If the reader wants a significant moment in the history of the Church in America, ponder the insouciant non-reaction from the assembled bishops to the intervention by the exiled Bishop Strickland, pointing out the scandal like a quiet John the Baptist, of a man in an open homosexual ‘marriage’ being confirmed in the Catholic Church, with his ‘husband’ as his sponsor.
We teach not only by actions, but also by our non-actions, by commission and omission, by what we actively allow, and what we tolerate and ‘wink at’. If sodomy is permitted, then every other sexual sin is also, at least by ‘consenting adults’, and the notions both of of ‘consent’ and ‘adult’ are fraught ones, quite differently interpreted by various, ahem, cultures. If one can enter the Church without repentance, the necessary metanoia called for by Christ Himself, then what’s the point of the Church?
One might think that sexual sin is a private matter, but not so, for it flows into every other aspect of life. As Pope John Paul II taught, the ‘trivialization of sexuality’ is one of the primary causes of abortion, for the child becomes an obstacle to one’s hedonism. And all sexual sin perverts the person, and those caught within the ambit of the sin, from pornography to prostitution. Such sins, as Scripture testifies, undermine the very fabric of society, built upon marriage and family, as in, a man and woman sacramentally united and the children that are a fruit of their union.
All this before we get to the very redefining the very nature of marriage and family life.
Again to Pope John Paul: As the family goes, so goes society.
The Church must stand her ground as the pillar and bulwark of the truth. Anything less simply will not do.
