Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Failure to Give the Best You Have to Give

Some parents have the idea that they should wait to inform their children of the faith so that they can make their own decision of what to believe. This is a huge mistake on many levels.

Level 1:

Your child will have a weaker connection with Christ if you do not introduce them to Christ from the start. If you love someone it would be selfish to not introduce them to the source of all love. It would be worse then not introducing them to their grandparents and extended family. And who would rationally make the argument that you want you children to decide for themselves if they want to love their grandparents when they are better able to understand what love is?

Level 2:

Your child will not be exposed to the best that western culture has produce with it’s over 2,000 year wisdom Tradition. This is the truth that Christ gave to the Church that it has handed down through the centuries to us. This is the Tradition that produced saints like St. Teresa, St. Francis, St. Clair, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Thomas Moore...and on and on and on. It is failing to give the best of what Christ’s bride has to offer.

Level 3:

It is impossible to raise a child to be neutral. By not teaching the faith you are producing a vacuum that will be filled by some other source. A source that is likely to be shallow and superficial.

Level 4:

By teaching your children the truth of the Catholic Faith you are not taking away their free will. There will be a time where they will have to make the decision to ether pick up the cross and follow Christ or reject it. In the end it still is their choice.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

The Argument from Pedophilia

I try to stay non-political as possible on this blog. But I am making an exception to address two common arguments made against the Catholic truth. To see the two arguments watch the following exchange between Sean Hannity and Father Euteneuer.



The main argument made by Hannity was, “Judge not lest ye be judged” If we were to follow this statement in the way that Hannity is using it then we would never be able to correct anyone. You wouldn’t be able to tell anyone there wrong. Jesus is not saying not to correct people, he is saying not to judge peoples souls. Father Euteneuer did not say that Hannity was going to hell. What he was doing was one of the Spiritual works of mercy, admonish the sinner.

The other argument Sean Hannity made was playing the priest sex abuse scandal card. Here is Father Euteneuer’s response...

Most surprising of all, however, was Hannity’s use of what I call the “argument from pedophilia” namely, the tendency to fall back on the Church sex abuse scandal when you’re losing an argument with a priest and have to grab for something. I have had people do this to me in front of abortion clinics, at Da Vinci Code protests and in private conversations about Catholicism for the past several years. Let’s just say I didn’t expect it from Hannity! Link

Using the priest abuse scandle as an argument against the Church is like saying Jesus' teaching is not true because of Judas. The priest abuse scandal does not stem from the teachings of the Catholic Church. It stems from sinners that are in and always will be in the Church.

"Sorrowful" by Point 5 Covenant



Check it out...(Not appropriate for Children)

Courage

There seems to be a lot of studies out there on happiness, but not on courage. Here is an explanation why.


Courage is a very common virtue, its presence observed by all, even by children, and its absence sometimes severely blamed, more often excused with disdain. Your reputation will suffer a good deal if you are seen to be a coward. Nor can you take refuge in the relativism of values that, in other matters, is such a feature in the thinking of our times. You will probably not be able to defend yourself from an accusation by claiming that one person's courage is another's cowardice. We do not believe there is great difficulty in defining it. Though some societies are peaceable, others warlike, all seem to prize courage and despise cowardice.

Yet courage is very little studied. However much we praise it, however easily we define it, we today are not sure that we altogether approve of it. Our individualism prizes the self, but courage deliberately endangers the self for the sake of--what? It seems that the answer would have to be that we value something more than our selves, more than our principle of individualism, and this would be uncomfortable to confront. So we let the anomaly of courage, a virtue much noticed in life and little valued in theory, pass without comment. LINK