GoIrish41
Paterfamilius
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Rome man arrested in women’s bathroom at Calhoun Walmart - Rome News-Tribune: News
Just to add to the craziness of this discussion...
Ok. I can't unread that.
Rome man arrested in women’s bathroom at Calhoun Walmart - Rome News-Tribune: News
Just to add to the craziness of this discussion...
Rome man arrested in women’s bathroom at Calhoun Walmart - Rome News-Tribune: News
Just to add to the craziness of this discussion...
Absolutely, and we should just get rid of gendered restrooms.
Or we can stop this nonsense and say guys use men's and gals use women's. You can pretend to be what you want once you've done your business.
I'm going to guess women don't want to give up gendered restrooms. The place where they have couches and candles would need to be where the urinals go (The Office reference).
There’s more at stake in today’s transgender battles than who may be permitted to enter a girls’ locker room. What’s really being debated is the nature of reality itself, and what impact it should have on social organization.
In his recent letter on marriage and the family, Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”), Pope Francis said that sex education should teach “respect and appreciation” for sexual differences, including self-acceptance and learning to embrace the body with which one is born, rather than playing with fictional identities that deny reality.
“The young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created,” he wrote. Thinking that we enjoy “absolute power over our own bodies,” Francis warned, leads to the delusion that “we enjoy absolute power over creation.”
This could turn out to be the most unpopular stance the pope took in the entire letter.
In a disturbing video, Joseph Backholm, the director of Washington’s Family Policy Institute, recently interviewed a number of “millennial” college students regarding people’s ability to define themselves apart from the impositions of nature.
“So if I told you that I was a woman, what would your response be?” he asked.
The responses were what one would expect on a U.S. college campus: “I would say, good for you…”; “Nice to meet you…”; “I don’t have a problem with it.”
The interviewer proceeded to probe further, asking just how far people’s self-identity was under their own control.
“If I told you that I was Chinese, what would your response be?” he continued.
“I might be a little surprised, but I would say, ‘Good for you. Yeah, be who you are,’” one young woman responded.
Pressing still further, Backholm asked, “If I told you that I was 7 years old, what would your response be?”
One student said he wouldn’t believe that “immediately.” Another said: “If you feel seven at heart, then so be it.”
Some students, however, seemed to draw the line at height.
“If I said that I am six feet five inches, what would you say?” the interviewed asked.
“That I would question,” one female student responded. “Why?” he countered. “Because you’re not.”
Pressed whether she was saying that Backholm could be a Chinese woman, but not a 6’-5” Chinese woman, the student paused, then agreed.
Another summed up her opinion by saying: “I feel like it’s not my place, as like another human, to say someone is wrong or to draw lines or boundaries.”
All of this may sound like openness and tolerance, but there’s a more insidious side to it. Twenty-five years ago, Saint John Paul II argued that allowing the will dominance over reason and reality will end up leading society over a cliff.
In his 1991 encyclical letter Centesimus Annus, John Paul wrote that in the political organization of the state, the only alternative to reason is will. If things are not based on what is, they must be based on what we want them to be.
The “we” in question here is always the strongest, whether expressed as a majority or simply as the most powerful interest group.
Having lived through both National Socialism and Marxist Communism, John Paul contended that the real difference between totalitarianism and democracy is not so much the concentration of power into a single individual or party versus a system of checks and balances, but rather the more fundamental understanding of objective truth itself.
Totalitarianism, he said, is based on “voluntarism”, or the supremacy of will over reason, whereas a rule of law places will at the service of reason.
According to John Paul, “Totalitarianism arises out of a denial of truth in the objective sense. If there is no transcendent truth in obedience to which man achieves his full identity, then there is no sure principle for guaranteeing just relations between people.”
In a totalitarian state, the will of the ruler becomes the sole criterion of moral good and evil. In the case of a democracy, the will of the ruler becomes the will of the majority.
Thus, John Paul wrote that a state which “sets itself above all values cannot tolerate the affirmation of an objective criterion of good and evil beyond the will of those in power, since such a criterion, in given circumstances, could be used to judge their actions.”
It is in this light that John Paul’s oft-cited remark can be understood in its deepest sense: “A democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.”
This was not an exercise in rhetoric for dramatic effect.
Although democracy may seem to be the opposite of totalitarianism, since it distributes political power, if it fails to recognize objective truth and goodness beyond political expediency, it falls into the same error as totalitarianism. It denies the role of reason in the organization of society, and allows the will to reign.
