Pope Francis meets secretly with Kim Davis on US trip

[bankside]

Your perception remains closed to any thought that your ongoing agenda driven campaigns on this site, against religious beliefs are anything more than politics that serve your particular atheistic beliefs....but you already know this

I know you must repeat that, as a mantra, to help you reimagine your own doubts into tokens of faith. I take no offence.

I must now go to work...adieu...

As must I! Àréalité!

 

[otters]

I know you must repeat that, as a mantra, to help you reimagine your own doubts into tokens of faith. I take no offence.

And I must reiterate: the Pontiff is not merely an extremely evil warlock, or whatever North American Protestants may believe, he's also a foreign HEAD OF STATE. And I'd presume, any enlightened government won't refuse him to comment political affairs.

 

[bankside]

And I must reiterate: the Pontiff is not merely an extremely evil warlock, or whatever North American Protestants may believe, he's also a foreign HEAD OF STATE. And I'd presume, any enlightened government won't refuse him to comment political affairs.

LOL. Well yes, he is much more than just an evil warlock; being head of state is but one of his other duties. I wonder if, so soon after the Arab Spring, we might see a Catholic Spring? Or is "always winter but never christmas." Hah!

 

[T-Rexx]

I have never witnessed that teaching in Catholic doctrine....for the second great commandment invites each human being to love one another...i.e. love your neighbour, as one would love oneself...

I agree that it is ironic that the church would condemn love.

This extract from the Catholic Catechism assists one understand that while all here accept that change in the church's teaching is necessary, to fulfil the Christ's message of love....we must also be patient with human nature, that fears differences in sexuality, skin pigmentation, language differences, and cultural differences...a tragedy for the human race.

The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

Note the passage you have quoted from the catechism.

It says that homosexuality is objectively disordered. Homosexuality is normal biology. It is NOT disorder. The church teaches that we are an example of disease. We are examples of humanity.

It also says we are called 'to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition." In other words, we are supposed to remain celibate our entire lives, and never love the only people we are capable of honestly loving. Does that not sound like hatred to you?

You're fantasising....again.. for no such teaching exists...

I direct you to the "Cahtholic Answers" section on homosexuality:

Homosexual desires, however, are not in themselves sinful. People are subject to a wide variety of sinful desires over which they have little direct control, but these do not become sinful until a person acts upon them, either by acting out the desire or by encouraging the desire and deliberately engaging in fantasies about acting it out.

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/homosexuality

Even fantasizing about love is sinful, as far as the church is concerned. Yes, this applies to both heterosexuals and homosexuals. But at least heteros can, in theory, wait until marriage to fantasize about love.

 

[xboxfan34]

I have no reason to love the Catholic Church for TRexx's reasons, but that doesn't stop Kim Davis from being an exploitative cunt. I fully believe that she took advantage of Pope Francis' graciousness and hoped that everyone would believe that the Pope endorsed her and her quote unquote "crusade" against "TEH OPPRESIVE ANTI CHRISTIAN SATAN WORSHIPPIN' GAYZZ" That is SO fucking horrible and scummy it's not even funny. She can seriously fuck off.

 

[Spensed]

Thank you T-Rexx and bankside.

The apologists for the Church's anti-gay positions are full of wishful thinking.

Like battered wives, they believe the Church really loves gays and that the timetable for change can be best determined by the batterer. Little or no criticism can be tolerated.

That attitute itself is just another aspect of the problem.

 

[otters]

Thank you T-Rexx and bankside.

The apologists for the Church's anti-gay positions are full of wishful thinking.

Like battered wives, they believe the Church really loves gays and that the timetable for change can be best determined by the batterer. Little or no criticism can be tolerated.

That attitute itself is just another aspect of the problem.

One could answer:
An irrelevant response because … you dare to deliver the bizarre opinion that others would be "apologists", but on the other hand your "enlightenment" doesn't go far enough to understand Civil Marriage? Weird.

 

[bankside]

Still, the Roman Catholic legislature is a lot more consistent than many other legislatures — the Canon Law is one of the roots of the Common Law,

Dig a little deeper. Rule of human conduct go back to the time when the term "human" scarcely applied, and we were picking nits off each other on the savannah. The church has only been pawing at the law for a brief moment, and now of course it can make nothing called a law except in a theocracy.

 

[otters]

^ Because, like in a number of other jurisdictions, religious and civil marriage has been intertwined for so long that it would take a complete overhaul to implement a layer of civil marriage applicable to straights and gays that would leave all the rights and obligations, benefits and burdens, registrations, records and status only in the secular civil realm, with those who wanted it also having a separate religious ceremony.

Lame excuse!
I must say, one has the impression that you're with utter conviction defending the US American status quo of "ignorance how marriage could be handled much better".
Geez, you defend this peculiar ignorance (or: ignorant peculiarity, pun intended) exactly like a typical Republicon anti-intellectual would do …

And thus, YOU're the pseudo-logical apologist.

 

[otters]

"Catholic Answers"

= lay-run = NOT ex cathedra = NOT quotable!

 

[T-Rexx]

= lay-run = NOT ex cathedra = NOT quotable!

It is what the church teaches.

Ex cathedra is the doctrine of papal infallibility. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Catholic belief.

 

[bankside]

It is what the church teaches.

