Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Catholic Church op-ed is filled with falsehoods | PennLive.com


Dr.Drane wrote an offensive and illogical editorial. As a bio-ethicist, he should restrict his pontificating to areas of medicine and its moral application. Instead, he attacks the Roman Catholic Church with ad hominem and non sequitur false arguments.

Pejorative slanders like calling the bishops ‘theologically unsophisticated’ and naïve do not prove his premise. He implies that the Catholic hierarchy is sexist and discriminates against women.  That would only be true if Holy Orders were a right every baptized human being enjoyed. On the contrary, clergy (deacons, priests and bishops) are ordained men by divine institution. Jesus Christ established ordained ministry as a gift and not as an entitlement. No Catholic male can even demand the call to Holy Orders.  There must be discernment and affirmation by the Bishop who is a successor of the Apostles. It is infallible teaching that Holy Orders is reserved to baptized males only as Pope John Paul the Great taught in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.

The Pope and Bishops alone have teaching authority, called the Magisterium. It is not extended to theologians or bioethicists. Furthermore, faith and morals are not subservient to public opinion or contemporary culture. Hence, the Church’s doctrines on marriage being reserved to one man and one woman; on the sinfulness of abortion, euthanasia and contraception; etc., are not open for debate as they are based on the truth of the immutable Natural Moral Law. Fidelity and loyalty are neither conservative nor liberal, they are just right.






PAPAL MESSAGE FOR THE DIAMOND JUBILEE OF ELIZABETH II

Vatican City, 6 June 2012 (VIS) - Made public today was a message sent by the Holy Father to Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom who is currently celebrating her Diamond Jubilee (sixty years since she became monarch). The English-language text bears the date of 23 May.
"I write to offer my warmest congratulations to Your Majesty on the happy occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of your reign. During the past sixty years you have offered to your subjects and to the whole world an inspiring example of dedication to duty and a commitment to maintaining the principles of freedom, justice and democracy, in keeping with a noble vision of the role of a Christian monarch.

"I retain warm memories of the gracious welcome accorded to me by Your Majesty at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh at the beginning of my apostolic visit to the United Kingdom in September 2010, and I renew my thanks for the hospitality that I received throughout those four days. Your personal commitment to cooperation and mutual respect between the followers of different religious traditions has contributed in no small measure to improving ecumenical and inter-religious relations throughout your realms.

"Commending Your Majesty and all the royal family to the protection of Almighty God, I renew my heartfelt good wishes on this joyful occasion and I assure you of my prayers for your continuing health and prosperity".

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