mentality of pagan rejection of the Sixth Commandment of God.

    “Out of Step With the Flock: Bishops Far Behind on Birth Control Issues”

    More like the flock is out of step with what the Bishops (as defenders of the Church, established by Jesus) say about the love of God for His people.

    Mind and heart are not in the part of the body located below the belt.

  11. SimonDodd says:

    Unfortunately, the statistic isn’t pulled from her Hynie-sport: Guttmacher did purportedly find that 98% use contraception. To be sure, I’m sure that their survey hugely inflates that number by accepting the testimony of self-described Catholics, thus counting a great number of non-Catholics as Catholics. But 9% is really, really, really high. Even if the number is massively overinflated, that suggests that the baseline number is alarmingly high. So where do we go from here?

  12. disco says:

    @simondodd read that article it says 98% have used not currently use. It goes on to say that 70% use the pill or an iud. Still pretty terrible but at least a few of the 98% appear to have repented or at least stopped using birth control at some point.

  13. DisturbedMary says:

    Bishops should tell her to send back her baptismal certificate.

  14. Charles E Flynn says:

    I realize that this article deals with some vitally-important topics, but I am sitting here shocked at the news that liberals cannot multitask.

  15. Mundabor says:

    This woman considers masturbation a component of one’s “love life”.

    This really says it all.

    Mundabor

  16. APX says:

    @Mundabor
    This woman considers masturbation a component of one’s “love life”.
    This really says it all.

    Amen to that! I thought I was the only person who drew this conclusion.

  17. tzard says:

    This actually brings to mind 2 timothy4,3

  18. Charles E Flynn says:

    Do any of you know who wrote that “the cognitive basis of modernism is masturbation”? I assume the criticism is based on the the observation that modernism has too much writing about writing, music about music, and painting about painting (keeping in mind that some of this work is valuable, of course).

  19. Jackie L says:

    Per Guttmacher:

    “Among all women who have had sex, 99% have
    ever used a contraceptive method other than natural
    family planning. This figure is virtually the same,
    98%, among sexually experienced Catholic women.”
    http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/Religion-and-Contraceptive-Use.pdf

    The term “have ever” makes a mess out of this. Many of us were raised without knowledge that the church advocated against artificial birth control. I went to Catholic schools K-12, was in Catholic sports leagues, spent my Summers at Catholic Camp, and was at mass each Sunday, and was not aware of this teaching. Ms Townsend was slippery in the was this was worded, this statistic includes anyone who may have used abc in the first year of marriage and then stopped, and there are MANY of us out there.

    I smoked a cigarette about 5 times over the course of my life, none in over 20 years, no one would define me as a smoker, yet if the “have ever” standard of Ms. Townsend and this study were applied, I would be considered one.

    Of Catholic women in their reproductive years the rate of abc use is not 98%, and I would suspect it is falling, though probably nothing to be proud of.

  20. FloridaJoan says:

    … WHERE do these people come from ? I’m still scratching and shaking my head. Lord, have mercy.

    pax et bonum
    Joan

  21. Rob Cartusciello says:

    Her theological treatise on Sts. Joachim & Anne and the Immaculate Conception are so contorted that I can only speculate that somewhere in country, an ECUSA congregation is missing its wymyn-priest.

  22. Miriam says:

    I have a cradle Catholic friend who was actually advised by a priest that birth control was a matter of personal conscience. It was only later after she researched for herself that she realized it was a sin.

    She had four other babies after that and was happy to have them. I wonder how many Catholics have been told that children aren’t really a blessing after all?

  23. frjim4321 says:

    This woman considers masturbation a component of one’s “love life”.

    That struck me as being strange as well. Could she have been refering to the “mutual” variety as opposed to solitary? Even so, it’s a strange comment.

    Does anyone know if the author has any kind of academic degree? The piece seemed a bit unpolished to me.

  24. JKnott says:

    The Immaculate Conception under the title of Our Lady of Fatima has a few words to say to Kathleen and others holding her perverse notions.

    Sins of the Flesh: “More souls go to Hell because of the sins of the flesh than for any other reason.”

