Tribulation Times
April 9, 2013
(Jude 1:17-19) But you, my dearly beloved, be mindful of the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who told you that in the last time there should come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodlinesses. These are they who separate themselves, sensual men, having not the Spirit.
MSGR CHARLES POPE: Reaping the Whirlwind: A reflection on the deepening darkness that celebrates homosexual unions and activity.
(Jude 1:17-19) But you, my dearly beloved, be mindful of the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who told you that in the last time there should come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodlinesses. These are they who separate themselves, sensual men, having not the Spirit.
MSGR CHARLES POPE: Reaping the Whirlwind: A reflection on the deepening darkness that celebrates homosexual unions and activity.
POPE FRANCIS (2010): From a letter to the Carmelite Sisters of Buenos Aires on the perils of gay marriage:
“Let’s not be naïve, we’re not talking about a simple political battle; it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God. We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.”
NEWS HEADLINE: Gay Marriage Supporters Should Avoid Taking Communion, Says Allen Vigneron, Detroit Catholic Archbishop
MORE: Catholic church removes 'married' gay man as confirmation teacher, lector
PATHEOS: Why the Catholic Church Will Never Support Gay Marriage
1. Hell is real.
2. People go there forever.
3. Homosexual acts can send you to hell.
4. The Church will never condone gay marriage because it will never condone anything that will send people to hell beause
5. The business of the Church is helping people go to heaven, not sending them to hell.
CARDINAL TIMOTHY DOLAN: “Sometimes by nature, the Church has gotta be out of touch with concerns, because we’re always supposed to be thinking of the beyond, the eternal, the changeless.”
LIFESITENEWS EDITORIAL EXCERPT: Why we are losing the gay ‘marriage’ debate (and how we can win)
“Gay marriage is inevitable.” That’s what we’re told by gay activists. It’s a taunt devised to pick off the more faint-hearted clingers-on of traditional marriage by exploiting the human instinct to be on the winning side. And all too often, it works.
Traditional marriage advocates rightly protest that this isn’t an argument. Nothing, they say, is 'inevitable' that depends on the free choice of human beings. But this is an evasion. Look at the polls. Witness the slow but steady capitulation of state after state, country after country, to the new marriage regime. Gay ‘marriage’ may not be inevitable. But can we honestly deny that the momentum is firmly on its side?
The mistake comes in thinking that because gay “marriage” is a relatively new innovation, this momentum is merely a temporary shift of the political winds. According to this way of thinking, all that is needed is enough cash, a large-enough team of motivated and intelligent lawyers, strategists and jingoists, and a calm appeal to common sense and we will sail smoothly back in the direction of cultural sanity with a balmy zephyr blowing at our backs.
But while gay ‘marriage’ may have all the appearance of a fad, this is only an illusion. It is not a fad. It is not new. It is, in fact, the logical conclusion of the whole trajectory of social and sexual mores of the past century. The momentum enjoyed by the gay marriage movement is not that of a mere shift of the ever-fickle political winds. If it is to be compared to any sort of meteorological event, it should be compared to a hurricane: a storm that has been gathering energy for many days out at sea before ever making landfall.
A typical definition of “traditional marriage” (or what would, in a healthier society, simply be called “marriage”) goes something like this: “Marriage is the life-long, exclusive union of one man and one woman oriented towards the begetting and rearing of children.” This is the ideal that the traditional marriage movement proclaims. And it is a beautiful ideal, and well worth defending.
But an honest look at the cultural landscape raises the question of just how much is left to defend. The statistics suggest that social conservatives may be brandishing their scimitars not in defense of a robust institution suddenly threatened by a new and hostile cultural force, but rather the smoking ruins of an institution long ago surrendered and abandoned as lost. The Sexual Revolution of the 60s, and what a friend of mine calls the subsequent “hell of the Divorce Tsunami” of the 70s, have already swept this Thing That We Used to Call Marriage out to sea, leaving us clinging to the bobbing flotsam and jetsam.
By this point the statistics are so familiar that they have ceased to be shocking. And yet the numbers ought to shock us. Right now, some sixty percent of couples cohabit before marriage; nearly half of all marriages end in divorce; a record number of Americans aren’t bothering to get married in the first place, and those that do get married are getting married ever later; 41 percent of all children are born out of wedlock; 35 percent of children live in single-parent homes; only 61 percent of children under 18 live with their biological parents; and the birth rate has now dipped below the replacement level, as couples are having fewer and fewer, or sometimes no children at all.
So much for marriage being “life-long,” “exclusive” and child-oriented! Well then, what do we have left? Only the final third of our definition of traditional marriage: that marriage should be between one man and one woman. From the perspective of the gay rights movement, getting rid of this final scrap of our definition is not so much a cultural revolution, as it is a mop-up job. The revolution already happened. Now it’s simply a question of tying up the loose ends.
And they are not wrong.
The question, then, is not so much whether we are willing to do the hard work to stem the tide of gay “marriage” (which, of course, we must do), but rather whether we are willing to put our shoulder to the much harder task of rolling back the social revolution that ever permitted gay “marriage” to be calmly discussed as a viable option by reasonable people in the first place.
What makes it increasingly likely that gay “marriage” will become a reality is that the answer, in many cases, is quite frankly, “No.” (click for more...)
CRISIS MAGAZINE: The Well-Being of Children by Dale O'Leary
Thoughts and Sayings of Saint Margaret Mary: Self-effacement--Detachment
9. He will raise you to union with Himself in proportion as He finds you lowered in your own estimation. Do everything, therefore, through love and from a motive of humility.Prayer request? Send an email to: PrayerRequest3@aol.com
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