Making the Bizarre Banal

How troglodyte of us, thinking secular and religious institutions have a roll to play in defending the culture.

Cruising a couple of publications on the coffee table today, obscure same-sex marriage references took our eye.  One in a local secular newspaper, the Dispatch and Argus (D-A) , and the other in the supposedly sectarian affiliated publication Scene (Fall 2014)  – “the magazine of St. Ambrose University” (SAU).

Here you see a redacted clip from the D-A’s obituary pages (which we scan periodically to see if our name is in them).  It is from that of a fine gentleman who has passed, with family and friends listed in mourning.  Our condolences are extended to all.  But forgive us  for taking note of one relationship listed. Apart from underlying cultural and religious problems, just from the aspect of grammar and gender agreement traditions we find it difficult to roll the words off our tongue. We also do not understand why one is the wife and not the other?  No doubt there is some socio-psychological thing working. It is all so confusing.

Then we came upon page 33 of the SAU magazine. The page contains listings of marriages, births and deaths. For perspective to our commentary consider that the bulk of the issue is devoted to proclaiming the “Catholicity” at the school (front page image shown at left below). The magazine, no doubt officially, provides a definition of the term that strikes us as contrived nonsense.  The term as employed would be accurately and more understandably defined as liberal orthodoxy.  That is the “religion” which has largely subsumed the university and its departments, for decades, isolated exceptions not withstanding.

But having expressed that overall opinion of SAU as an alumnus, the main purpose here is to display and comment on an institution claiming  a Catholic religious tradition and the  incomprehensible cooperation and normalization its apparat feels compelled to give to same sex marriage announcements.

Note the first two marriage listings (double click to expand).  The first listing is for “Terrence” and “Bradley” and next is the listing for “John” and “Tom.” Back in my day getting such a listing in would have been a prank.  We very much doubt that is the case at hand.

Same sex marriages may well be legal but by what stretch of  “St Ambrose’s distinguished heritage of Catholic, values-based education,” and “independent, diocesan and Catholic” (quoting the SAU Scene inside cover) is it necessary to list such cultural assaults on the same basis as heterosexual marriages?

Lest our characterization “cultural assault” be considered harsh, consider these quotes from 2010 regarding the proposed legalization of same sex marriage in Argentina by one Cardinal Bergoglio (now going by the name Pope Francis). Via Breitbart.com:

In June 2010, Bergoglio wrote that the proposed law that would recognize same-sex marriage would “gravely wound the family.” He went on to say that “what is at stake here is the identity and the survival of the family: father, mother and children. What is at stake is the life of so many children who will be discriminated against from the get-go, by depriving them of the human development that God intended through a mother and a father.”

But Bergoglio was just warming up.

He said that behind this project was “the envy of the devil, by which sin entered into the world, as he cunningly seeks to destroy the image of God: man and woman.”

“Let’s not be naïve,” the Archbishop wrote, “this is not just a political struggle; it is an attempt to destroy God’s plan. It is not merely a bill—this is only the instrument—but a move by the father of lies who seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.”

We need the help of the Holy Spirit, Bergoglio said, “to defend us from the enchantment of so many sophisms used to justify this bill, which confuse and mislead even people of good will.”

If  “legality” and “fairness” to alumni of all persuasions on deeply felt personal matters is thought to require such listings then we see no logical reason not to list abortions by alumni – some no doubt consider it a sacrament to save the earth from humanity.  Why should someone’s legal decision to give birth be given preference to some other alumnus’s  decision to announce a different sort of pregnancy termination?        R Mall

0

0