New York Victory and Unfinished Business: Catholic Church Still Anything but a Welcoming Place (3)

In the past several days, I’ve used the recent decision of the New York legislature to permit same-sex marriage as a springboard for discussion of how or whether the Catholic church welcomes (or doesn’t welcome) its LGBT members.  And how or whether its leaders and those who stand with them promote anti-gay discrimination in American society and other societies.

Quick Postscript: Life Intervening as I Blog

A quick postscript to my posting earlier today: I do have more to say on these points, and have a posting sketched already.  A tiny bit under the weather these days, though, with a summer stomach bug.  We also had house guests yesterday and overnight, and I've been distracted by the hosting and talking and laughing, and now the need to do some tidying of the house.

New York Victory and Unfinished Business: Catholic Church Still Anything but a Welcoming Place (2)

When I have taught introductory courses in moral theology over the years, one of the principles I emphasize most strongly is that a mature, developed moral sense aims at trying to understand and empathize with those whom we conceive as radically different from ourselves.  Developing a mature moral sense calls on us to see life from the vantage point of others—and, in particular, those others whose lives seem most distant from our own; in particular, those others who live on the social margins.  A mature, developed moral sense requires us to place ourselves inside others’ circle of experience.

What Will Catholics Celebrate This Sunday?

 

I like Tim's point very much today, at his Following the Voice Within blog: as he notes, in some Christian liturgical traditions, yesterday was the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ.  As Tim describes it (extremely well), here's the point of that liturgical remembrance: 

Commentary on Role of Catholic Bishops in Marriage Equality Debate: Widespread Recognition of Shoddy Legacy

Interesting commentary this morning at many blog and news sites on the role of the Catholic bishops of the U.S. in opposing civil rights for LGBT citizens:

Human Rights Advocates Celebrate, Centrist Catholics Grouse about Religious Exemptions

I see that the important people, the people who set the tone for the American Catholic academy, those who hobnob with the bishops and stand in the door to determine who will and will not be permitted into the inner circles of conversations that determine the future of the church:

Thanks, and News about a Good Doctor's Report

A quick note of thanks (and apologies for interjecting this trivial personal note into a discussion of the far more significant news today): thanks to all of you who have asked about my doctor's visit yesterday.  Since I blogged about that, and a number of e-friends and blog readers have asked me about it, I did want to report that the blood tests were fine.  Actually, better than that, the doctor indicated.  He says I'm in some ways a model patient who could be used as an example for others, to show that adult-onset diabetes can be turned back, arrested, if not eradicated, through diet, exercise, and weight loss.