"A Humble Servant's Catholic Blog"

A news story was released recently about a group of San Francisco Catholics petitioning to have Archbishop Cordileone ousted for creating “ an atmosphere of division and intolerance ”. You can read one of the covers of that story HERE for details. What I want to focus on are some of the complaints against the Archbishop. He is accused of setting “ a pastoral tone that is closer to persecution than evangelization ”. Evidence cited to support this is a morality clause that defines extra-marital sex and homosexual acts as “ gravely evil ”. The problem with the complaint, though, is that the Church has ALWAYS taught about grave evils, their dangers, the need to warn and rebuke our brothers about them, and that these specific acts are such (cff. 1Jn 1:19, 5:16; James 5:13-16, 19; Lev 19:17; Mt 7:5, 18:15-17; 1Cor 5:1-13; Gal 6:1-2; Lev 20:13; Rom 1:27; 1Cor 6:9-10; MT 5:28 ; etc.). Is it “ persecution ” to warn people about the gravity of certain sins? No. It’s an act of mercy to...

I entered into a discussion with a proponent of same-sex "Marriage" who believes that refusing to bake a same-sex wedding cake is bigotry and hypocrisy. The original discussion was about twice the length as what you will see here, as I removed our back-and-forth that got off-topic, the expletives, repetitive statements, and most of the more blatant unsupported assertions/presumptions. In a way, this could be a disservice because he made many false claims and used several deceptive tactics that Christians should know how to recognize and refute. But I've covered many of them before in other articles, so for the sake of brevity, and to keep it on topic, I edited out much of that. My words will appear in blue font , his in black. JM: Jesus regularly ate dinner with thieves and prostitutes, but you’re telling me it’s against your religion to bake a cake for a gay person? [ A dialog ensued with other people where he stated that a refusal to bake a cake for someone, ev...

Everything the Church teaches about Marriage and the purpose of the conjugal act can be linked back to “man” (both male and female) as being God’s creation in His image and likeness, and to the means of the generation of human life: " God is love and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in his own image… God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion " (FC 11). " God created man in his own image . . . male and female he created them " (Gen 1:27); He blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply"(Gen 1:28); "When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created " (Gen 5:1-2). (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2331, emphasis mine) Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. I...

A video was posted to Facebook which plays a clip of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd responding to a Christian Pastor who asked how the Prime Minister could justify his stance on Same-Sex "Marriage" while simultaneously identifying himself as a Christian. "Why", the Pastor wanted to know, "should Christians vote for [him]" when he holds values that are contrary to Christian belief. (The title of the video is "A Pastor Asks A Politician Why He Supports Gay Marriage. It Seems He Wasn't Prepared For His Reply" It can be found on YouTube quite easily.) Prime Minister Rudd responded, first by subjecting Christian Truth to his personal subjective opinions, and then avoided answering the question altogether by throwing out "strawmen" and resorting other fallacious reasoning tactics. While some same-sex "marriage" supporters will think he made some good points (and Christians will think otherwise), I'd like to give...

My wife brought home a Church bulletin from her trip to Florida, and showed me an article written by the Priest at the Parish where she attended Mass while she was away (St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church).  Admittedly, Briana and I have a particular fondness for this Priest...he celebrated our Marriage.  But that's not what made me want to post his article.  It is his plain and head-on way of addressing a real problem that every person, Catholic or not, is going to have to come to terms with, one way or another.  Without further ado, I am pleased to reproduce Father Edwin Palka's article.  From the Pastor: Gay "Marriage" Won't Affect Me, so What's the Big Deal?      The above question is being asked quite a bit right now by heterosexual people. Those needing to ask have unfortunately by and large embraced the falsehood that God made some people homosexual so they must act on their sexual urges. The rest of the ...

When New York legalized gay “marriage” back around June of 2011, it sparked a large celebration amongst homosexual activists, groups, and their various supporters. My comment was: “ What a sad testament to the downturn of our country as people celebrate the legalization of offenses to God and offenses to humanity. ” It was indeed sad because there was being celebrated and promoted a lifestyle that is directly opposed to the well-being of souls. I went on to point out the sanctity of Marriage, and the purpose for which God created male and female, etc… I don’t’ recall who I quoted, but it was worth quoting then, and is worth repeating now: " Gay marriage/homosexuality is a grave offense. It is not a question of respecting people's rights or their feelings...it is a matter of a grave sin against God that could lead to damnation of a soul. We owe it to our brothers and sisters who have homosexual tendencies to tell them the truth and help curb them away from sin. Other...

That appears to be one stance amongst promoters of keeping religion out of the “marriage business”.   I say “appears” because I had to tie a couple statements together to draw that conclusion.  At any rate, Catholics should be prepared to logically and intelligibly talk about this when it comes up, so here are the paraphrased statements, with my own remarks to each: - Gay couples can already adopt, so opposing SSM doesn’t affect how children are raised.   If the Church wants to make a stand against something that will affect children, it should be standing against divorce.   Regardless, the Church should not claim moral authority on the well-being of children. First of all, just because a same-sex couple CAN adopt and WANTS to adopt does not logicaly mean that this is what's BEST for children...and science does not support any such notion ( source below ).  Secondly, the Church DOES stand against divorce.   In fact, in its 2,000 year history, the...

Senator Diane Savino, on December 2, 2009, gave a speech at a Senate hearing in support of redefining “Marriage” to include same sex couples.  I watched her video and noted each point she made ( in orange italics ), and have addressed each one respectively. In the responses, the bolded blue quotes are from the OSV article linked below. I have also provided the video to Senator Savino's speech for context. “ … tens of thousands of lives hanging in the balance … ” -The argument begins with an emotional plea with absolutely no justification or support. How exactly are lives hanging in the balance? Is not being married detrimental to a person? I’d like to see some credible evidence for this assertion. This is an appeal to emotion with no substance to back it up. " [This is about] fairness and equality…people of right age, sound mind… who choose to live together….and want protection that gov’t grants to the married… ” - Redefining “Marriage” is NOT an issue of ...