As a society, we’ve now passed seamlessly from defining people by their sexual “orientation” to defining them by their subjective belief of who they are, regardless of what biology or genetics says, and all in less than a generation.
Where this will ultimately lead is anybody’s guess, but if the opinions of the millennial generation are to be believed, the trend has not yet nearly run its course.
And if St. John Paul is to be believed, it will not end in the flourishing of democracy, but in its demise
Neither of you have a right to believe something that is contrary to objectively knowable reality.If one believes they have the right to consider themselves something different than what they were born, shouldn't I have the right to consider one to be whatever I want?
Here the author makes the jump from JP II's discussion on values in different economic and political systems to his own conclusions that reinforce his beliefs on bathrooms:In a totalitarian state, the will of the ruler becomes the sole criterion of moral good and evil. In the case of a democracy, the will of the ruler becomes the will of the majority.
Thus, John Paul wrote that a state which “sets itself above all values cannot tolerate the affirmation of an objective criterion of good and evil beyond the will of those in power, since such a criterion, in given circumstances, could be used to judge their actions.”
It is in this light that John Paul’s oft-cited remark can be understood in its deepest sense: “A democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.”
This was not an exercise in rhetoric for dramatic effect.
Although democracy may seem to be the opposite of totalitarianism, since it distributes political power, if it fails to recognize objective truth and goodness beyond political expediency, it falls into the same error as totalitarianism. It denies the role of reason in the organization of society, and allows the will to reign.
As a society, we’ve now passed seamlessly from defining people by their sexual “orientation” to defining them by their subjective belief of who they are, regardless of what biology or genetics says, and all in less than a generation.
Where this will ultimately lead is anybody’s guess, but if the opinions of the millennial generation are to be believed, the trend has not yet nearly run its course.
And if St. John Paul is to be believed, it will not end in the flourishing of democracy, but in its demise
At the dawn of a new millennium, there is growing hope that relationships between people will be increasingly inspired by the ideal of a truly universal brotherhood.
I therefore consider it urgent to invite believers in Christ, together with all men and women of good will, to reflect on the theme of dialogue between cultures and traditions.
In the past, cultural differences have often been a source of misunderstanding between peoples and the cause of conflicts and wars. Even now, sad to say, in different parts of the world we are witnessing with growing alarm the aggressive claims of some cultures against others.
The authenticity of each human culture, the soundness of its underlying ethos, and hence the validity of its moral bearings, can be measured to an extent by its commitment to the human cause and by its capacity to promote human dignity at every level and in every circumstance.
A culture which no longer has a point of reference in God loses its soul and loses its way, becoming a culture of death. This was amply demonstrated by the tragic events of the twentieth century and is now apparent in the nihilism present in some prominent circles in the Western world.
Individuals come to maturity through receptive openness to others and through generous self-giving to them; so too do cultures. Created by people and at the service of people, they have to be perfected through dialogue and communion, on the basis of the original and fundamental unity of the human family as it came from the hands of God who "made from one stock every nation of mankind" (Acts 17:26).
Dialogue leads to a recognition of diversity and opens the mind to the mutual acceptance and genuine collaboration demanded by the human family's basic vocation to unity. As such, dialogue is a privileged means for building the civilization of love and peace that my revered predecessor Pope Paul VI indicated as the ideal to inspire cultural, social, political and economic life in our time.
In such a complex issue there are no "magic" formulas; but still we must identify some basic ethical principles to serve as points of reference. First of all, it is important to remember the principle that immigrants must always be treated with the respect due to the dignity of every human person.
Dialogue between cultures, a privileged means for building the civilization of love, is based upon the recognition that there are values which are common to all cultures because they are rooted in the nature of the person.
Consequently, the promotion of justice is at the heart of a true culture of solidarity.
The culture of solidarity is closely connected with the value of peace, the primary objective of every society and of national and international life. However, on the path to better understanding among peoples there remain many challenges which the world must face: these set before everyone choices which cannot be postponed.
In order to build the civilization of love, dialogue between cultures must work to overcome all ethnocentric selfishness and make it possible to combine regard for one's own identity with understanding of others and respect for diversity. Fundamental in this respect is the responsibility of education. Education must make students aware of their own roots and provide points of reference which allow them to define their own personal place in the world. At the same time, it must be committed to teaching respect for other cultures. There is a need to look beyond one's immediate personal experience and accept differences, discovering the richness to be found in other people's history and in their values.