    Sinful Marriages: “Many marriages are not good; they do not please Our Lord and are not of God.”

  25. rhhenry says:

    omnia, autem, probate; quod bonum est, tenete (1 Thess 5:21).

    Hopefully no-one “tenetes” the “argument” put forth in this article . . .

  26. Dominic Bolin says:

    FWIW, the statistic report on contraceptive use only applies to “women who do not want to get pregnant.”

    So to say that 98% of Catholic women have even ever used contraception is just plain false, let alone using it now.

  27. Joanne says:

    “it would be wise of the bishops to realize that the conception of Mary by her human parents, Saint Joachim and Saint Anne, is a reminder that woman are people of conscience and can decide for themselves when it is best to conceive.”

    Words fail me. What’s even more incomprehensible to me than someone WRITING this absurd statement is someone actually publishing it. Incredibly, though, it gets better. I went to Townsend’s website – her book on religion was glowingly endorsed by Bill Clinton. Seriously, if Bill Clinton liked a book I wrote on religion I honestly think I would set it on fire and start over.

    I goodsearched Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, and as I figured, she’s a baby boomer. For some reason, proabortion baby boomers just seem like dinosaurs to me. I think younger people are more prolife. The good news about the Kennedys is that, at least as far as I can tell, they don’t wield anywhere near the influence they used to (not that I think KKT was ever as influential as some of her family). So Kathleen Kennedy Townsend wants to edify the bishops as well as the unwashed masses on religion. We should speak up and correct her erroneous assertions and conclusions, and of course pray for her, but ultimately, I can’t imagine too many people particularly caring what she has to say.

  28. sallyr says:

    I am bewildered by this KKT article on a number of levels.

    First, how did something so stupid and poorly written get published? It reads like something a high school kid would write.

    Second, the smug, self-confident tone is so mis-matched with the ignorance on display in the article that it’s kind of funny. Towards the end of the piece, she says something like how surprised she is that people in the US can still maintain their Catholic faith even with these exasperating old bishops in charge (or words to that effect). I couldn’t help but think how surprising it is that people can maintain that they are Catholic when they clearly are so “out of touch” with the faith (she uses the phrase about the bishops).

    Third it is bewildering that there are still Kennedy’s out there who can garner public platforms – when are we as a people going to be free of the Kennedy’s as the media’s preferred “Catholic” dissenters. How long O Lord!!

  29. Denis says:

    ‘This woman considers masturbation a component of one’s “love life”. ‘

    I think she meant to say “self-love life.”

    Her interpretation of the Immaculate Conception is staggering: it’s a parable about freedom of reproductive ‘choice.’ Joseph and Mary saved humanity by not aborting Jesus. But, since it’s all about their choice, presumably they could have saved humanity by aborting Jesus, too–because both choices are equally valid.

  30. amenamen says:

    Where have you gone, Waldo Emerson?

    It is bad enough that an unsuccessful ex-politician would write a “relentlessly obtuse” article that wends its way for thirteen thousand words. But it is even more troubling that the venerable old Atlantic Monthly (now, The Atlantic) would stoop to publish it. It was once the pride of the prideful New England literary caste. What has become of them? Is this the kind of material that meets their standards now?

    The relatively ancient anti-Catholic sentiments of the “Boston brahmins” still lingers, and success for Catholic politicians there has often come at the the cost of their faith. One has to wonder what led up to the decision to publish such a long-winded screed. Is it a last ditch effort to salvage the waning influence of the literary magazine, or the waning influence of a family of politicians?

  31. KAS says:

    Fascinating how she pushes the pill as a healthy thing, supporting the evils of forcing faithful Catholics to pay for something they find abhorrent.
    I was reading this the other day: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2011/12/08/should-nuns-take-the-pill-for-health-reasons/ and it occurred to me that by pushing the pill on NUNS and calling it a health treatment (it is not), the pro-contraception crowd is going to have a field day insisting that this bad government policy is a good thing for women’s health.

    Totally clueless!

  32. Phillip says:

    “the conception of Mary by her human parents, Saint Joachim and Saint Anne, is a reminder that woman are people of conscience and can decide for themselves when it is best to conceive.”

