Revised: Actually, Ed Peters makes a good point. If I’m going to criticize the manner by which Vree goes around picking intellectual street-fights, I need to avoid using the same type of polemic. Therefore, I’ve gone through the following post and edited out as much as possible.
That being said, I honestly am concerned about the state of Dale Vree’s soul. I don’t presume to judge it, since that is left to God alone. Nevertheless, I cannot see how Dale isn’t endangering his eternal salvation through the literary street-fights that he keeps picking.
And that’s why rebuking the sinner is a spiritual act of mercy. We rebuke sinners is because we don’t wish to see them go to hell. As angry as I am with Dale, I would rather see him go to Heaven than to hell. Homosexual acts are not the only sins that will condemn a soul to hell.
Take a look at how Dale attacks Amy Welborn or David Morrison or Fr. Pavone or Michael O’Brien (this last individual on the eve of a Canadian election where pro-marriage and pro-family forces were being told by an incumbant prime minister that there is no room for us in Canadian politics).
Well, what does the Bible have to say?
OLD TESTAMENT
1) Proverbs 6: 12-19 is very clear:
“A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, winks with his eyes, scrapes with his feet, points with his finger, with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord; therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing.
“There are six things which the LORD hates, seven which are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and a man who sows discord among brothers.”
2) And let us no forget the Eighth Commandment of the Decalogue:
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” (Exodus 20: 16)
NEW TESTAMENT
Let’s look at one of the New Testament passages that coincidentally also condemns those who practice homosexual activity:
3) 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
I pray this doesn’t happen to Dale. This is why I prayed for him this morning, as well as yesterday at Mass today when the priest said the words of consecration. I would ask my readers to do so as well.
Category: Culture War
Cartoon Terrorists and their Canadian Sympathizers
In my following column for a local community webzine, I expressed disagreement with the Canadian notion that multiculturalism is always a good thing for Canada. I stated that certain practices such as threatening violence over cartoons should not be tolerated in a free and democratic country.
Wow! It wasn’t long before some leftist accused me of being a neo-con Nazi!
There’s some exaggerated outrage over here, too, but we don’t burn down buildings over it
Election Day in Canada
Please pray for our country.
Abp. O’Malley’s getting to work
My archbishop’s continuing to help the drive to end same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, with a letter that defends the effort and the Church’s teaching:
It is never easy to deliver a message that calls people to make sacrifices or to do difficult things. Sometimes people want to punish the messenger. For this reason we priests at times find it difficult to articulate the Church’s teaching on sexual morality. We must never deliver the message in a self-righteous way, but rather with compassion and humility. It is important to express the moral teachings of the Church with clarity and fidelity. The Church must be Church. We must teach the truths of the Gospel in season and out of season. These recent times seem to us like it is “out of season”, but for that very reason it is even more urgent to teach the hard words of the Gospel today.
Abp. Sean also announced he’s passing up a controversial awards dinner of the local Catholic Charities, because the honoree is the mayor of Boston who has been pushing the gay and sex-ed agendas on the schools for years. Protests against the award probably made a difference, so I suppose we lay people have to keep pointing out these problems. Is that a sad reality, or just one of our gifts to the Church: that we can tell the hierarchs when they foul up?
Follow-up: Sometimes people are a little too eager to tell the bishop he’s fouled up. Take, for example, CWN’s headline for the story (“Boston archbishop raps discrimination against homosexuals”). It gives the prominence to the conciliatory things the Archbishop wrote, and downplays the Christian challenge he was presenting. From that, one might get the impression that he were going P.C. and saying things only to please the unbelievers. I think the editor’s missing the point of the exercise. In stating both the “hard” and the “soft” aspects of Church teaching, the Archbishop is defending Catholic doctrine against the errors of the non-believers, and defending the Church from the false accusations they throw at her. This is how you engage in apologetics.