Thanks precisely to this broadening of horizons, education has a particular role to play in building a more united and peaceful world. It can help to affirm that integral humanism, open to life's ethical and religious dimension, which appreciates the importance of understanding and showing esteem for other cultures and the spiritual values present in them.
Dear young people of every language and culture, a high and exhilarating task awaits you: that of becoming men and women capable of solidarity, peace and love of life, with respect for everyone. Become craftsmen of a new humanity, where brothers and sisters — members all of the same family — are able at last to live in peace.
Linked above. I'll leave each individual to conclude whether JP II meant that Christians need to exercise their beliefs by establishing bathroom laws or we would sink into totalitarianism with the ultimate demise of society or not.
One other point. The Church itself has painfully struggled with the effects of decades of pedophilia and abuse by some of its priests in addition to accepting homosexuality without practicing it. (I don't mean to confuse the two with regard to priests.) Their response to pedophilia by their priests is much different than bathroom laws, is it not?
Anyone familiar with his work, particularly The Theology of the Body, would have zero doubt about JPII's opposition to the destructive Gnosticism that drives the Transgender Movement, for the exact same reason that the author articulates above. Those suffering from gender dysphoria are certainly deserving of mercy and compassion, but the ideology seeking to normalize their mental illness does need to be vigorously opposed, just as Catholics have a moral duty to oppose abortion, no-fault divorce, and contraception. Perhaps there are more effective ways to oppose such evil than "establishing bathroom laws", but implying that JPII would have distanced himself from this battle because of some ecumenical comments made on the World Day of Peace is a gross misrepresentation of the man.
You lost me here. How has the Church "accept[ed] homosexuality without practicing it"?
Respecting Human Dignity
The commission of the Church to preach the Good News to all people in every land points to the fundamental dignity possessed by each person as created by God. God has created every human person out of love and wishes to grant him or her eternal life in the communion of the Trinity. All people are created in the image and likeness of God and thus possess an innate human dignity that must be acknowledged and respected.1
In keeping with this conviction, the Church teaches that persons with a homosexual inclination “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.”2 We recognize that these persons have been, and often continue to be, objects of scorn, hatred, and even violence in some sectors of our society. Sometimes this hatred is manifested clearly; other times, it is masked and gives rise to more disguised forms of hatred. “It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church’s pastors wherever it occurs.”3
Those who would minister in the name of the Church must in no way contribute to such injustice. They should prayerfully examine their own hearts in order to discern any thoughts or feelings that might stand in need of purification. Those who minister are also called to growth in holiness. In fact, the work of spreading the Good News involves an ever-increasing love for those to whom one is ministering by calling them to the truth of Jesus Christ.4
Homosexual Acts Cannot Fulfill the Natural Ends of Human Sexuality
By its very nature, the sexual act finds its proper fulfillment in the marital bond. Any sexual act that takes place outside the bond of marriage does not fulfill the proper ends of human sexuality. Such an act is not directed toward the expression of marital love with an openness to new life. It is disordered in that it is not in accord with this twofold end and is thus morally wrong. “Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.”7
Homosexual Inclination Is Not Itself a Sin
While the Church teaches that homosexual acts are immoral, she does distinguish between engaging in homosexual acts and having a homosexual inclination. While the former is always objectively sinful, the latter is not. To the extent that a homosexual tendency or inclination is not subject to one’s free will, one is not morally culpable for that tendency. Although one would be morally culpable if one were voluntarily to entertain homosexual temptations or to choose to act on them, simply having the tendency is not a sin. Consequently, the Church does not teach that the experience of homosexual attraction is in itself sinful.
How different is it from co-ed floors with mixed use bathrooms and showers?
All right, maybe the guy or girl using a mixed-use bathroom in a dorm late at night has to be cautious against being raped and pillaged by a lurking transgender.
But remember that open carry is allowed on college grounds in Texas. Elsewhere, just get your permit. You have your Second Amendment rights to protect you.
Neither of you have a right to believe something that is contrary to objectively knowable reality.
Charged with Murder,
Clinging to Mercy
Matthew Flynn ‘14M.Div.
When I volunteered with the Catholic ministry at the county jail, I didn’t know what to expect about the men I would interact with. I’ll always remember meeting a man charged with murder, and the way he clung to mercy.
The ministry I joined did largely the same thing week to week—we talked about different aspects of the Catholic faith, prayed with the inmates about their intentions and needs, had faith sharing conversations, and led prayer services and devotions on Saturday mornings. On Sunday afternoons, a priest would come and celebrate Mass after offering the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the corner of the room for anyone who wanted it. During Confessions, the rest of us would generally just shoot the breeze.
