Courtesy of the Washington Times today,
“At a time when the Republican Party is in trouble with their conservative base, Bill Frist is taking a page straight out of the Karl Rove playbook to distract from the Republican Party’s failed leadership and misplaced priorities by scapegoating LGBT families for political gain, using marriage as a wedge issue,” said Mr. Dean, using the abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. “It is not only morally wrong, it is shameful and reprehensible,” Mr. Dean said.

Personally, I am a fan of Howard Dean talking. The more press he gets, the better it is for parties other than the Democrat Party. Here’s my take. At the civil level, the societal level, marriage is a social contract between a couple and the society that they will generate positive, productive members of society, who will spur that society forward in reaching as great a level as possible. Thus, at the civil level, there’s why a homosexual “marriage” won’t work.

Take this to another level and consider that there’s a great number of heterosexual marriages failing. Why? I argue it is because of the number of heterosexual marriages that are not open to reproduction. Pope Paul VI predicted that both marriages and society would suffer if contraception became widespread. Further, he predicted that if we accepted the divorce of the conjugal act from its natural consequence, we would logically grow to accept other disordered forms of “marriage” - think homosexual marriage, polygamy, rampant sex outside the marriage bond, and so on. These things ultimately represent a breaking of the social contract between the society and the married couple.

Then of course there is the sacramental nature of marriage - a whole other level above the societal level. Much of the same holds true between man and society as between man and God, so I won’t belabor the point here.

In the end, I am opposed to validation of homosexual practices as “normal,” thus I am opposed to homosexuals being allowed to “marry” and obtain all rights and priveleges appertaining therto. However, last week I was listening to EWTN’s Open Line program, with Barbara McGuigan, and a caller pressed her on the Church’s position on homosexuality. He said something like, “I know that religion generally looks down on homosexuality.” McGuigan responded beautifully. I quote her in part here:
“Well, first of all, we don’t want to define people by their sexuality…we define them as children of God with a disorder…we’re all dancing on broken legs, we all have something we need to work on, and work toward to try to overcome our disorders…they must be accepted, our Catechism says, with love and compassion…we’re all called to chastity, and so homosexuals are also called to chastity…”
Hear the whole conversation here -fast forward in about 46 minutes.

I grew up in a church where comments were regularly made about homosexuals and essentially how bad they were. A revival preacher even said, “you might get AIDS, even if you’re not a homo.” Come down to brass tacks, I’d hear the tired old “hate the sin love the sinner” line, which was good on paper but was not the real attitude of the person saying it. I find the Roman Catholic Church’s position easier to handle - we are all called to chastity; understanding that the dictates of our faith define properly ordered sexuality, we are called to avoid disordered expressions of sexuality. I have told people who pressed me on it that I would have no problem finding out that my priest was gay, so long as he wasn’t practicing homosexual activities; my priest was called to a specific discipline of celibacy, so he shouldn’t be having sex with anyone! Likewise, if I had a friend tell me that he had a homosexual impulse or desire, but he recognized the moral problem with acting on that impulse, I would have no problem seeing him take Holy Communion. The same goes for the non-practicing murderer, the non-practicing thief, etc.

Got the following in my email today; note it is addressed to Mrs. DiMaggio (?) but it was sent to me by DJDEASE@stthomas.edu. My comments follow:

Dear Ms. Dimaggio,

I want to thank you for writing to me about remarks made by graduating senior Benjamin Kessler at the undergraduate commencement exercises May 20 at the University of St. Thomas and his subsequent apology.

I was present at the graduation ceremony and heard Mr. Kessler’s speech. I do not believe it was appropriate for him to use our Commencement event as a venue for his comments. There is no question that he was speaking sincerely and upholding Church teaching, and there were certainly many ways that Mr. Kessler might have dealt with the subject of “selfishness” from a Catholic perspective that could have been edifying. However, to berate his classmates on what was to have been a joyous occasion of celebration and congratulation was not appropriate and was hurtful to many of our students and their families.

After reflecting on the matter Mr. Kessler has apologized. As you know, he issued a statement on Monday (May 22). I included the statement in a column that I wrote the same day for Bulletin Update, which was distributed via e-mail to all St. Thomas students, faculty and staff as well as many parents and alumni who are on the Bulletin distribution list. A copy of my column follows below, and I hope you will read it in its entirety.