    That…makes no sense whatsoever. I’ve probably read it ten times and still can’t figure out what she’s talking about.

  33. avecrux says:

    You are right, Philip. It makes no sense. I read it several times as well.
    St. Joachim is a man. Mary was conceived by St. Joachim and St. Anne together.
    But I’m meant to be reminded about women deciding for themselves when to conceive? Ok.

  34. Supertradmum says:

    Three points: firstly, I, as a Catholic women who never used contraceptives or birth control, was never sexually promiscuous, and followed Humanae Vitae, has never been asked in any poll about my use or non-use. I assume most polls are done in the NYC, or LA area and never get into the Bible Belt or other more conservative areas. I have never been asked by anyone a poll question on the Catholic faith or morality.

    Secondly, how does one break through to Catholic friends, who hate abortion and contraception, that the Kennedys were and are hypocrites at best and heretics at worst? I have friends in Massachusetts and other Eastern states who have literally adored this family to the detriment of their Catholic brains, hearts and consciences…How does one break the Myth of the Kennedys?

    Thirdly, we must pray for this woman’s soul. How scary to fall into the Hands of the Living God, who has given us the One, Holy, Catholic Church and Her Magisterium as Gifts to all humans for authority over all peoples and Who is mocked, the Bride of Christ, mocked in this article.

  35. Supertradmum says:

    Joanne,
    Until a year ago, I taught university and college students. Those who are Catholic are mostly, but not all, pro-life. Those who are not Catholic are not pro-life. The real Catholic youth are a minority. Many of the Latinas in my classes were for abortion, and for Obamacare. Sadly, our real Catholic youth, who support Humanae Vitae, are a minority. Loud and strong they are, but a minority. This is also the case in Europe, as well as in the United States. Being pro-death cuts across generations, believe me, and in my generation, the baby-boomers, there are larger families than in Generation X or the Millenials, both groups using contraceptives as a matter of course. Except for home schooling families in my parent’s American parish, most families run around two children, and here in Malta, the supposedly most Catholic country in the world, the birth-rate is 1.2 children per woman. One may see one or two children at Mass, even in a huge parish. Where I go on Sunday, there are no children of any age at the Mass, out of about 350 people. No children …we are living in the age of the Pied Piper of Hamlin, who represents greed and status.

  36. Mariana says:

    Supertradmum is very right (on all points), who has actually ever participated in any poll to which writers like Mrs. Townsend refers?

  37. Mundabor says:

    “How does one break the Myth of the Kennedys?”

    You say the magic word.

    Chappaquiddick.

    Mundabor

  38. nialasfitch says:

    This lady has some odd ideas. One to be noted in passing:

    “contraception or masturbation or gay marriage or any of the other aspects of peoples’ love lives have drawn religious ire through the ages. “”

    “Masturbation” appears here to be considered an aspect of one’s “love life”, which is exactly what it is not. It has nothing to do with love whatsoever. That’s the problem.

    And, more importantly,

    “The bishops’ ploy is yet another indication of how out of step they are with their flock.”

    A bizarre idea seems to underlie this statement: that when a shepherd’s flock of sheep strays from the right path, the shepherd is supposed to go along with this and follow them – rather than guiding them back in the right direction.

  39. josephx23 says:

    Her invocation of Paul VI’s informal birth control commission is especially suspicious. Wasn’t that commission supposed to be secret? Did we not have a discussion in these very pages about the various exotic canonical penalties accrued by the sort of ecclesiastical ne’er-do-well who would dare violate the Papal secret? And since when do Catholics get to vote on the deposit of faith, KKT?

  40. Since I completely agree with the tenor of the previous comments, I won’t repeat them. I just want to add one question. What (other than her last name) even gives her the right to an opinion?

    I get so tired of celebrities (or people with famous last names) who believe that because they ARE celebrities they have a right to express any opinion on any subject — whether they know anything about the subject at all — and expect to be treated like experts!

