A Catholic bishop orders all the priests in his diocese to play a recording of his sermon on gay marriage, the death penalty and stem cell research at Sunday Mass. He forbids any "verbal or non-verbal expression of disagreement" with his message. Naturally the bishop is given a free speech award by a civil rights group.
If only Anthony Comstock were still alive. He'd be smiling....
2 comments:
I believe it was Mark Twain who once said, "It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt." Unfortunately, Mr. McCabe had to open his about Bishop Morlino with seemingly no knowledge of both the theology and proceedure of the Catholic church, and has thus shown himself to be a very great fool on this issue. The Bishop was wrong about Electioneering, but there is no need for Mr. McCabe to be vindictive. The sheer smugness of his entry compels me correct his mistakes.
Firstly, Bishop Morlino ordered the priests in his diocese to play a recording explaining the stance of the CATHOLIC CHURCH on the issues of gay marriage, the death penalty, and stem cell research, not "his [own] thoughts." Secondly, it is the responsibility of the Bishop to insure that the priests in his diocese preach to the faithful the views of the Church and not their personal interpretations of church doctrine. Of course, and Mr. McCabe fails to mention this, the Catholic church has dialogue about these issues, yet it is done in conference with the rest of the heads of the Church and is based upon significant prayer and examination of scripture and past theological doctrine. However, it is not the place of the priests of the diocese to publically disagree with the stance of the Church. To do so would be to cloud the tenets of the religion for the faithful. Whatever their views, this would create confusion and would be wrong. So with this newfound knowledge in tow, I hope Mr. McCabe will be a little more careful before being so critical. A lack of research and an air of conceit has made him appear very foolish indeed.
Actually, Morlino's actions might have been for the best because it didnt force individual priests to preach on an issue they might have disagreed with. They were able to just play the recording without comment. This may have been the best of both worlds.
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