Once you’re baptised a Catholic you’re a Catholic forever, no matter what sins you commit.

So it’s possible to be a Catholic and not a Christian at the same time. Groovy.

It would be entertaining and a good time-waster to write a bunch of brusque, persnickety polemics, but the subject as you’ve framed it deserves better, so I’ll have to return in a more pensive mode.

Meantime, why aren’t there any good joke threads on this thing?! Stupid blog, be more entertaining and help me procrastinate!

[accidentally uses an Uncle Tupelo CD as a coaster, curses, storms into the other room]

suz: “The point of ‘nuns’ kissing at WYD is …a comment on the sublimated lesbianism of many nuns.”

Well here we have a model of precision and integrity. So, “many” nuns have “sublimated” lesbianism? Who knew? Apparently suz “knows,” having mystic abilities of perception beyond the ken of regular mortals, or else some really cool brain-scanning technology. suz, would you care to tell us which of the “many” nuns have these “sublimated” tendencies, exactly?

I went to Catholic schools for 13 years, taught by nuns all that time. I have since met many lesbians who were ex-nuns.
My brothers went to the Catholic school in Sydney that infamously back in the 70s sacked a teacher because he appeared in public as an out gay man. My brothers have tales about sexual abuse of students by the religious teaching staff. The hypocrisy of such institutional practices is pretty blatant and I’m sure it’s ongoing.
The number of priests who’ve died from AIDS in the US alone is in the thousands. In other words, thousands of them were (and no doubt are) homosexually active while the Church pronounces publicly on the sinfulness of homosexuality. Why should we (homosexuals, I mean) live and let live when the Church seeks to condemn us?

If one is divorced,
Uses contraception, or
Engages in sexual intercourse outside of marriage (includes homsexual intercourse, marriage is between a man & a woman)
One cannot remain a Roman Catholic.

Using the term ‘homophobia’ in this discussion speaks to this prejudice. Yes, it’s a fairly recent neologism (as is homosexuality). And yes, it’s etymologically absurd. But it’s the term most commonly used to describe irrational aversion to homosexuality (and yes, I do think the Catholic orthodoxy on this is irrational, on scriptural grounds). In fact, it’s probably the only term we have at present…unless you can think of a better one? So assuming that people who use it are doing so ‘totemically’ is a little presumptuous.

‘ad absurdum…indeed.

Well, what Nick said was largely incoherent and essentially self-defeating (”blatantly discriminatory”, please, think for a moment) in the spots where he wasn’t busy actually agreeing with me (”good scriptural arguments”, quite true, and I can think of several myself), so I guess we’re just at a dead-end here. It’s just as well, the point appears to be one that is perhaps too shaded, and not worth any more chewing on, so what the hey.

“It’s not a new word, though perhaps newer than “homosexuality” which is not that old a word!”

So in other words it is a new word, though not as new as “squaddlethromp,” which I just made up a moment ago. And moreover it’s a loaded word, as it implies a state of mental illness or imbalance (”phobia”) without assuming the burden of detailed clinical description or delimitation. It’s also technically inaccurate, as the root centers on the notion of “fear,” whereas the common usage centers on the notion of aversion or hostility. Sometimes related, but not necessarily so. This renders it at the very least suspect for discursive purposes, even though it is not entirely without merit as a descriptor, being what we have ready to hand these days for a real phenomenon that should have a name (more than one name, with observable shades of meaning, would be preferable). At the very least, though, it is not a good word to start turning into a totem.

“And I hardly think that religious discourse can be firewalled in some way from broader social currents.”

Totally agree. All I’ve been trying to say here is that social discourse of any kind (political, religious, etc.) should be conducted in good faith and with intellectual and linguistic clarity. Totems bad, precision good.

Meantime we have Nick saying that churches are “blatantly discriminatory.” Speaking of totems… Yes, Nick, they are. Jewish congregations discriminate against cow-worshipers, by not letting them join, because they don’t worship cows down at the synagogue. Presumably your parliament does not allow unelected persons to cast votes as though they were members. Sounds like blatant discrimination to me. Better rewrite the constitution ASAP.

Or mightn’t it be easier to simply think and speak more carefully?

It’s just that it’s not persuasive to make up new words and new principles w/o reference to their faith, and then grandfather them or base arguments on them.

It’s not a new word, though perhaps newer than “homosexuality” which is not that old a word! And I hardly think that religious discourse can be firewalled in some way from broader social currents.

Of course there are. I know some of them, too. The point there would be that insofar as they are Catholics, they deserve to be heard by their church. But wouldn’t they have to argue the issue (and it’s an argument worth hearing) from a Gospel frame of reference, viz. that the Gospel and the communion of the faithful are ill-served by a Catholic teaching which censures them unjustly, and show how that could be so. So long as it’s a Christian argument on Christian grounds, it certainly should be heard, and it may even prevail. It’s just that it’s not persuasive to make up new words and new principles w/o reference to their faith, and then grandfather them or base arguments on them.

Really, you’re being so zenger-phobic, and your rampant zenger-phobia does you no credit whatever; your views are wrong by virtue of their offensive zenger-phobia. Why are you standing against progressive values and social justice, by disagreeing with me?

See, not very persuasive, is it.

For “homophobic,” substitute the word “anti-libertarian.”

No. “Homophobic” is the proper term.

If the church’s teaching changes, it is the church itself which comes to change the teaching, not outsider “activists” who never believed any of its teachings in the first place, and who may have entirely different motives.

There are a large number of insider activists (and I don’t see the need for the inverted commas) who want to be Catholic and gay, j_p_z. So I don’t particularly see that your point is well grounded.