  41. tcreek says:

    Artificial birth control is a demographic nightmare for our Catholic Faith and 98%? of our bishops and priests are complicit by their non-teaching against this grave moral evil. Are not at least ½ of the children missing from each and every parish?

  42. Denis says:

    I’m guessing that KKT has in mind the story, I think from the Protoevangelium of St. James, according to which Ioachim’s sacrifice at the temple–offered in the hope that St. Anna would conceive–was rejected by the priest because St. Anna’s barrenness was thought to be a sign of God’s displeasure. In spite of the self-righteousness of the hypocrite priest, who wanted to deprive them of their reproductive choice, St. Ioachim and St. Anna persisted in prayer, and Mary was conceived. Hail to thee, Planned Parenthood!

    Again, my question is: if the conception of Mary is a parable of ‘reproductive choice,’ why not the birth of Christ? Why not interpret the Nativity as a celebration of Mary’s reproductive choice not to abort Jesus? And, if it’s that choice we are celebrating, it follows, logically, that we’d be celebrating it just as much if Mary had decided to terminate her pregnancy.

  43. Joanne says:

    Hi, Supertradmum:

    We can all only speak from our own experiences and observations on this, I guess. My opinion may be colored by the fact that I follow Lila Rose, Jill Stanek, and Steven Ertelt online and I’m encouraged by what I see. I’ve also been encouraged on the occasions that I’ve done the March for Life in DC and the prolife walk in my own city. Also, I work with many women of all different ages and my sense is that I could at least have a conversation about prolife issues with the 20- something women in a way that I couldn’t or wouldn’t with those in their 50s. The outright hostility (or just even the assumption that you must agree with them because *of course* every clear-thinking person favors legalized abortion) that I have felt from women my age (I’m in my early 40s) and those a few years older than me on this topic just doesn’t seem to be there in the same way with younger women. That might not be the best news we could hear, but it’s a start, at least.

  44. Christophorus says:

    Just look at her Wikipedia entry (‘nuf said):
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Kennedy_Townsend

  45. Patt says:

    I cannot understand what my female dog tries to tell me, nor should anyone try to understand Ms. Townsend’s yapping–just show her to the door.

  46. Taylor says:

    Dear Fr. Z,
    Thank you for watching from the citadels and defending the walls of the Church! I am amused at how many people unknowingly yearn to be the next great archheretics. Push them back down.
    Peace,
    t

  47. Supertradmum says:

    KKT merely reflects the larger, misty ideas of Catholics in Massachusetts. One can follow this blog for regular information on the not-so-strong stance of the bishops in past elections and the mixed messages which come out of the chancery in Boston. KKT’s ideas, sadly, are part of mainstream Eastern Democrat Catholic identity, especially with regard to abortion, contraception and gay issues. http://bryanhehirexposed.wordpress.com/2010/11/06/massachusetts-elections-and-mass-catholic-conference/

  48. Joanne says:

    hmmm…I went to that website. I have no love of Democrats, but I also don’t have a lot of patience for Catholics who call those with same sex attraction, “homos,” either. Our Church teaches that we are supposed to respect the individual, doesn’t it?

    It’s also astounding that “prolife” Catholics still don’t get it that in this day and age using a word like that is going to repel people (even people like me who basically agree with their goals), not attract anyone that you would actually WANT to be your ally. It has seemed to me for a long time now that vis-a-vis the prolife cause, the problem is with the messengers, not the message.

  49. Banjo pickin girl says:

    Joanne, you have said very well what I have been trying to say for a long time. I no longer bother with some pro-life web sites because of the obvious nastiness. They lend credence to the world’s view that faithful Catholics are a bunch of sexual deviants ourselves who are so neurotic we hate anything to do with it.

  50. Marine Mom says:

    This woman, our sister in Christ, comes from a tragic history……….Mercy, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Pray for us.

  51. robtbrown says:

    Joanne says:

    hmmm…I went to that website. I have no love of Democrats, but I also don’t have a lot of patience for Catholics who call those with same sex attraction, “homos,” either. Our Church teaches that we are supposed to respect the individual, doesn’t it?

    So we shouldn’t refer to murderers, rapists, thieves, or liars, if that’s what they are?

