A real page scorcher takes on RC bishops & Natural Law - written by a 16 year old with a VOICE!

[patrice]

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/teen-critic-takes-vatican-over-war-women#.T-TVfZmDtPo.facebook

... The whole incident was revealing of the Church's hypocrisy and twisted priorities. Where are the bishops who are committed enough to the value of life and human worth to cry that their religious freedom is being violated every time the state uses their tax dollars to fund the racist and murderous system of capital punishment? Where are the bishops who feel that using their money to wage wars abroad is a bigger affront to Catholic values than providing the Pill to poor working women? Perhaps that's really the heart of the matter: the mandate added insult to injury by reminding the conservatives that women are allowed to work to earn a living in our twisted modern society.

There is nothing that terrifies the Church more than female empowerment. That is why the Archdiocese of Chicago protested in 2000 when controversial priest Fr. Michael Pfleger led his church in a campaign to buy prostitutes' time as a means of educating them about opportunities for counseling and job training. That is why the Church continues without any coherent rationale to oppose the ordination of women: the idea of allowing females to preach the Word on their own behalf and to serve as community leaders terrifies those who perceive a threat to their own oppressive stranglehold on religious power.

snip

And such a problem thus requires a foundational change. Something has to go. Eventually, I think it is inevitable that the faithful will decide that the Church's medieval attitude towards women has no place in our modern, advanced society. Let's hope that day is sooner rather than later.

Whew!!!

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

1. He's wrong on the death penalty

In March 1995, Pope John Paul II issued his encyclical Evangelium Vitae -- "The Gospel of Life". After a discussion of self defense, which ends with "legitimate defence can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another's life, the common good of the family or of the State. Unfortunately it happens that the need to render the aggressor incapable of causing harm sometimes involves taking his life. In this case, the fatal outcome is attributable to the aggressor whose action brought it about, even though he may not be morally responsible because of a lack of the use of reason", the Pope took up the question of the death penalty:

This is the context in which to place the problem of the death penalty. On this matter there is a growing tendency, both in the Church and in civil society, to demand that it be applied in a very limited way or even that it be abolished completely. The problem must be viewed in the context of a system of penal justice ever more in line with human dignity and thus, in the end, with God's plan for man and society. The primary purpose of the punishment which society inflicts is "to redress the disorder caused by the offence". Public authority must redress the violation of personal and social rights by imposing on the offender an adequate punishment for the crime, as a condition for the offender to regain the exercise of his or her freedom. In this way authority also fulfils the purpose of defending public order and ensuring people's safety, while at the same time offering the offender an incentive and help to change his or her behaviour and be rehabilitated. It is clear that, for these purposes to be achieved, the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.

In any event, the principle set forth in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church remains valid: "If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person". (n 56, footnotes omitted)

In other words, the Pope taught that while the death penalty is not immoral per se, there are essentially no circumstances in which it is morally justifiable.