President Obama,the consummate politician had a fundraiser in California on Thursday night. He must have been hailed as the hero who confirmed for the Hollywood elites who were there to donate mega bucks to his campaign what Hollywood has been trying to do since the 1960's--further the sexual revolution.
What do we watch on television and so many parents allow their children to see without comment, supervision or critique? What message did "Will and Grace" send to America? What message did "Friends" send to America? Casual sex without consequences is the message with whomever and wherever. These shows were explicit in their themes while others more innocuous. "Ellen" furthered the cause and now America has been cooked in the crock pot of cesspool delights and theology and doctrine by Oprah.
The Hollywood elites who have brought into your homes adult entertainment on demand and the most vile of it honored President Obama and he gladly took their cash. Comcast which owns NBC provides to you whatever you want and at mega bucks to quench your voyeuristic yearnings in the most perverse ways. They laugh all the way to the bank.
Academics who think all this Hollywood stuff is cool and cutting edge for the future culture of America, corrupt our college age kids with mind expanding free thinking ways and these kids become ambivalent about personal morality and judging anyone's moral behavior. Of course they don't have much time for that given all the electronic devises that keep them self-occupied, a new form of fiddling while Rome burns. Their ambivalence toward all of this and all things sacred is rather telling.
But not all academics support the redefining of religion, sexuality and America. Not all academics see the Catholic Church as the Great Whore of Babylon the one organization standing in the way of Hollywood's transformation of America and politician's transformation of the world in ways that are post-Christian and post-religion.
Dr. Peter Kreeft who teaches at the ultra-liberal Jesuit Catholic university, Boston College writes that the Catholic Church is the best friend to homosexuals. You can read is thoughts by pressing the following sentence.
Dr. Peter Kreeft: As a philosopher the thing that strikes me most is the brilliant strategy of the gay marriage movement. Like Orwell in 1984 it sees that the main battlefield is language. If they can redefine a key term like "marriage" they win.
Control language and you control thought; control thought and you control action; control action and you control the world.
In the actual interview he says the following about young people who disagree with the Church (read the longer interview by pressing the sentence below):
Many B.C. students consider themselves to be Catholics, but state that they have trouble reconciling the Church's teachings with their own "personal beliefs." What would you say to such a student?
Many of the Church's teachings don't require faith, only reason and honesty. For instance, the value of reason and honesty itself. I'd start by appealing to that. Use your reason. Think. And be fanatically honest with yourself. Don't play games with yourself. Lying to others is bad enough, but lying to yourself is like putting out your own eyes. So if your "personal beliefs" are just your feelings, ask yourself why Hitler wasn't as good as you are, because he lived according to his "personal beliefs" and feelings too. If, on the other hand, your "personal beliefs" are the result of your honest and rational search for truth, and you honestly believe you have good objective reasons for disbelieving some of the essential teachings of the Church, then you must follow your conscience and become a Protestant or a Muslim or a Buddhist or an agnostic or something else. If your personal beliefs contradict the Church's definition of the Catholic faith, then you are not a Catholic, any more than I am a Buddhist if I believe in egotism and war, or a Marxist if I believe in the stock market. That's not a personal insult, just a rational label. Honesty demands "truth in labeling."
And I wouldn't say that "The Cardinal Newman Society" is anti-academic, but is calling Catholic Academics to accountability which is a form of judgment which so many academics hate hurled at them all the while hurling judgments at the Church:
5 comments:
I taught for over 15 years in the States and in England, and I tried to teach, through rational discourse, that natural law and the Teachings and Traditions of the Church were the Truth. Some were convinced, some were angry, all at least were taught how to think. On my blog, I over and over again try to teach people how to think as Catholics. This is the problem and now, after too many years of ostrich behavior and the over-emphasis on the religion of experience, we see the results. I am a Notre Dame alum and I saw the rot over thirty years ago (how time flies). I saw the rot in the Catholic schools as early as 1985 and decided to home school. Parents and singles who pretend education is ok or out-of-their-control have given the fight to the enemies of Truth--and his name is legion. Of course, Obama appeals to the entertainment mafia. What is new? All show, no substance...and the connection? Marx, Lenin, Gramsci. If Catholics knew history and actually read the encyclicals since 1848, we would not be in this mess...God bless America, but we get what we deserve and apathy and sloppy thinking, and materialistic ideologies accepted by Catholics have led us to this impasse.
I partly blame the charismatic influence which took religion away from the brain, from reason and put it into the emotions.
By the way, on the European news this morning, the once Catholic Spain is going bankrupt fast...news-not really-as most of the populace is actually socialist. And, the ONE bank which is fluid and will not succumb is Santander....connect the dots, as that is a responsible institution, without a socialist agenda. And, God bless us, through the intercession of the saints, including Jose Maria Escriva, who lived through these types of times, and worse....
Supertradmum, Your observation about the charismatic influence is spot on. It is the heresy of Enthusiasm with Gnostic overtones. God bless your efforts.
Dr. Kreeft's observations about manipulating language are spot-on. Some years ago I read an essay by Glenn Beck in which he announced his plans to marry his sister. He renamed incest "familial love" amd methodically answered the arguments against such a union (including use of contraception to prevent children; I don't recall the others). He ended by saying this was a total fabrication (I'm not sure if he even has a sister) done to illustrate the power of manipulating language. He said he had read this essay on his radio show and had many listeners call in to say that they were at first disgusted, but the more they listened, they decided that whatever he and sis wanted to do was just fine. After all, we can't judge others, now can we? Very scary, and IMHO, a harbinger of things to come.
Dr. Kreeft's observations about manipulating language are spot-on. Some years ago I read an essay by Glenn Beck in which he announced his plans to marry his sister. He renamed incest "familial love" amd methodically answered the arguments against such a union (including use of contraception to prevent children; I don't recall the others). He ended by saying this was a total fabrication (I'm not sure if he even has a sister) done to illustrate the power of manipulating language. He said he had read this essay on his radio show and had many listeners call in to say that they were at first disgusted, but the more they listened, they decided that whatever he and sis wanted to do was just fine. After all, we can't judge others, now can we? Very scary, and IMHO, a harbinger of things to come.
I am glad to see that Father has not given up on academia entirely and to see that there is a shared concern about manipulating language. But doesn’t that particular practice extend far beyond feminists and gay rights activists? Orwell warned us about it in 1948, because the Nazis and the Communists were very good at it. And, of course, it was happening in 1984, and it is still happening today. Manipulative language (including supporting aural and visual imagery) comes at us from all directions and from all quarters – from the political left and from the political right, from government and from those who challenge government, from religious voices and from secular voices, from the marketplace (think of advertising) and from those who seek to regulate the marketplace, from MSNBC and from Fox News, from those in academia and from those who despise it, and on and on. Slogans substitute for thinking, and we remained imprisoned in our Cave mesmerized by the shadows on the wall. One of the primary objectives and tasks of a true education, then, as Socrates demonstrated over two millennia ago, must be to cultivate critical thinking so that we can break free of the linguistic chains that shackle us, resist those who would continue to imprison us, and seek the light of Truth using all of the gifts (including the gift of Faith) that God has given us. Instead of giving up on academia, then, let us work together as I suggested in a post a couple of days ago and restore it to its rightful place. And let us pray for the humility we need in order to succeed.
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