By CHRISTOPHER MANION
This past March, Calvin Robinson, a Deacon of the Free Church of England, was invited to participate in a debate at the Oxford Union. The motion, “This House Supports Same-Sex Marriage in The Church,” was defended by Charles Gorick, Bishop of Dudley, and two other Anglican prelates.
Robinson drew on Aquinas and the Church Fathers in his argument in defense of the family. “We are up against the authorities (viz. Luke 12:11) — three bishops from the Established Church,” he said. “That means either I am wrong — and Christians have been teaching incorrectly on marriage for 2,000 years — or we have Church leaders attempting to drag the Church into apostasy.”
“Do not lead people astray,” he admonished the motion’s supporters. “Do not be the wolves in sheep’s clothing or the false teachers the Bible warns us about. Remember your obligation to defend the faith. Stop teaching about diversity, inclusion, and equality. Get back to teaching about Redemption and Salvation!”
“The Church is imploding. The faithful masses have stopped turning up on Sundays. We are seeing the most rapid decline of Christianity in this country that we may have ever seen. Do not accelerate this with heresy. . . . I hear the Devil at work,” he continued.
“Bishops are promoting the idea of sacramental sodomy. Let them be anathema! Repent!”
When the USCCB meets in Orlando this week, will they hear even one voice echoing Deacon Robinson’s challenge?
They will have ample opportunity to do so. On their agenda is the question, should the conference’s “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” be updated?
The question arises because the “Doctrinal Note on the Moral Limits to Technological Manipulation of the Human Body,” issued by the Conference’s Committee on Doctrine this past March, addresses the recent craze for butchery involved in various “sex-change” procedures.
In defending the integrity of the human body, the “Note” invokes a long line of Church authorities, including Pope Francis:
“Let us not fall into the sin of trying to replace the Creator. We are creatures, and not omnipotent. . . . We are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created” (Amoris Laetitia, n. 56).
After providing the theological foundations, the Note refers to both surgical and drug-induced mutilations which advocates call “gender-affirming care.” Such treatments “do not repair a defect in the body: there is no disorder in the body that needs to be addressed; the bodily organs are normal and healthy,” the note states. “These interventions are intended to transform the body…. They are attempts to alter the fundamental order and finality of the body and to replace it with something else” (n. 16).
One wonders, this is so basic, why do our bishops even feel compelled to repeat it?
Voices In The Wilderness
But that’s the problem. The support of Sr. Carol Keehan, The Catholic Health Association’s president in 2009, was critical in the passage of Obamacare, which mandated federally funded abortion. Today transgender advocates report that the Association disagrees with the Note’s affirmation of Catholic teaching. After all, the hundreds of hospitals and other institutions they represent receive millions in federal funding every year. They don’t want problems with the Biden Administration.
Do America’s bishops feel the same way?
Because only a small number of bishops, notably Bishops Michael Burbidge of Arlington and Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, have had the temerity publicly to challenge the “gender ideology” so celebrated by the secular culture’s current version of the sexual revolution.
Their documents, Bishop Burbidge’s “Catechesis” on “Gender Ideology” and Archbishop Coakley’s Pastoral Letter on “Gender Dysphoria,” should have been on the agenda for discussion, adoption, and publication by acclamation. They address one of the most deadly challenges to the very survival of our culture.
The propaganda machine that is pushing “gender” into schools, communities, government, in business is a threat to every American family. Our bishops will jump quickly to the defense of illegal aliens against supporters of the rule of law, or racial minorities against “white supremacists” — Why won’t they defend our children against this insidious and malicious effort to destroy their future?
Do the Anglican bishops accused by Deacon Robinson of preaching “apostasy” and “sacramental sodomy” have allies among their fellow prelates in the U.S. hierarchy?
Perversion Prancing On The Pitcher’s Mound
For years, even decades, our shepherds seem uneasy about rising up to confronting the ravenous wolves peddling the sexual revolution’s depraved insanity. Even when it comes to outright blasphemy, they resist confrontation.
Consider the ongoing controversy regarding the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.” Weeks ago, the Los Angeles Dodgers invited this sodomite claque to receive an award during a game on June 16. Catholics around the country immediately organized demonstrations and processions to protest the invitation, upon which the Dodgers withdrew it.
At that point the Perversion Complex raised unholy Hell (ably assisted by the Prince of This World). So, Dodgers management quickly reinstated the invitation.
On May 23, Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez condemned the reinstatement. “The decision to honor a group that clearly mocks the Catholic faith and makes light of the sincere and holy vocations of our women religious who are an integral part of our Church…has caused disappointment, concern, anger, and dismay from our Catholic community,” he wrote.
Finally, last Monday, the USCCB took a stand: “On June 16 — the day of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus — a professional baseball team has shockingly chosen to honor a group whose lewdness and vulgarity in mocking our Lord, His Mother, and consecrated women cannot be overstated. This is not just offensive and painful to Christians everywhere; it is blasphemy.”
“We call on Catholics to pray the Litany of the Sacred Heart on June 16, offering this prayer as an act of reparation for the blasphemies against our Lord we see in our culture today,” the bishops’ statement read.
Pride Marches On
Dodger Stadium isn’t the only location desecrated by the hedonist hordes. That “deeply devout Catholic” Joe Biden has ordered that the Pride flag be flown at every U.S. embassy abroad for the entire month of June, which raises a constitutional issue:
Article VI specifies that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
Now clearly, if that flag were instead a picture of Jesus Christ waving outside every U.S. embassy abroad, there would be outrage. Were it a picture depicting Mohammed, there would be violence. (Speaking of Mohammed, JewishPress.com reports that U.S. embassy in the United Arab Emirates is flying the Pride flag, but not the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia, “where sodomy is a crime punishable by death.”)
But order a federal employee to raise a flag celebrating the Deadly Sin of Pride? No problem!
During June, Biden has repeatedly blathered on about the danger of “armed hate groups” targeting transgender marchers, especially endangering “LGBT kids,” who are “under attack” from laws that aim to stop children from sex-transition surgeries.
Last Saturday, he wrote on Twitter, “I know that too many people in the LGBTQI+ community are worried and afraid about their future and their safety. I want to send a message to the entire community — especially to transgender children. You are loved. You are heard. You are understood. You belong.”
Our beloved bishops finally stood up and condemned the depravity of the L.A. Dodgers.
Why can’t they stand up to Joe Biden?
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