Tom and Jeanette on Sea of Galilee 2010
STILL ROMAN CATHOLIC AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
As a lifelong Catholic, enjoying his golden years, I will be commenting on what it is like being Roman Catholic in the 21st century in the U S of A. I am a Parish Catechist and Marian Catechist in a small mid-west Catholic parish. I am married 50+ years with adult children and grandchildren. As a boy I gave Latin replies as a server at Mass, then experienced Vatican II changes and persevered in the church Christ founded.
This blog includes commentary on current issues that involve trends in secular culture, man-made laws vs. God made laws This Catholic Blog will also express Roman Catholic Church Teaching, including Sacred Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Some may wonder why the adjective “Roman” in the blog name. It is for specificity, because anyone who wishes today, whether they are followers of Jesus and His Church or not, may call themselves “catholic” while promoting behavior morally abhorrent to the very Church Jesus founded.
For example, there are even groups out there that call themselves “Catholics for Choice”. This is not a Catholic organization but a pro-abortion advocacy group. Jesus founded His (Holy Roman Catholic) Church and sent the Holy Spirit to guide it in truth, to the end of times.
God, of course wills the salvation of all. Nothing is impossible with God. I have found the best aids for happiness and excellence of living on my journey home to God, are within the Roman Catholic Church. I searched but never found any Truth out there that would better serve me in becoming the best man I could be. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and His Church shows the way! Tom Block TCB
INTRODUCTION
July 2020 marks the fifth anniversary of my blog and almost 40,000 views. I want to thank all my readers and tweeters. I thought I would go back to that first month July 2015 and repost a blog from then. The more things seem to change the more they remain the same. When I look back to July 2015 posts I find the topics of Same Sex Marriage and Gender Identity. This controversy is not going away any time soon.
SAME SEX MARRIAGE (2015 POST)
Today, Same Sex marriage is the tip of the spear in the “Gay” agenda. I use their term “gay” regrettably because it used to be a perfectly good descriptive word in our literature to describe “gay old times;” “there was much gaiety at the ball;” “what a gay time does summer bring.”
The “Gay” agenda is to establish a new “norm,”… that there is no difference between heterosexual and homosexual behavior as far as acceptable behavior. In their attempts to brainwash the public they have invaded our TV shows be it comedy or drama with their “token gay” couple whether it adds anything to the plot or makes any sense. I am not saying all gay couples ought to be banned from movies and TV but please have a reason beyond they are gay.
(NOTE: IN 2016 US SUPREME COURT MADE SAME SEX MARRIAGE LEGAL NATIONWIDE)
GENDER IDENTITY (2015 POST)
“Gender identity” really hit social media in a big way when North Carolina passed a bill, addressing the issue of transgender and bathroom facilities. The Governor signed a bill, a bill that restricts bathroom and showers to use by gender determined at birth. Gay rights advocates filed a lawsuit challenging the law’s legality, the Federal Government is suing the state for discrimination in violation of Title IX of the Civil Rights Act.
The Merriam Dictionary updated their definition of Gender Identity: your identity as it is experienced with regard to your individuality as male or female; an awareness normally begin in infancy and is reinforced during adolescence, a person’s internal sense of being male, female, some combination of male and female, or neither male or female.
AND NOW 2020
US SUPREME COURT SAYS NO DISCRIMINATION ON GENDER IDENTITY
The Supreme Court ruled June 15, 2020 that employers cannot fire workers because of their sexual orientation or self-determined gender identity, even while dissenting justices opined the Court was legislating from the bench. The question at issue was whether or not protections against sex discrimination in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act also applied to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
The president of the U.S. bishops’ conference on Monday lamented the U.S. Supreme Court’s considers sexual identity and gender identity to be covered by laws prohibiting employment discrimination based upon sex.