  52. Tom T says:

    A shocking statement was recently made by Boston college professor and author Peter Kreeft told to a group at the Bishop O’Conner Center in Madison when he said that pro-abortion Catholics have done more damage to the Church than the sex abuse scandal. As reported by the Cardinal Newman Society Nov. 28,2011 that during a Q&A period and audience member brought up the Kennedy political dynasty and how a group, of leading Catholic theologians and Catholic College professors met with family members in the mid 60s and came up with a way for Catholic politicians to support a pro-abortion rights platform with clear conciences. Kreeft said,” these Catholics told the Kennedys how they could get away with murder.” Then he made the boldest statement of the evening, suggesting the theologians who first convinced Democratic politicians they could support abortion rights and remain Catholic did more damage to the Church than pedophile priests. All this goes on today non-stop within these so-called Catholic Universities. In April of 2011 Caroline Kennedy, a self proclaimed pro-choice, pro gay marriage, liberal Catholic was invited to The Dominican University of Calif. to head a lecture series. As recently as Dec. 2011 a well orchestrated attempt to undermine the Church`s doctrine and its stand against homosexual marriage with a series of conferences sponored by two Jesuit Universities and funded by a radical foundation Arcus who paid 100,000.00 for the conferences. To help the Democrates along there is and article in the Catholic News Service a division of none other than the USCCB demonizing the Rebublicans and particularly that anti union pro big business Gov. Walker in Wisconsin after what he did to labor. This writer Mark Pattison, even manages to quote from a left wing liberal nun called Sister Marge Clark, a domestic issues lobbyist for “Network” the Catholic Social justice lobby. The battle lines are drawn and have been for some time. Practicing your Faith today is like tip toeing through a land mine laced field. Pax.

  53. Joanne says:

    “So we shouldn’t refer to murderers, rapists, thieves, or liars, if that’s what they are?”

    One can reject an organized homosexual agenda and not label the individuals or groups involved in a disparaging way. There are more intelligent, positive, and productive ways to promote the Gospel of Life than using slurs like, “homo.” And this is even worse to do, again in my opinion, when you 1. put it in writing publicly and 2. are in a forum that is clearly Catholic and prolife. There might be some decent information on that website (although this issue also came up on another Catholic prolife site I was on), but quite frankly I don’t want to sift through the manure to find it.

  54. Shamrock says:

    The Kennedy’s are not Catholics….but rather Democrats! They cannot seem to reconcile their politics with their so-called religion. What this female politician is espousing is the Democratic Party agenda…nothing to do with the Catholic Church..except to disparage any connection the USCCB might being trying to make with the Republican agenda. She pretends to be a Catholic when she wants to discredit the Church…but it is the Democratic Party agenda she cares about …not the orthodoxy of the RC! What we want to know is when will the USCCB start
    calling out these politicians that publically display their anti Catholic views while claiming also publically how devoutly Catholic they are…e.g Nancy Pelosi et al…..This lack of action on the part of the USCCB lends credence to the relativity of it all and leads the Church further astray from its true teaching. We really cannot complain or blame these quasi-Catholic leaders if they continue to get away with their heretical activity…..without consequence. Or maybe the USCCB is going to leave the whole mess up to Judgment Day and the Lord? In that case, it should take all eternity to straighten this one current mess out alone!! I was hoping for some peace and rest there!

  55. robtbrown says:

    Joanne says:

    “So we shouldn’t refer to murderers, rapists, thieves, or liars, if that’s what they are?”

    One can reject an organized homosexual agenda and not label the individuals or groups involved in a disparaging way. There are more intelligent, positive, and productive ways to promote the Gospel of Life than using slurs like, “homo.”

    “Homo” is short for homosexual. How is that a slur?

