Absolute tripe from TIME

TIME contains a remarkable piece of intellectual gibberish this week, which claims that Ireland did not reject Catholicism when it voted for gay marriage, but in fact, was affirming its Catholicism when it trashed the Church's teaching on the nature of marriage and the morality of homosexual behavior.

As intellectual gymnastics go, this one is the equivalent of touching one's tailbone with one's nose. The definitive beliefs- the boundaries, if you will- of a religion are not defined by majority vote any more than truth is. In Catholicism, the magisterium's limits are established; they're established by the Bible in the other Western Christian traditions.

To reject those boundaries- as the Irish people have- is to reject the tradition. And it's worth noting that only those few, marginally Christian communities have embraced homosexuality and same-sex "marriage," which minimize or reject the authorities which supposedly set the boundaries that define their religion. In many cases, I have no doubt that the stand in favor of same-sex "marriage" taken by Irish voters was based on their faith. The problem is that their faith is no longer Catholic in any meaningful sense- or even Christian.

A Catholic- or a Christian- is by definition one who accepts Catholicism or Christianity. And the teachings of both- regardless of what a majority of those claiming identity with Catholicism or Christianity may say- unambiguously reject homosexual behavior and define marriage as being, by divine mandate, between one man and one woman.

And how's this for the most absurd comment of the year: "A community which excludes anybody is no community at all."

Actually, a community that doesn't exclude a great many people is no community at all. It's the human race. It has no other boundaries than that, is without any particular significance, and, as a community, utterly without definition or substance.

 That's the problem with cafeteria Christianity and the sort of nonsensical, brain-dead postmodern bilge the article in question is trying to sell. Words mean things; all communities are defined by limits- and if they don't, they're nonsensical vocalizations and meaningless abstractions, not expressions or communities.

No doubt, the Irish people did express their faith precisely through their vote. The trouble is that their religion is neither Catholic nor Christian. A religion that authorizes one to discard any part of divine revelation one doesn't like is ultimately the idolatry of self and nothing else.

St. Augustine was precisely right: " A person who believes only the parts of the Gospel he likes doesn't believe the Gospel. He believes himself."  The bottom line is that the Irish people believe themselves, but not the Roman Catholic faith.

HT: Real Clear Religion

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