“Words matter,” the statement from leading U.S. bishops said. “‘Sex’ should not be redefined to include sexual inclinations or conduct, nor to promulgate the view that sexual identity is solely a social construct rather than a natural or biological fact.” “By erasing the beautiful differences and complementary relationship between man and woman, we ignore the glory of God’s creation and harm the human family, the first building block of society. Our sex, whether we are male or female, is part of God’s plan for creation and for our lives.
The logic of the decision makes it very difficult to understand how you could have separate men’s and women’s sports,” he explained. “The same for locker rooms and shower rooms and secular activities, swimming pools, gyms. The same for women’s shelters, for example, where already traumatized women are cared for where now they’re likely to be forced to be housed at close quarters with males.”
GENDER IDENTITY 2020
Transgender activists have a “plan to use the government to force parents to affirm a false sex for their child, agree to hormone blockers, and accept a transition to their son or daughter’s preferred gender. “If parents refuse? Removal of the child from the family, due to alleged medical neglect.”
For example, a recent news story from Canada, The Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada, ordered that a 14-year-old girl receive testosterone injections without parental consent. The court also declared that if either of her parents referred to her using female pronouns or addressed her by her birth name, they would be considered guilty of family violence.
Next, on transgender activists agenda is to require schools to report parents of children that resist the child’s request to be treated different than their birth gender to Child Protective Services. “There are many dangers to these puberty blockers, such as infertility and restricting bone growth.
GOD CREATES ADAM AND EVE, MAN AND WOMAN AND SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD
MARRIAGE BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN
THEN AND NOW
Let’s return to our main topic, Marriage. We begin in the beginning in the book of Genesis. Genesis 1:27-28, “God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them, saying: “Be fertile and multiply”
In Matthew 19 when Jesus is challenged over the question of divorce and remarriage, Jesus reinforces what is already in Hebrew Scripture. “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
JESUS TEACHING ON MARRIAGE
Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate. His disciples said to him, “If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” He answered, “Not all can accept this word, but only those to whom that is granted. Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.”
Jesus says marriage is not for everyone, some may even be born not able to fulfill the procreative and unitive requirements of marriage. The Catechism of the Catholic Church continues to expound on God’s awesome plan for mankind with emphasis on the unitive and procreative role of Marriage, neither of which can be fulfilled by a homosexual couple.
CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC) THE GOODS OF MARRIAGE
CCC 1643 Marital love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter… It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh. Unitive and procreative are the goods of marriage.
It demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility.
HOMOSEXUAL COUPLES CANNOT FULFILL THESE GOODS OF MARRIAGE.
CCC 1601“The matrimonial covenant… is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.”
COMMENTARY
Marriage existed many, many centuries before Government got involved. In fact, the state did not even begin to issue marriage licenses until after the Civil War. The state has an interest in marriage and marital norms because they serve the public good; marriage between a man and woman provides for the Common Good of society providing it with its very core, the family, mother, father and children
SAME SEX MARRIAGE ELIMINATES MOTHERS OR FATHERS BY ITS VERY NAME
Now it is not surprising that the Government over time, valuing the traditional family and wanting to encourage people to marry, .provided some benefits or relief in terms of taxes and other social benefits. It was in society’s best interest to have a strong society that would continue for ages to come.
Same Sex marriage is driven by a desire to receive supplemental benefits from the Government for which heterosexual couples get. The problem is homosexual couples want “equal rights” to the benefits aimed at the Common Good without adding anything to the Common Good. In fact, if you take it to the extreme conclusion of only same sex couples marrying that would be the extinction of human kind.
In closing, let’s take a closer look on how our Church teaches us to treat homosexuals. The Church teaches that homogenital behavior is objectively immoral, while making the important distinction between this behavior and a homosexual orientation, which is not immoral in itself.
Homosexual persons “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity” 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.(CCC 2358)
SEEK GOOD AND NOT EVIL,
THAT YOU MAY LIVE;
MAY THE LORD GOD OF HOSTS
BE WITH YOU.
AMOS 5:14
JULY 1, 2020 MASS READING