The Pope calls for defense of the family
Now would be a good time to make some effort.
California went ahead with implementing its Supreme Court’s ruling on homosexual ‘marriages’ on Monday evening. Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, officiated over the ceremony of a lesbian couple to champion what he sees as a victory for the cause of equality…
Newsom, who describes himself as a Catholic, credits his activism to the “Catholic formation” he received at the Jesuit-run Santa Clara University in Northern California.
Which made Pope Benedict’s address to Catholic educators so critical….so to speak.
The Church’s primary mission of evangelization, in which educational institutions play a crucial role, is consonant with a nation’s fundamental aspiration to develop a society truly worthy of the human person’s dignity….
Far from undermining the tolerance of legitimate diversity, such a contribution illuminates the very truth which makes consensus attainable, and helps to keep public debate rational, honest and accountable. Similarly the Church never tires of upholding the essential moral categories of right and wrong, without which hope could only wither, giving way to cold pragmatic calculations of utility which render the person little more than a pawn on some ideological chess-board.
It was nuanced, like all Benedict’s messages. It requires re-reading.
When nothing beyond the individual is recognized as definitive, the ultimate criterion of judgment becomes the self and the satisfaction of the individual’s immediate wishes…
Within such a relativistic horizon the goals of education are inevitably curtailed. Slowly, a lowering of standards occurs. We observe today a timidity in the face of the category of the good and an aimless pursuit of novelty parading as the realization of freedom….
And particularly disturbing, is the reduction of the precious and delicate area of education in sexuality to management of ‘risk’, bereft of any reference to the beauty of conjugal love.
Was anybody there from Santa Clara University?
