Weak Sister Catholic Bishops: How Many Can You Name? Here’s One—Wuerl.

           You’re Invited to Submit Your List—With Reasons Given.

            There are far-far more Weak Sister Catholic Bishops than courageous ones—that’s a given.   My candidate for Weak Sister of the week is the newly-appointed red hat holder, the archbishop of Washington, D. C.—His Eminence Donald Cardinal Wuerl.  Watch how he bobs and weaves, how he parsed when interviewed on Fox News Sunday on the Church’s stand on don’t-ask-don’t-tell. 

         News reports portray him saying, parsing, dodging, evading—as did Fox News which interpreted his stand to say that “the Catholic church is not in a position to evaluate the impact of gay service members on military readiness.”    His statement added a great deal of confusion due to his flaccidity and inability to hit the issue with directness.  That’s because to criticize homosexuality is politically incorrect you know. 

       On the impact on the military, he said “That is a question that has to be worked out politically.”  Oh it does, does it?  “…and there isn’t a specific Catholic Church position.”   Oh there isn’t, is there?

           The Church’s stand is clear and un-reversible.  Guided by divine Revelation and her authority to interpret Natural Law, the Church has always taught that the sexual function has its true meaning and moral consequence only in true marriage.  The main contributor to the sin of sodomy is the claim that sexual union can be justified before marriage…which means that a man and woman can have sexual fulfillment independent of the purpose for which God created the two genders.

         Heterosexual cohabitation either excludes the possibility of children via contraception which is base selfishness or provides grave detriment to the well-being of children born of such a union who need the stability that comes from lifelong commitment of mutual love from married parents, also selfishness.  Homosexual relations obviates children while taking pleasure from the sexual act from which no children can be born.  The Church’s  verdict on homosexual union is uncompromising: homosexual sexual relations lacks the essential and indissoluble purpose—that which belongs to married people to cooperate with God in the begetting of children and to express their mutual love for one another.

            Does this mean that homosexuals should be persecuted, ostracized?   No.  They should be treated with love and compassion in the hope that they can overcome their personal difficulties.  But…and this is important given the fashion of the liberal media to advocate…neither does it mean  that those who oppose homosexuality on moral grounds are sick, infected with homophobia.

          There are two reasons to oppose homosexual relationships—the Natural Law and reason. Natural Law we’ve gone into.    The rational grounds are the harm caused to human society by practice of homosexuality as history shows homosexuality undermines the foundation of the family; and that homosexual behavior is a primary means to spreading such epidemic diseases as AIDS.

        A heretical purposeful misreading of “fundamental option” on this as with abortion has lured many Catholics to believe there is no mortal sin committed unless a person completely rejects God.

         Pro-gay Catholic advocates including the pols (mostly Dems and a few Repubs [see Judy Baar Topinka]) who trudge to Communion,  claim they do not reject God and insist that homosexuality is an expression of deep love for another person of the same gender.  This boils down to a root claim: that each person has the right to determine what is  morally good or morally bad, thus giving to each human the right that belongs to God alone, to determine what is virtuous and what is sinful.   Chicago’s No. 1 gay rights advocate, Carol Marin, insists she has the right to ascertain what is virtuous and sinful—and she blasts good bishops like Springfield’s Tom Paprocki for calling errant Catholic Pat Quinn (who misquoted Church teaching) to account.

       How dare Paprocki do this! wrote Marin.   He usurps church and state! 

        Back to the whirling Wuerl.   

         Finally as if dragged into it, Wuerl gets to the point “…the rest of Jesus’s message that human sexuality has a purpose. And this is not for simply personal satisfaction.  Human sexuality has to be seen in the context of the great gift of love, marriage, family.”  Wrapped up at the end after maximum parsing. 

         Gee with an advocate like red-hatted Donald Wuerl I feel so pumped up!  Talk about Weak Sister who just got Prince of the Church!  Still, he’s a half step better than the Bishop of Tucson, Gerald F. Kicanas and a full step better than his predecessor, Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, or Uncle Ted to his fey admirers.