Despite this regularity, even after being there a few months, I was often surprised by sudden changes in our group's population. Since jails are transitional facilities, we hardly ever had the exact same group of people more than once. We had several people for months on end, but others cycled in and out, or only came once or twice before being sentenced to a prison or released.
I started to build a rapport with some of the longer-tenured inmates, but I had no idea what kind of impact (if any) we were having on them until one of them came up to me one day.
He told me that in a few weeks he was being extradited to another state for a crime he had committed there (murder) and asked me to pray for him and his family. He did not deny his crime or give any excuses, as some others did. He just simply stated it, like a fact. Then, after a long pause, added that he was glad to be going back to his home state, but that he would miss us and hoped that they had something similar where he was going.
After another pause, he asked me how he could go about becoming Catholic in prison back home. He had been baptized in another Christian community and had started going through the process to become Catholic before ending up in jail here.
He told me that our ministry had opened up his eyes even more and that he had encountered so much peace and joy through our ministry that he had come to know God in a whole new way. He was actually excited to be going back home, he said, despite his impending trial and probable conviction, because his sister had just become Catholic, too. He wanted to be able to continue his faith journey with her, even though he would probably be in prison for at least 15 years.
Sometime after that, before he was extradited, I saw him approach the priest in the corner for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In the days before he left, I could see tears welling in his eyes whenever we talked about God's love, mercy, and forgiveness.
What 'Inhumane' Looks Like
By Bridget Carey ‘17M.Div.
We arrived to the prison early. After waiting in the van for several minutes, our host, Dr. Edwin Prophete, met us outside and brought us through the outer gate. In the entrance area, our passports were checked. The women’s passports were returned to them and the men’s were held until our departure.
We were escorted through another gate into the prison itself. Even after months, it is difficult to put into words my initial impressions. I can only describe it as a complete overwhelming of the senses.
I was visiting Haiti with a group of graduate students from the University as part of the Common Good Initiative. The purpose of the trip was not so much to perform a particular act of service, but rather to listen and learn. One of our stops was at the men’s penitentiary in Port-au-Prince to meet with a doctor from the non-profit organization, Health through Walls, which provides healthcare to prisons, focusing particularly on preventing the spread of contagious and infectious diseases.
After arriving, we paused in the prison’s open-air courtyard, where remnants of the morning’s meal made the concrete floor slick. The food provided by the government is so poor that many prisoners throw it out—they eat food their families bring them from home, which is screened before being delivered.
As I tried to avoid stepping in the puddles of grayish gruel, I noticed a black body bag lying on the ground to our left unattended. Nearby, a naked man was bathing in the open with soap and a hose. We stood in a group, trying to focus on the information that Dr. Prophete was sharing with us. After a time, we could stand the heat, noise, and smell no more and moved to his office, where we sat in the relative comfort of a single-unit air conditioner.
We learned that the penitentiary was built to hold 800 prisoners. The occupancy at the time of our visit was approximately 4,800; these included both men awaiting trial (a wait that could last up to eight years!), and those who had already received their sentences. Due to overcapacity, prisoners are given only two hours outside their cell each day. Most cells have one door, one window, and no toilet. I now have a vivid picture in mind for the word “inhumane.”
I did not think of myself as performing a work of mercy on that visit. After all, I did not speak to a single prisoner. Language barrier aside, I could barely bring myself to make eye contact with the men staring out at us. While some acknowledged our presence by reaching through the bars or making kissing noises, most disturbing were the motionless men with guarded gazes, whether full of disgust, indifference, or hope.
At the conclusion of our tour, we gathered once again in the doctor’s office. Concerned about the impact of our visit, one of my classmates asked what the prisoners thought we were doing there and how they had reacted to visits by groups like ours in the past. He shook his head and responded that no one ever had.
The Way of the Cross Lived Out Before Me
Kathleen Kollman ‘17
The first floor was finally quiet, the last of the guests having finally gone upstairs to bed. As I was locking up the Catholic Worker house of hospitality for the night, I noticed the chapel door slightly ajar and the light within it still on. Before heading to turn it off, I peeked my head inside to make sure no one was in there. It was empty. I had not meant to stay, but I found myself going inside. The silence was alluring, and all of a sudden I realized that I hadn’t spent a single moment alone that day.