Ex cathedra is the doctrine of papal infallibility. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Catholic belief.

Well, I see your point, but perhaps not quite "nothing whatsoever..."

 

[Spensed]

One could answer:
An irrelevant response because … you dare to deliver the bizarre opinion that others would be "apologists", but on the other hand your "enlightenment" doesn't go far enough to understand Civil Marriage? Weird.

One could answer:
An irrelevant response because … you dare to deliver the bizarre opinion that others would be "apologists", but on the other hand your "enlightenment" doesn't go far enough to understand Civil Marriage? Weird.

An apologist is simply someone who argues against something controversial. The Church's rabid position against gay sex is controversial.

As your own posts have evidenced, it doesn't take a genius to know what civil marriage is. LOL.

I would support the total extraction of marriage into the civil or secular realm. However, even though many marriages are already non-religious, it would take legislation to remove religion from its historical entanglement with marriage in the States and that is very unlikely to happen. Too many religious and other organizations oppose purely civil marriage for straights. Plus now that the Supreme Court has put gays on a par with straights in the existing system, there's no motive to change it.

 

[bankside]

An apologist is simply someone who argues against something controversial. The Church's rabid position against gay sex is controversial.

As your own posts have evidenced, it doesn't take a genius to know what civil marriage is. LOL.

I would support the total extraction of marriage into the civil or secular realm. However, even though many marriages are already non-religious, it would take legislation to remove religion from its historical entanglement with marriage in the States and that is very unlikely to happen. Too many religious and other organizations oppose purely civil marriage for straights. Plus now that the Supreme Court has put gays on a par with straights in the existing system, there's no motive to change it.

In the law, marriage is already purely civil. The government is not bestowing a sacrament. The participation or exclusion of any sort of religious leader is not relevant to whether the marriage to proceed. And the participation of the religious leader is voluntary on the part of that person. Nothing in any equality ruling anywhere has ever claimed to force changes upon the doctrine of any religion, because marriage under the law is already purely a civil thing. It has no more theological implication than changing a speed limit.

What more would legislation do?

 

[Spensed]

^ Marriage isn't "already purely civil". One can usually elect to have a religious marriage ceremony to bring the marriage into effect and that tangles up religion with marriage.

The purely civil marriage option, which I think exists in some places, is to say that all marriages must be concluded by a civil officer or registrar and then those couples, who wish to, can also have a religious ceremony. Purely civil marriage was one option discussed during the battle for gay marriage rights. However, it was, I believe, strongly opposed by the religious right, who, in effect, claimed that their religious marriage ceremonies continue to have full civil recognition by the secular authorities for straight people. They insisted that a removal of the religious ceremony to a collateral or secondary level would demean the institution. I may be wrong but that's my understanding of the issue and why just secularizing marriage and separating it completely from any religious ceremonies, like I think the issuing of death certificates, couldn't be implemented as a viable solution.

After the Supreme Court decision, a gay couple can choose whether to keep the marriage formalities purely secular or to officiate the marriage itself in a in a religious ceremony (by a religion that recognizes gay marriage).

So the issue is academic. However, to answer your question, in theory, legislation could make a civil formality as the only means of getting a legally recognized marriage and leave religions to do their own thing outside the secular realm. That is what otters is harping on about and, in the States, it's very unlikley to happen.

 

[bankside]

Ahh well that is a misunderstanding of the religious fundamentalists, which should not really be surprising.

The only relevant matter to the law is that the legal norms of marriage are respected. A religious official may be recognised as a witness, but that person is volunteering a service to the state. It is only the procedures of the state that matter to make the marriage valid. Complying with the civil formalities is currently the only way of getting a legally recognized marriage, and if a religious couple chooses to add a religious element, that matters no more to the law than the choice of wedding cake made by the same couple. It just isn't part of the law in democratic countries.

 

[Spensed]

^ In the US, one gets a marriage license from a secular agency, e.g. the County, or a person empowered by a secular agency.

The marriage itself can be concluded by a secular person licensed to carry out marriages, e.g an Elvis impersonator.

However, a marriage can also be concluded, for both civil and religious purposes, by a religious minister. Hence, the entanglement of religion with marriage.

In a purely civil system, the religious option would be collateral or secondary and would be for religious reasons only with no secular effect. That, as I understand it, is simply not the case in the US.

Not the way it should be, but the way it is.

 

[otters]

^

LOL, "it would take legislation", and "there's no motive to change it", you say?

The wordly US American citizen has spoken?
Or: Roma locuta, causa finita?

 

[Spensed]

^ There's no motive to change the current situation.

On the right, they want to keep religious and secular marriage inter-related.

On the left, now we have marriage equality, whether marriage is mixed in with religion or not doesn't make any difference.

 

[otters]

^ There's no motive to change the current situation.

On the right, they want to keep religious and secular marriage inter-related.

On the left, now we have marriage equality, whether marriage is mixed in with religion or not doesn't make any difference.

a) Well, if you suppose that in the USA "the left" or "the right" are each something homogeneous, then your political geography doesn't work, unfortunately.

b) Both your "reasons": "it would take legislation", and "there's no motive to change it". If one shall accept this lame excuses from the worldly side, then you also should accept the very same excuses from the Church, shouldn't you?