Problems with Going Green as a Catholic

I love a good debate. Although I do not consider myself an ardent environmentalist, when I saw that the UD Earth Service was going to host Father Patrick Foley, a Franciscan from the Archdiocese of St. Paul, I was interested. On the day of the presentation, I met him and he was warm, talkative and excitable, like many young priests I have known. A point in my book.

Fr. Foley has been a priest for three years, and that he has one significant publication currently to his name. He was commissioned by the Archdiocese to write a guide on how being green was catholic. This man does have both experience and background in the field.

During his presentation, he made a series of statements that were particularly troublesome. First, he stated that the USCCB document that accepted the UN's 2001 findings on global warming was to be accepted as “Magisterial” teaching. Indeed, if this pronouncement were truly magisterial, it would indeed require the submission of faith by all Catholics, according to Vatican I’s definition of the magisterial teaching. But this pronouncement was not Magisterial. The only times that council pronouncements carry the force of Magisterial teaching are when local bishops speak on matters of faith and morals, in unison with bishops of the whole world and the Bishop of Rome. This USCCB document meets neither of these criteria.

Second, Fr. Foley asserted that Climate Change was an undeniable reality. ‘It is a fact’ he repeated. In light of the recent ‘climate-gate’ scandal at the University of East Anglia in which climatologists who believed in Climate Change manipulated data, suppressed evidence and excluded colleagues who contradicted their beliefs, I would like to express a wholesome doubt about this current assumption.

I will skip over a few additional objections to Fr. Foley's lecture and talk about his problematic sources. He cited several “interesting” theologians. Leonardo Boff, a liberation theologian that left the Church after being censured for heresy; Sister Ilia Delio OSF, a nun who recently published a piece in a Catholic paper accusing the Vatican of being oppressors of women; Father Thomas Berry OP, who was a self professed “geologian” with heavy new age roots; Father Karl Rahner, who in his own work has denied transubstantiation; and finally Pierre Tielhard de Chardin SJ, whose works were all censured as heretical by the Church.

The use of problematic sources as a foundation causes this Eco-theology to misconstrue the essential relationship between Man and the environment. There is room for a defense of the environment within the Church, as long as this defense is properly understood. Pope Benedict XVI said in his last encyclical Caritas in Veritate that when “’human ecology’ is respected within society, environmental ecology also benefits”. In other words, environmental degradation occurs with moral degradation and that the best way to fix it is to fix ourselves. It is through the resurrection of human virtue that the environment will begin to heal.

To be a truly “green” Catholic, we must not see the forest for the trees by getting caught up in the temporal/material problems of this life but rather achieve within ourselves virtue and peace and by imitating the actions of Christ, we will naturally fix the problems that plague our Earth.



James Locke

Why we need to go back to the 1800's

I really really do not like Feminists. At least not the annoying post-Modern Feminists who do nto want Sexual equality but rather just want to be like men. They want to have their abortions and their relativism. Someone needs to shut these fools up. Not only that but we need to go back to the 1800's and destroy Seneca Falls. Blah. Anyways. I'm just frustrated wit the overall lack of intelligence and education that these women have.

University education ftw!

Continued Determinism and Ryle

The doctrine of predestination takes its first roots from the bible. Assuming the vercity and scholarship behind the Douay-Rheims translation of the Bible from the Vulgate is correct in its translations from the original Latin, the word predestination comes from the latin prae ordinarae which means to have been ordered before. It is first truly seen in the Bible in the latin "et crediderunt quotquot erant præordinati ad vitam æternam"1.

Double Predestination and Determinism

The concept of Predestination has developed steadily over the last 1700 years. Beginning in the early 4th century, the idea of Predestination began with the church fathers. For many years, the debate continued to evolve until a certain ideal was reached by teh Catholic church. Because of certain heretical movements across Europe in the late 15th and early 16th century, the idea of predestination evolved into something new. Previously, predestination had been understood as being the foreknowledge of God of the state of the human souls and the knowledge of how the soul will lead their life such that they will either go to heaven of suffer damnation. However, in the 16th Century, with the Protestant heresies spreading across Europe there came a new understanding of predestination. John Calvin in his institutes of Religion, talks about the power, the omnipotence of God over all things, as they are his creation. furthermore, he sees that because God is all powerful and all knowing, that God essentially creates man with an end in mind for him. In other words, God creates man already destined for Heaven or Hell. For Calvin and the other Protestants of his time, this essentially meant there was a double predestination. Instead of saying simply that God decides to save some people who have lived virtuous lives in His name, Calvin instead postulates that God also goes and damns everyone else to Hell, regardless of the life they have led. In modern analytical philosophy today, there is a philosophy called Behaviorism. Best epitomized by Gilbert Ryle, this philosophy attempts to resolve the questions presented by Dualists such as Descartes and Augustine. Ryle, in his Concept of Mind deconstructs the basic issues surrounding the problems of Descartes and proceeds to present his own ideas about the mind and will as a sort of continuation of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. However, through some careless process, Ryle runs into some precarious issues and the logical conclusion of his philosophy on the Will is essentially a Determinist explanation which perfectly fits with the idea of the Double Predestination.