I took a seat in the back, facing the altar of our small chapel where a flickering candle sat next to the tabernacle. Closing my eyes, I felt how the heavy stillness of the chapel contrasted with my racing mind, which was full of all the images and events of my day at the house. I breathed in the quiet and began to sift through the memories, asking to see them the way God wanted me to.
First, I took the time to remember each of the faces of the people for whom I’d answered the door that day. Each one was a precious, hurting person: the tired mother of many, seeking medicine for one of her children; the wizened old man from the streets with a colorful history, needing a box of food; the new family from Honduras whom we’d welcomed—they hadn’t slept in a bed in weeks.
Then I remembered the little, joyful moments: the look of a grateful, disabled woman when we helped her find a new wheelchair; the feeling of success after communicating something in Spanish correctly; the playful teasing with one of our female guests about her boyfriend. While driving a family to the doctor’s office, their small children had begun singing along at the top of their lungs with some Spanish song on the radio and I had wanted to laugh and cry and the same time with the sheer beauty of their joy.
I slowed down to take in the harder moments. One was a brief moment in our clothing room with one of our new guests when she picked up a small child’s shoe and tearfully told me about the 3-year-old daughter whom she had to leave behind in Cuba. I exchanged a look with her that just about pierced my heart—her pain was so palpable and yet I could do nothing to help.
Later, at dinnertime, the same woman was joined by others who were also separated from their children. I was holding a guest’s newborn baby, cooing at him, and they gathered around me to exchange stories of their own children. It was hopeful and beautiful, and yet excruciating. Their pain was made more bearable by the solidarity, the loving community—but it was still raw pain that I could only witness, but not fully understand.
And the last memory was the one that stood out most in my mind. In a fleeting moment, I glimpsed a wife helping her disabled husband into the new wheelchair we’d given to them. She lifted him in a distinctive manner that caught my eye as I was rushing out the door to drive a family to the doctor. I had turned back just for a few seconds to watch, and saw as she lifted him from under the arm, with her shoulder supporting his whole weight, using both hands to carry him.
In a flash of understanding I realized this was the same position in which we often see depictions of Christ lifting his cross. How beautiful and terrible—the way of the cross being lived out before me.
I felt just then how necessary prayer is for this job, and for the works of mercy performed anywhere. In prayer, we offer experiences of suffering to God, and they are revealed before our eyes as moments of grace, as moments of God’s intense and very real presence with us in all of this terrible darkness. This presence gives us life—it nourishes and transforms.
I could have so easily just gone to bed and let the day slip by. Thank God for that light on in the chapel that beckoned me, and for that flickering candle that signified Christ’s presence here.
Teaching involves a selfless dedicated concern for the unique working out (to adulthood) of each soul, a delicate sense of the peculiar needs and aspirations of each, for the peculiar way with knowledge, that is each one. This sympathy, this capacity to appreciate the requirements of another’s fulfillment...seems a function of prudence, perhaps an extension of the prudence of the father. The teacher must respect the delicate sacred interiority of each student, he must encourage the timid efforts at genuine utterance and integration. (Frank O’Malley Papers, University of Notre Dame Archives)
The thing I can't figure out is when did this happen? I was a college student literally five years ago and didn't know anybody like this.Enjoyed this one:
I loved the 1:20 mark, "Good for you, be who you are"... really???
Enjoyed this one:
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I loved the 1:20 mark, "Good for you, be who you are"... really???
Are we really making these kids feel like their thoughts and opinions (freedom of speech) should not be expressed in the fear of Political correctness backlash?
The thing I can't figure out is when did this happen? I was a college student literally five years ago and didn't know anybody like this.
Lol. I know, but it's so far beyond what I thought it was. Wizard said it, where were these kids 5 years ago? I don't remember seeing or hearing anything like this in college.
That's fair, but my mom works at Brown (i.e. the intellectual headquarters of where these kids go) and even she says they've gone extra insane in recent years.You did not go to a college where students like this go. But yes, it's a relatively recent phenomenon.
That's fair, but my mom works at Brown (i.e. the intellectual headquarters of where these kids go) and even she says they've gone extra insane in recent years.
That's fair, but my mom works at Brown (i.e. the intellectual headquarters of where these kids go) and even she says they've gone extra insane in recent years.
So we're supposed to appreciate and celebrate the things that make each of us unique and interesting as individuals or members of a culture, race, gender, or any other group... but then we're supposed to be totally blind to all those things that make us unique and deny their existence. Yeah. OK. Makes perfect sense.