Posted by Kevin Bates on August 16, 2005, 11:50 am, in reply to "Freedom, Conscience and the Real World" --Previous Message--
Wonderful stuff Cathy - I'll make sure Michael sees your thougths and I am sure he will appreciate your response.
Kevin
: Many thanks to Fr Michael Whelan for his very
: thoughtful and well-rounded essay on
: "Freedom and Conscience", and also
: to you, Kevin, for making it available to
: us.
:
: I certainly agree that this is a
: conversation we need to have, and I think it
: is important that we look not just at
: issues, but at the social and historical
: context in which Church teachings have
: evolved. I myself feel at odds with the
: Church's teaching on
: marriage/family/sexuality, and this is
: because, so far as I can see, it has its
: roots in the values of an earlier secular
: culture more so than in the Gospel, and
: certainly, more so in the the real-world
: experience of family life!
:
: We need moral norms, but surely specific
: moral teachings should be forged in the
: hurly-burly of the real world, with all its
: ambiguities, uncertainties and
: contradictions. Take, for instance, the
: Church's teaching on divorce. On the face of
: it, this comes directly from Jesus, but to
: me it seems unthinkable that Jesus would
: have intended his teaching to be made into
: such a rigid, black-and-white law: this was
: the very thing for which he most criticised
: the religious leaders of his own day!
:
: It also amazes me how some people seem to
: see the Church as a kind of club: they take
: the view that if you don't accept all its
: rules, you should get out. I find it more
: meaningful to use the time-honoured, in fact
: biblical, image of the Church as a body.
: Since Christ is the head, I think of the
: Church hierarchy as being the nervous
: system: transmitting "messages"
: from the head to the rest of the body. Of
: course, the members of the body have to obey
: these "messages", but it is a
: two-way thing: sometimes a part of the body
: will send back a "message":
: "I'm hurting", "I can't
: function properly", etc. Now, no-one
: in their right mind would suggest that, as
: soon as a part of your body starts to hurt
: or feel sick, you get rid of it. That's a
: very desperate last resort! But unless an
: ACCURATE diagnosis of the problem can be
: made, and something done about it, the whole
: body will suffer.
:
: A final thought: a healthy body always has
: organs whose job it is to get rid of the
: "waste products" of the body!
:
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