Wednesday 24 December 2008

Liberals Up in Arms Over Pope's 'Human Ecology'



The liberal media, which does seem to be highly influential nowadays in terms of informing public opinion, is up in arms about Pope Benedict XVI's comments reaffirming Church teaching that mankind needs salvation from the seeds of his own self-destruction.

You know we have a good Pope, when, every now and then, he says something that makes people flap about and call the Church evil. If people weren't flapping about and were saying, 'isn't the Church lovely and nice about everything' then we would know we had a counterfeit, rather than the real deal.

Our Blessed Lord promised the Apostles that He would be with His Church until the End of Time. He also promised that when St Peter and the Apostles preached, the World would reject them because the World could not accept the Son of God. "Whoever hears you, hears me", He said to the Apostles. St Paul recognised this in his letters when he said that to many the Cross was a "stumbling block".

It is sad and tragic that in the 21st century, when the Pope speaks of a crisis of marriage and family life and of a cultural phenomenom of sexual sterility, nearly everyone starts jumping up and down and bleating that this means His Holiness 'hates gays, transgendered people and lesbians'.

Aside from the fact that not a single 'sexual orientation minority' was actually named in his speech, the liberal media are so stung with apoplectic outrage, they are unable to appreciate the Holy Father's wisdom and profound reflection on God's paternal love for humanity and for its welfare.

The wisdom of the Holy Father's mirroring of Man and Ecology is twofold:

Firstly, the Holy Father is suggesting that within Man are the seeds of his own self-destruction. Man wills what is good but is wounded and as human beings inheriting a fragile, fallen human nature, we fail so often to make the right choice. So, in the first case he is only reaffirming what we all knew the Church has always said, 'Mankind needs salvation.' Salvation in the Church is not a one-off event but a life-long journey of Grace.

Secondly, the Holy Father is suggesting that the cultural phenomenom of 'gender theories' are problematic and in danger of putting Man at the centre of Creation, rather than God. At a time when even certain Bishops are going off-message and doubting the validity of Humanae Vitae and the Sacraments, His Holiness is holding fast to the Magisterium. For society to reject God's law and replace it with its own is understandable, but what is the fruit? The fruit is chaos and ultimately, if pursued to its end, childlessness. Put very simply, the human race, if it does not procreate will remain unfulfilled of its true vocation and will die.

An analogy: If, say for Christmas, a friend buys me three rabbits, two male and one female, and the male rabbits decide that they prefer getting it on with each other, rather than with the female, after a few years I won't have any rabbits at all. Not only is Mrs Rabbit unhappy and unfulfilled, wanting, as she does quite rightly, to be at it incessantly and breed like rabbits, but Mr Rabbit A, busy getting it on with Mr Rabbit B, will never be a father. All three will remain a bit unhappy and my rabbit selling business is very short lived indeed. What is more, I won't even be able to blame it on the credit crunch...All I'll be able to blame it on is the fact that Mr Rabbit A and Mr Rabbit B are so concerned with their 'gender theories' that they've forgotten about the future of the Rabbit population and my ill-conceived business venture.

While it is true to say that when it comes to 'deep-seated homosexual tendencies', the Church does not encourage people with such tendencies to marry, the danger of societies succumbing to a 'gay culture' and of promoting or glorifying it, is that we raise sexuality to such a height that it becomes an idol to which we bow down, instead of bowing down to the Triune God, who alone is worthy of all our love.

Many people are saying, "the Pope has said this, and at Christmas too...how awful!" I cannot think of a more apt time for His Holiness to reaffirm the need for us to pause and reflect, not on our own cultural issues, complex as they are, but to pause and reflect on the Incarnation and the birth of the Saviour of us all. God has become Man! A little Baby, born of the Virgin has come into the World! The Word has been made flesh! If that does not have a real impact on how we view ourselves, how we view each other and how we view the future of the human race, then I don't know what can!

God bless Pope Benedict XVI, a voice in the wilderness, preparing a way for the Lord, awaiting the coming of the Babe who teaches us the truth about God and the truth about Man.

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