Opposition to Homosexuality

well here I go. I know that if I post this to facebook, I will probably catch flak but its often so hard to get people to understand why we are opposed to homosexuality because it always end up with ah hom. attacks and the like without any discourse to real reason. and I am sick and tired of people telling me that I just dont understand. Facts are indisputable, ideas are not. These are my ideas and I am willing to dispute them. anyways.

First, My opposition against homosexuality is primarily a religious one. I am Catholic with a capital C and I believe everything that the CCC says. Morality has been given to the Church to be the arbiter of and I will respect that to my dying breath. That being said, I understand the Church's position against Homosexual conduct in several ways:
a) Homosexuality is defined as evil in the bible. New translations today for the first time in 1500 years of bibles are suddenly saying that homosexuality is not mentioned, but that instead its just talking about boy prostitutes. And I am a hat. Basically those people are mistranslating because they have an agenda in mind and I am not going to sit by and respect them for it. Corinthians, Leviticus, Romans and Timothy all contain passages against homosexuality and its consequences. end of story.
B)Homosexuality is condemned through tradition. It makes perfect sense to me with the argument that sexuality is meant to be used in one way only and that's it. he fathers, the doctors of the church and basically all theologians up to the last 50 years have been unanimous on this. it has only been in the last 50 years that the bad theologians, those who start with an end in mind and then proceed to twist everything to achieve it, have been able to hijack the media (who are anti-catholic for the most part) to misrepresent the church is so many ways.

Second, I understand that homosexuality is wrong as a practice also biologically. If Darwin is right and survival of the fittest and procreating to maintain the gene pool etc is the basic idea behind all morality, then it follows that sexual behavior not oriented to child bearing is wrong. Thankfully this is not the only reason why its wrong. Some people claim that animals exhibit homosexual behavior towards one another. I answer that it really is not homosexual behavior because (as the research shows) the behavior demonstrated by the animals is temporary and as normal as preening is. "homosexual" animals still procreate. Furthermore, why do we derive moral actions from animal behavior? Some animals eat each other and kill each other, they steal mates form others and abandon young to the wild. Why do we not do that too? I think the answer is obvious: because we do not draw our morality from the instinctual nature of animals. Therefore, that argument is fallacious and does not prove anything.

Third, Psychological argument. I am a big big fan of the Eriksonian notions of sexual identification through rearing. I do sincerely think that there is something big behind the idea that proper parenting results in normal heterosexual conduct. some studies confirm this, while others deny it. Regardless, just as it is bad for a child to be raised in a single parent house, so too is it for the same reason for the upbringing to be denied to same-sex couples.

Fourth, Because there is something sick and perverse about an entire group of people that define themselves simple on their sexuality. I really do think that sex is supposed to be in the bedroom and not leave there, homosexual or not. Al sex int he public media does nothing but desensitize us to the original beauty of sexuality and it benefits no one to have it out there except to fulfill the perversions of others. With this is mind I whole-heartedly reject the homosexual movement as nothing more than a group of people who are trying to push me and the government of the USA to recognize their perversions as good, something which I am opposed to because if my government is supposed to mirror the ideas of the populace then I think that as long as democracy reigns over this country, and there are enough people that oppose homosexuality, we should have every right to reject is soundly. I think all sex should be removed from the public world. And when I see a bookstore for gays and look inside, what do I find? Sordid pornographic materials behind the facade of "love".

Fifth, I think that homosexuality, even if determined before birth/in the womb, genetically, environmentally or hormonally, does not excuse it from being a defect. 1 in 100 children are mentally retarded ans we see that as a defect. Downs syndrome is bad. ADHD is bad. Why do we consider these bad but homosexuality not? I think there is a proper, ordered kind of human being that is in all respects normal. Indeed, I think that if we can say that mentally retarded children are defected because they cannot perform mental processes well, then for that same reason can we say that homosexuality is a defect as well. It all depends on perception.

In conclusion, if everyone were equal in every way, then we would have a sad world. Read this: Its a short which is Kurt's best Because belive it or not, this is where we will be.

Greece Trip Highlights

I am sure this will end up on Facebook. Anyways, I was in Greece for the last ten days or so. It was a fantastic trip and I will not forget it soon. I took nearly 800 photographs but i think I have trimmed those numbers to about 600. I think that over time I will add to this

*Boat Ride over was amazing. Nothing like a good storm to get things moving. Many people got sick, but I think that I had the most fun that I have ever had in my life. oh and I got soaked and hit by tons of waves while I was at the front of the ship! :D

*Taking pictures IN ruins and not in front of them because the guard was distracted by Johnny on the Temple of Zeus. Running the race! Running on ruins.

*Bus ride to Delphi and Matt imitating Carl.

*Delphi: The site was amazing! Holy Cow it was beautiful!