This Blog supports Vox Cantoris contra Michael Coren

The writer, Michael Coren, has seen fit to attack this evening on his TV show, The Arena, the well-known Catholic blog, Vox Cantoris.

The attack is scurrilous and disgraceful. I encourage all readers to read Vox's open letter to Coren regarding dissent on Catholic teachings pertaining to homosexuality. To accuse Vox of being a "hater" is absolutely false, scandalous.

Vox wrote, regarding Coren: 

It is one thing to have a private opinion and dissent on the truth, it is quite another to make it public and at the same time continue to attest to be Catholic. Your latest column directly contradicts the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You have determined that you have a right to publicly dissent and I have a right, as do others in your parish, to call you out with fraternal correction...

...Michael, your friends care about you and regret that you have taken such a public position over the last few months that is distorting the Church's teaching. People are keeping you and your family in prayer.

Be well my friend,

Vox

No hate, only Christian love, only fraternal correction. Vox's Open Letter to Michael Coren

Michael Coren is wrong on homosexuality: it is sin..."plain and simple..."

Michael Coren has again published an article that is long on feelings, but short on reason regarding the sinfulness of homosexual acts. This should come as no surprise, as it  is symptomatic of his previous emotive reactions, for example, with Cardinal Ambrozic.  Vox Cantoris has published a highly relevant analysis.

In his recent book, "Mercy", Walter Cardinal Kasper has some excellent words on the problem of "pseudomercy" which is a detachment of mercy from truth, leading to ambivalence, misunderstanding and eventual perversion of mercy into a '"fabric softener" for the Christian ethos' (p. 145).  

Following the Pauline tradition, the Cardinal notes that mercy and love join together in fraternal correction of the wayward, and such correction is known as "spiritual mercy". Mercy indeed can be painful - just as surgery may be - but such mercy is to help and heal. Persons who indulge in homosexual activity need the help and healing that only Christ can afford them through repentance and confession. 

The teaching of the Church in the Catechism on the intrinsically disordered and sinful nature of homosexual acts may indeed be considered by those who have same-sex attraction as painful, but, the Church proclaims this truth to provide help and healing to the person so inclined. To dismiss the Church's teachings, to claim that one of the four sins that cry to heaven for vengeance is not a "particularly important subject", is absurd. 

In claiming that "love" triumphs over "judgment" Coren has committed a grave misunderstanding of love and mercy: we cannot ignore God's commandments; in doing so we undercut and abrogate His law, try to detach mercy from truthfulness. Authentic love and mercy will always express the truth (yes, with pastoral tact), and therefore draw the person towards Christ (c.f. Kasper, pp. 147-148). False love leads to sentimentality, relativism, corrupts society opening it to license, a false conception of liberty and freedom, and opens the gateway to covert or eventual overt totalitarianism.

Coren, who expresses many a strong opinion on education, inadvertently indicts so-called "private" neo-Pelagian Catholic education (be it at Mary, Mother of God or De La Salle College), that, seemingly was unable to teach and inspire his children with enough Christian truth to reject the monstrous falsity of "gay marriage" (an "ideology of evil" c.f. Pope John Paul II).

When it suits him, Coren is prepared to speak of "sin". And he indicts himself; about the disgraced Scottish Keith Cardinal O'Brien homosexual acts, Coren writes: "It’s about sin, folks, sin. Plain and simple, black and white. Those who want to flood the argument with grey are not looking for nuance, but anxious to drown the truth". 

Yes, It is sin indeed. The question still remains: why is Coren trying to "drown the truth"? Why is it "sin" for Cardinal O'Brien, but not for others? 

From Coren's most recent article: 

...I can no longer hide behind comfortable banalities, have realized that love triumphs judgment, and know that the conversation between Christians and gays has to transform...

...I am not prepared to throw around ugly terms like “sin” and “disordered” as if they were clumsy cudgels, or marginalize people and groups who often lead more moral lives than I do. I am sick and tired of defining the word of God by a single and not even particularly important subject...

Coren's full article can be read here. 

EMANUEL JACQUES: Requiescat in pace

In 1977, Emanuel Jacques, was murdered after suffering many hours of homosexual rape in Toronto. May his soul rest in peace. Please, during this time  - on this dark and wicked weekend - reflect on the death of this innocent child, done to death by evil, perverted men. 

Emanuel Jacques, pray for us

Cardinal Collins interview on marriage, divorce and contraception

An excellent interview by the Word on Fire website with H.E. Thomas Cardinal Collins: 


Brandon Vogt: Much of the current discussion about divorce, remarriage, and communion is clouded by confusion. What does the Church actually teach on these issues and why? 

Cardinal Thomas Collins: The Catholic Church simply teaches what Jesus teaches: marriage is an unbreakable covenant between a man and a woman, faithful in love and open to the gift of life. Divorce and remarriage is not allowed when it is a matter of a valid, sacramental, and consummated marriage.