A number of people have asked if any administrator screened Mr. Kessler’s speech in advance. We did not. Past graduation speeches by Tommie Award winners at spring commencement and by senior class representatives at winter commencement have been non-confrontational. Consequently, we felt no reason to take any steps this spring in reading an advance text of Mr. Kessler’s speech. We will carefully review our procedures in this area before our next commencement exercise.

Again, I want to thank you for sharing your thoughts with me.

Sincerely,

Reverend Dennis Dease
President
University of St. Thomas

Well, Fr. Dease, thanks for the response. Here’s the most troubling part of this letter: “there were certainly many ways that Mr. Kessler might have dealt with the subject of “selfishness” from a Catholic perspective that could have been edifying” . Why is this troubling? Because of a couple of things. One: the subject of edification. I ran away from Protestantism because of the continuous edification. Edification is great but there’s a heck of a lot of challenging stuff out there. I joined the Catholic Church in part because of catechists who aren’t afraid to stand in front of a group and talk about an unpopular Church teaching. The Church doesn’t pull punches talking about the evils that exist in the world. Two: On the subject of selfishness. I think Mr. Kessler was trying to help people to realize that there are seemingly “small” examples of selfishness in their own lives. In other words, it’s easy for us to see selfishness when we look at profit margins of a big corporation, or people who are on the welfare dole who refuse to get a job, or people who are going after as much sex as possible. Mr. Kessler, it seems, was trying to point out how even as good, pious Catholics, there are still ways in which we are selfish, and, according to the polls, a big number of “good” Catholics are contracepting. He didn’t take the easy way in pointing out selfishness, he took the hard path. What do you think?

Here’s one that my wife alerted me to:

by Hilary White

MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL, May 24, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Graduates and their families got an unexpected earful of Catholic doctrine at the graduation ceremonies of St. Thomas University this weekend. Ben Kessler, a well-known student recently honoured by peers and faculty as Tommie of the Year, spoke of the “selfishness” of birth control and extra-marital sex.

An audible roar of protest erupted when Kessler asked, “What in society is selfish? I would point to the common practice of birth control…Birth control is selfish.” On a videotape of the speech obscene comments can be heard as well as shouts of “Way to go Matt!” whistles and cheers. The tape shows numerous students and parents leaving the ceremony. Kessler was interrupted several times by his audience but carried on (end excerpt)

From Faher Dennis Dease, university president:

May 22: Apology issued by student commencement speaker

by Father Dennis Dease, University of St. Thomas president

Many of you have become aware of remarks made Saturday during our undergraduate commencement exercises by Benjamin Kessler, a graduating senior.

As is our custom, the winner of the Tommie Award is asked to speak for a few minutes at graduation. Mr. Kessler won the Tommie Award earlier this year in a vote among students, faculty and staff, and thus was given the opportunity to speak.

I have shared my sentiments with Mr. Kessler that it was not appropriate for him to use the commencement exercise as a venue to express his opinions [emphasis added] on several issues. (end excerpt)

His opinions, eh? Here’s my response to Father Dease:

“to express his opinions on several issues” - Father Dease

To Father: Perhaps it would be wise for you to check your own level of submission to the teachings of Holy Mother Church. Mr. Kessler was not expressing his opinions, but the infallible teaching of the Magisterium, numberous Popes including Paul VI and John Paul II. It is disturbing that anyone should have to apologize for speaking Catholic doctrine in a Catholic venue. This type of attempt to supress the true teachings of the Church could lead to a substantial loss in credibility for her.

This morning, my bride awoke with a stuffed head and a fever (so much for temperature charting). So, Caroline and I got ready to go to church without her. We got a seat on the back row, center aisle (remember, I used to be a Baptist). This is the first time Caroline and I have been to Mass without mommy Erin. Baby Caroline was absolutely on her best behavior the whole time. Father Jim had 4 to baptize this morning, and they were a loud group - so loud he actually paused during his homily to give them a chance to calm down. I held Caroline where she could see right down the aisle and watch the babies being baptized. As they cried out for having their heads wetted by the holy water, Caroline announced to me that they were babies (”ba-bee”) and I told her it was only a little more than a year ago she was baptized too.

