Birth to Death

A reader
gave me a heads up with some details on a Fr.Tegeder in Minnesota who wrote an article in their local paper against a postcard campaign by the state’s bishop to place a marriage amendment on the ballot for November.

More recently, a group of ultra-conservative church leaders, joined by the Catholic bishops of Minnesota, is promoting an amendment to the state Constitution dictating that marriage is limited to one man and one woman.

After 150 years, is this addition needed in our core document? No, we already have state and federal laws so defining marriage. It seems to be using the Constitution to send a message telling gays and lesbians that they, their relationships and their families are suspect and second class.

In addition, the amendment would take away the possibility of rights enjoyed by other Minnesota families through civil union recognition. These include fundamental human rights that our church professes to uphold.

The usual hyperbole of equating a denial of same-sex marriage as an attack against people with same sex attraction. The last line is especially disingenuous in that in no way does the amendment deny any fundamental human rights that the Church upholds.

… Without the amendment, our church can continue to make distinctions between sacramental marriage, legal marriage and civil unions.

Wouldn’t the Church only classify marriage as sacramental or non-sacramental? Civil unions when between one man and one women can fall into those two categories. Civil unions have become a shortcut word for same-sex marriage and thus are no marriage at all.

My advice to our Catholic leaders is taken from one known to challenge the religious establishment of his day, "Do unto others as you would have done unto you."

My hope for my Catholic brothers and sisters is that we prayerfully consider, "What would Jesus do?" Let those without sin send the first postcard.

Well if I am sinning or living a lie I do hope somebody does chastise me so that I might have the opportunity to repent. Correction is a very charitable form of "Do unto others as you would have done unto you." "Let those without sin send the first postcard." well let’s up the ante Father – Let those without sin write the first editorial. Nice little line to end an editorial with. Though the Gospel story of the women caught in adultery also had a nice line at the end – "Go and sin no more." Once again this editorial does the same thing I noted below on a Commonweal article of not telling that they really believe. It is obvious from the parish site from his own writing and a Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual, Trans-gender Families and Friends group that he is not just against the marriage amendment for prudent reasons but is actually against the Churches teaching.

Now as to the heads up a reader gave me he referred me to the website for Fr.Tegeder’s parish. Once again when you look at dissenters you don’t find one doctrinal issue on which they disagree but a cornucopia of issues and the normal narrowing of social justice.

– The Life and Dignity of ALL Human Persons
– the Call to Family, Community and Active Participation by ALL
– the Rights and Responsibilities of ALL people
– the Option for the Poor and Vulnerable
– the Dignity of Work and Rights of Workers
– SOLIDAIRTY with the human family in all walks of life and all over the world
– Care for God’s Creation

Yes we get it all means ALL! Maybe somebody can send them a donation to get the caps key problem fixed on their computer. Now of course all doesn’t really mean ALL. Under Respect Life Activities for October:

To come up with creative ways to raise awareness about our Catholic call to respect the dignity and quality of ALL life, from birth to death.

Yep we have ALL once again but this time it only includes from birth to death. This parish I guess is pro-born-life. They also talk about unwed mothers-to-be. Now it is a good thing that they recommend that they go to area pro-life Crisis Pregnancy Centers. Of course if you are pregnant you are already a mother – not a mother-to-be. Though I guess that is consistent with the whole birth to death definition of life.

The pastor also uses the politically correct BCE (Before Common Era). There is a Catholic school in my city that has 2000 CE prominently displayed on it. Now it is silly enough for secularist that try to develop a new dating system that tries to ignore Christ while at the same time adopting his birth as the dividing point.

Fr. Tegeder also wrote this highly dubious account of then Cardinal Ratzinger.

Along these lines it was interesting to learn that when the bishops of New York state made their "ad limina" visit with the new pope, Benedict, in June 2004, the then Cardinal Ratzinger asked them, "What do your people think about the restoration of the tradition of a married priesthood?" It was reported that after a stunned silence, he asked again, "I really would like to know what your people think on that issue." Bishop Clark of Rochester responded, "We just had a synod in our diocese where over 90 percent of the laity voted in favor of a married priesthood." The other bishops concurred. This reflects national polling.

This also reflects a statement attributed to the Pope a few years ago when he was still a cardinal, "If the Church cannot guarantee the Eucharist in every parish, she must change the conditions for access to the priesthood."

I think the Pope would be very surprised to learn what has been attributed to him. Of course it will be no surprise that Fr. Tegeder was less than thrilled with the election of Pope Benedict of whom he tries to infer that the Holy Spirit was not involved with his election. He uses the supposed quote of Cardinal Ratzinger "It is wrong to say that the Holy Spirit elects the pope because there have been popes the Holy Spirit would never elect." to make the case. The source of the quote is Fr. Greeley so whether he actually ever said this or not is up for grabs, but the idea is certainly true. But it is never a good idea to try to criticize the election of someone who the Holy Spirit might very well have had a hand in.