When Jesus was preaching in Galilee, divorce and remarriage was accepted in society. The law of Moses allowed for it (Deuteronomy 24:1-4). The teaching of Jesus that divorce and remarriage is not allowed was revolutionary. It was even an indication of his claim to divinity, for only God has the authority to over-rule the law of Moses. Jesus went back to creation itself for the foundation of the unbreakable bond of marriage between a man and a woman: "Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate" (Matthew 19: 1-12). In light of current controversies, it is also helpful to note that Jesus also asserts plainly something that until recently was obvious to everyone: marriage is between a man and a woman. 


.... the full interview may be read here. 

Feast of the Sacred Heart and the growth of the Traditional Latin Mass in Toronto

This Friday, June 27th, 2014, will be the Feast of the Sacred Heart. Three Archdiocesan churches are offering the liturgy according to the more ancient usage of the Roman Liturgy (the usus antiquior, or, as many known it the "Extraordinary Form of the Roman Liturgy"). 

This follows on the extremely successful Solemn High Mass in the presence of H.E. Thomas Cardinal Collins for the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the ordination to the sacred priesthood of the Very Reverend Monsignor Vincent Foy. 

The Toronto Traditional Mass Society-Una Voce Toronto was approached late last year to organize this sacred liturgy. Many, many, countless hours of hard work and preparation were put in - especially by Mr. David Domet, Choirmaster, and Mr. Joseph DeCaria, Master of Ceremonies. To these two gentlemen, we particularly extend our gratitude. 

Further information for the upcoming liturgies is available at the website of the Toronto Traditional Mass Society- Una Voce Toronto. 

                           Toronto Oratory Church of the Holy Family

1372 King Street West, Toronto
Read Mass -- 11:30 A.M.

St. Lawrence the Martyr Catholic Church, Scarborough

2210 Lawrence Avenue East, Scarborough
Solemn Mass -- 7:00 P.M.  

St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Mississauga

5440 Durie Street
Solemn Mass -- 7:30 P.M.

Fascists ban Christian conference in Nanaimo, BC

"The Fascist State is a will to power and to government"

Mussolini

A Conference that included the gentle and innocuous Desmond Tutu was banned in Nanaimo, B.C. by City politicians. The reason: "divisiveness, homophobia, or other expressions of hate..." I have written before about the advance of fascism; it is gaining ground with incredible speed. It is spreading all over Canada, the US, and the EU - alleged bastions of anti-fascism. Fascism is here. 

"Fascism, in short, is not only the giver of laws and the founder of institutions, but the educator and promoter of spiritual life. It wants to remake, not the forms of human life, but its content, man, character, faith... The Fascist State, the highest and most powerful form of personality, is a force, but a spiritual force, which takes over all the forms of the moral and intellectual life of man. . . . It is the form, the inner standard and the discipline of the whole person; it saturates the will as well as the intelligence... the Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State - a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values - interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people...  (The Doctrine of Fascism, 1932, Mussolini) 

On Monday, May 5, in a last minute addition to the agenda of Nanaimo’s Committee of the Whole (Council-COW) meeting, Councillor Pattje put forward a motion which instructed the Management of the VICC (Atlific) not to take, or presumably at this late date to revoke, a booking for the “Beyond You” Leadercast, sponsored by the Nanaimo Daily News and Coastal Communities....

Councillor Pattje’s motion:
It was moved and seconded that the City of Nanaimo advise the VICC that as owners of the facility, any events that are associated with organizations or people that promote or have a history of divisiveness, homophobia, or other expressions of hate...

 The link is available here. 

Updated: June 24th. 

The Third Way: the Catholic Church and homosexuality

Pray and fast in reparation for "World Pride" Toronto

Alan Yoshioka asks us to approach those who suffer from same-sex attraction in the only manner befitting a Catholic: charity, clarity and chastity. Please visit Alan's excellent website for further information.

As Alan notes, at the core are three prayer intentions:

Charity: We repent of any ways in which persons with SSA or gender identity conflicts have been the object of unjust discrimination, including violent malice in speech or in action, and have been abandoned, rejected, or denied unconditional love. We affirm that there is a place in the Church for persons with SSA and gender identity conflicts, who are included in the universal call to holiness.

Clarity: We repent of any distortions of Church teaching as properly expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2357 to 2359. We affirm that same-sex acts cannot be approved under any circumstances; that same-sex inclinations are objectively disordered, a sign of concupiscence and not in and of themselves sinful; and that persons, regardless of their inclinations and acts, are made in the image of God, have intrinsic dignity, and are to be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.

Chastity: We repent of any sins against God’s plan for male and female complementarity and the gift of human life, including, but not limited to immodesty, masturbation, artificial birth control and artificial reproductive technologies, abortion, pornography, sexual abuse, adultery, fornication, polygamy, prostitution, no-fault divorce, and same-sex acts. We affirm the unitive and procreative meanings of authentic married love; and the treasure of holy celibacy as lived by single persons, religious, and priests.