The Crazed Politics of Religion | National Catholic Reporter

The Crazed Politics of Religion | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: Santorum is speaking for himself only, not for the Church, the state he used to represent and certainnly not the nation.  The remark that the Church should stay out of the environment and politics is non-sense because the Church can't help itself.  There would have been no Defense of Marriage movement without the Church, indeed, it wrote the checks fighting all campaigns to adopt marriage equality at the ballot box.  Its opposition to stem cell research was not correct morally but was correct scientifically - life begins at gastrulation - and before it a huge percentage of blastocysts fail - making them bad candidates for any research not involving cloning - and because we know so much more about the controlling proteins in returnig cells to the pleuripotent state, cloning is not necessary and certainly not easier to grow replacement tissues.



As for all teaching coming from Christ, it really does not.  Abortion came about in Judaic law to test whether a woman had committed adultery.   Both Joseph and Jesus showed mercy, both on not testing women with the bitter herbs (ancient RU-486), but treated the women as people, not property.  The fight to ban abortion again returns them to property status, which is why some Catholic modernists take a dim view of what the bishops are doing.  Much of moral law flows from how we view the Crucifixion.  Is it a blood sacrifice to an angry Father or divinde vision quest where the Son experieces human emptiness?  How you answer determines who you use natural law to answer moral and sometimes politicized moral quesitons. Trads go one way and Moderists the other.    Of course, todays victory by modernists, like the upcoming Encyclical - especially if it hits capitalism hard, will be taken up as Dogma by tomorrow's Trads, although what would you call a future movement that would condemn gay marriage in the Church in the future (and yes it will be, marriage requires functionality, not fecundity, and two parters making vows before God - priest optional and likely complementary genders (see fecundity) - as well as the applicability of what Jesus said about people leaving their families and becomig one flesh) - I guess revivalists.



And so it goes.  People always argue when they feel strongly about something or about their own abilities and righteousness.  Let us hope there are strong arguments and that this Pope enables those who are Modernists among the bishops to speak up in areas they would not before for the fear it would harm their careers - although it looks like we will have fewer red hats among our archbishops. As to Cathecizing the morals behind political position - until we cope a bit better with the modern world, that is probably not a good idea.  Such an attempt at chatechises in relation to gay marriage was obviiously incomplete and missed certain aspects of the canon law and the theology of marriage.  Their job was so bad that other Catholics advanced successful counter-arguments using this dogma.



As for the Trinity - let us remember that this was once a controversial issue (and continued to be until it was realized that differences were semantic, not theological) - and that because you cannot do experiments and observations on God, the only real way to determine truth is consensus (reason can help with but not replace it).  In those days, bishops were elected, so the development of this doctrine probably went to the popular level. Wouldn't that be refreshing in dealing with moral, policial, scientific and economic issues - especially the environment.