  56. Tom T says:

    When I posted my comment about the two Jesuit Universities that hosted the series of conferences with videos about homosexual marriage with multiple statements significantly opposed to Catholic doctrine, I failed to mention that they were Fairfield Univ. and Fordham Univ. and that both Universities are in the same State that passed the same sex marriage law. Also, the same Catholic News Service, again an arm of the USCCB, sent out an article that went diocesan newspapers across the country, according to Catholic Culture Sept. 2 2011, that praised Labor Secretary H. Solis as a model Catholic politician while ignoring her 100% rating from Pro Choice America when she was a congresswoman in Calif where she even voted against restrictions on partial birth abortion. Pax

  57. Tom T says:

    I made an error in my last comment. Only Fordham University is in New York. My apology. Pax

  58. Joanne says:

    “Homo” is short for homosexual. How is that a slur?

    Hi, Robert:

    I see now. You’re evidently not a native speaker of English. If you were, you would know that “homo” is a word that is used disparagingly to describe people, especially men, who are burdened with the cross of same sex attraction.

    Thanks for the discussion. I’ll keep you in my prayers.

  59. robtbrown says:

    Joanne,

    You’re right. “Homo” is not a nice word. That’s because sodomy is not a nice thing–it is an unnatural act. Among sins of lust it ranks just above bestiality (also an unnatural act).

    Of course, homosexuals bear the burden of attraction to those of the same gender, just as pedophiles bear the burden of attraction to prepubescents, thieves bear the burden of the urge to take the property of others, and murderers bear the burden of the urge to take the lives of others.

    Personally, I prefer “sodomite” or “poofter”.

    BTW, my first degree (and about half a master’s) is in English literature.

  60. Kennedy seems to be under the impression that the Church, like protestant sects, must “change with the times,” because she makes the fallacious claim that an unpopular moral teaching must be a wrong one. She also seems to be under the impression that she’s read Aquinas and Augustine. Aquinas is quoting Aristotle when he speaks of women being “misbegotten males.” (De Gener. Animal. iv. 2) Aquinas states the argument and replies, “On the other hand, as regards human nature in general, woman is NOT MISBEGOTTEN, but is included in nature’s intention …Now the general intention of nature depends on God, Who is universal Author of nature. Therefore, in producing nature, God formed not only the male but also the female.” (Summa Theologica I Q. 92 Art. I AD I)

    He even uses Augustine to support his claim that man AND woman are in the image of God in the fourth article: “The image of God, in its principle signification, namely the intellectual nature, is found both in man and in woman. Male and female he created them (Gen. i. 27) Moreover it is said them in the plural, as AUGUSTINE (Gen. ad lit. iii 22) remarks, lest it should be thought that both sexes were united in one individual.” (Summa Theologica I Q. 93 Art.IV AD I)

    I’m in the process of writing a letter to the editor to the Atlantic. Let’s face it- it won’t be published, but it will make me feel better.

  61. Tom T says:

    Rebecca DeVendra, Good for you. Thank you for writing them. I do that quite often. I contacted the Dominican Univ. in Calif. that invited Caroline Kennedy to head a lecture series. I did`nt get a response either, but like you it made me feel better. Its intereting that you should point out the mind set of liberals. The Church is divided the same way the Supreme Court is in the U.S. Justice Anthony Scalia believes for instance, the constitution means what it says while Justice Breyer believes that it is a living constitution that must change with the times. Similarily you have Catholic liberals that believe we must change doctrine and Catholic teaching, of which camp the Kennedys belong and those who believe that the Vatican has defined and clarified Church doctrine and Catholic teaching via the Magisterium and it is what it is. There are to be sure many grey areas
    of thought however in my view the bottom line somehow always seems to come to change vs. belief in what has been revealed. Pax

  62. Thanks Tom- I did write a letter and I do feel much better. Wonder if she’ll read it?

    You are right: Townshend asserts the absurd (Liberal?) notion that an unpopular moral teaching must be an incorrect one, and that for some reason the Church ought to change its declarations of revealed truth based on a vote.

    I’d encourage Townshend to read the excerpts of Sts. Thomas Aquinas and Augustine I pointed out, and to review the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1783-1791) to refresh herself on the necessity of a rightly-formed conscience. Perhaps a study of the Church’s teachings on artificial contraception would do her some good as well. If she reads these things and refuses to heed them, I certainly won’t call her a “cafeteria Catholic.” I’d simply call her, “a protestant.”

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