The experience of holding my daughter on my lap through mass today, combined with watching more beautiful babies become parts of the Communion of Saints, and having Caroline watch so intently as Father Jim held up the Body and Blood of Christ, I was overwhelmed like I was the night I was received into Communion with the Church. I sat there (hard to kneel with a baby in tow) and this whole concept of the Communion of Saints and the real presence was really “real” to me in a way that happens less than I wish it would. As we stood to process, the organist hit the first couple of chords of “Be Not Afraid.” Well, I love the song, and found myself having a hard time making it through that line, “you shall see the face of God and live.” Here you have a perfect meeting of what you can actually perceive of God while you’re still on Earth. My beautiful daughter in my arms, newly received babies into the life of the Church, and the real presence of Christ there in the Eucharist. This is as close to seeing the face of God as you can get on Earth…”you shall see the face of God and live.” Thank you, Holy Spirit, for making yourself so evident today.

Greetings and welcome to the newest blog devoted to how daily news and experiences relate to the my faith as a Roman Catholic. I am hoping to hop on a couple of the aggregators so people will be able to find me easier. Why am I here? I have come across a couple of good blogs in the last few days and want to add in my own personal 2 cents. In the days to come I will post news stories from web articles and heard on the radio here along with some of my own comments. I already have up some links to similar blogs. So…before we go any further, how did I get here? The title of the blog is Roman Catholic by Choice. So, my conversion story:

I was born into a family that, from both sides, was Southern Baptist. The Southern Baptist Church (not really called that) is an organization with a central governing body called the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) with state sub-groups set up (Tennessee Baptist Convention, etc.) So - it’s not the independents, or the free-wills, or the primitives, or the Americans, it’s Southern (An’ we like it that way!) The organization is rather heavy-handed on some rather minor matters - you might remember a few years back they called on all Baptists to boycott Disney. More on how the organization played into my conversion later.

I will refer to various churches as just Baptist, because that is what the sign in front of them says. There are no American Baptist churches I’m aware of in Nashville, and so everyone calls the Southern Baptist churches “Baptist.” My earliest church memories are at First Baptist Church, Goodlettsville, TN. My parents taught Sunday school - and I specifically remember my Sunday School classes in Kindergarten (my teacher also ended up being my 2nd grade school teacher.) At the age when some of the basics of theology start to gel for a kid, I realized that I should call myself a Christian. I reasoned that since I had been going to church since as long as I could remember, and I believed (at whatever level a 3rd or 4th grader can) what I was taught and all those miracles and Bible stories, I must be one. Due to disagreements of some sort (no idea of details here) we started attending First Baptist Nashville (downtown.) We attended here a few years until my grandmother passed away, and my parents decided we should attend church with my widowed grandfather, so we moved to Dalewood Baptist Church. This was a pretty strongly traditional church…no musical instrument except the holy ones (organ and piano), traditional hymns, etc. Nonetheless, I’m still a pretty traditional kind of guy. I think that Life Teen is a good thing as long as liturgical integrity is maintained, but 7/11 songs (i.e., sing the same 7 lines eleven times) just don’t appeal to me. DBC was what I needed at the time - I identified with my youth pastor very closely because of similar personalities and interests. There was a close bonding there. He and I got along well, but he rubbed some youth the wrong way - mainly, just for doing his job. What I learned from him was an openness to thought and debate, which put me on a path out of the Baptist denomination.

There’s another point that plays into this part of the story, though. I was attending Goodpasture Christian School, which although it claimed no affiliation, was affiliated with Madison Church of Christ. From 5th grade through 12th, I spent time every day receiving a Church of Christ indoctrination. The Church of Christ claims that every bit of their doctrine comes from the Bible. In fact - they claim that there is no Church of Christ “doctrine” because it can’t be doctrine if it comes out of the Bible. One of the CoC’s claims to fame is that they do not use music in worship because the Bible doesn’t say anything about the early Christian Church (which they claim to be direct descendants of) using musical instruments in their worship. Apparently, in the Bible, omission excludes something. If the Bible doesn’t say it, it wasn’t there. I think anyone who thinks for even a moment can tear down this line of reasoning very easily (for example, Jesus doesn’t say that His story of the rich man and Lazarus is a parable, but it is widely thought that it is.) Now, for the most part, Baptist and COC views are pretty close to the same, but I found a lot more of the “we’re right and everyone else is wrong” attitude among these people.

As a result of this rather hostile-to-thought environment, my wits were significantly sharpened, and I developed the ability to argue (and even to play the devil’s advocate just to irritate my classmates.) The COC seems to be very good at developing people with a paper-thin faith - something very superficial and easily argued into a corner. After high school it was on to college in Rome, Georgia at Berry College. Berry has a predominantly Baptist student body, with strong numbers of Methodists, Presbyterians, a few Episcopalians, Catholics, and Lutherans. The faculty and staff are very hostile toward religion in any form (except Baha’ai or Universalism, by and large.) The religion staff especially seems to have a great time tearing down the weak faiths of many of the students who attempt to discuss religion with them. I got a job with the Chaplain’s Office at Berry, running sound for the weekly campus church services (which were evangelical and nondemoninational, but fairly conservative.) I also had occasion to run sound for various other functions, including the Catholic Student Association’s Explanatory Mass. I found it really interesting my Freshman year, and discovered as Father Linus explained some of the rituals, that some parts of Catholicism made sense to me. I still had far to go, but it looked to me, at least, that Catholicism was not on a totally different planet (not to say I was ever Anti-Catholic; it just seemed a little overly legalistic and ritualistic to me.)

Everything was going fine in the campus church, until I found myself in love with a Catholic girl. We had been in classes together since Freshman year, but now it was February of 2000, and we had several of our School of Education classes together. As we began seeing each other outside of classes, working together to develop units and lesson plans, our relationship developed into a personal one. We began discussing differences in our faith traditions. I remember the first thing that really clicked with me was that Catholics can’t tell you the specific date that their life changed and they “acceptedjesuschristintotheirheartastheirpersonallordandsavi or.” I ran that together because that’s how people say it. You see, as a Baptist, I never had that “date” - I didn’t have a single experience of salvation. My “testimony” was as boring as watching paint dry, because I hadn’t ever been a bad kid, so I couldn’t “turn my life around.” As I said before, I had been in church since birth. I had been learning about the faith the whole time, and although I was baptized in 7th grade, that was not the beginning of my Christian life. Erin sat across the table explaining that Catholics teach that faith formation is a lifelong process that begins with the baptism of an infant and moves through logical phases. This was an ‘aha’ moment for me. And, it continued from there. Piece by piece, more of Catholicism made sense to me.

But, Erin made it clear that she didn’t want to force me into Catholicism - and I didn’t want to push her either. We visited numerous churches in the Rome area. After we graduated from college, we got married, and we did a hybrid Catholic/Protestant wedding (not a Mass, co-officiated by Fr. Linus and a Baptist pastor,) so our marriage is recognized by the Catholic Church. After our November 2001 wedding, we pretty much continued to attend Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

In the summer of 2002, I started reading Catholic Apologetics websites on my lunch breaks, and learned the logical answers to the common misconceptions and objections to Catholic teachings. After the summer camp that is a part of the organization that employs me was over, we went to Navarre Beach, FL, for a few days of R&R, and it was there that I saw EWTN for the first time - the local cable system carried it. In addition, shortly thereafter, Erin started having an adverse reaction to her birth control pills, and I started looking into alternatives. Since our marriage was conducted by Fr. Linus, it was blessed by the Church - I had already heard of Natural Family Planning, but had written it off as legalistic nonsense, due to a weak explanation at Pre-Cana. Well, call me selfish, but I didn’t want my wife having weird reactions to drugs, especially in the reproductive area, so I looked into NFP. Found Couple to Couple League, ordered the CCL home study kit, and we threw out the last pack of pills.

As you can tell, I had decided that I did indeed want to join the Church. Each time I learned more, I realized that many of my beliefs are matched or closely matched Church teachings, so it seemed to only make sense for me to join the Catholic Church. I joined RCIA and 9 months later, was received into the Catholic Church, April of 2003. My life has been packed with unexpected blessings since my decision to start RCIA. When I started in the fall of 2002, we were living in a duplex. In January 2003, we began searching for a house, and found a beautiful home not far from the duplex. We put a contract on it at the point when interest rates just happened to hit their lowest level in about 50 years, and we wound up with a house payment 17 cents higher than our rent payment! Various other blessings have come to us, and I take them as an affirmation that I am in the right place right now. I know that there will be difficult times as well, but I have developed a core of friends, especially my wife, that keep me strong in the faith. My wife was a great influence toward my decision to join the Church, but she was simply a tool of the Holy Spirit toward that eventual end. Church teaching, apologetics, and conversion stories of particular individuals, such as Scott Hahn have all been great influences. Of late, I have been listening to EWTN via the web a great deal, and you’ll get some of my impressions from that listening on this blog.

Since I originally wrote this, we have welcomed Caroline into our world, born drug-free and naturally, attachment-parented, breastfed exclusively for a little under a year. She was born on March 21, 2005.  As of this update, she’s the big sister to a little one who will arrive in January 2008.