Archbishop Wuerl responds to the petition posted on the White House Web site to label the church a “hate group”. Here are a couple of nice snippets from a good article.
… Although these precepts may be misunderstood by many today, the fundamental vocation of the Catholic Church is to provide the witness of love and truth to the world, including offering the voice of an informed conscience. Catholics are taught to respect the fundamental, inherent dignity of every person, each made in the image of God, and to work to establish a just society. The church teaches that it is our obligation to manifest love of neighbor, to provide charitable service to others, and to promote truth, genuine freedom and authentic humanism. We work for the poor, the oppressed and the suffering, because that is what our faith teaches we must do. There is thus a positive side to being dogmatic: The teachings and works of the church advance the common good throughout civil society. Just as our dogma is constant, so is the work it commands.
… The church is dogmatic, and that is good — even if it means that the church is a sign of contradiction in the world and the object of animus and disdain. It is a positive, attractive feature that what we profess is unchanging and unchangeable — the good news of a love and truth that we are called to share with the world. It is good for Catholics and non-Catholics. Were the church to compromise its creed, if we were to simply go along with today’s secularized culture, not only would the church cease to be the church but the common good would suffer greatly.
Archbishop Wuerl calls this petition “beyond the pale” and as I noted in a previous post that the petition the White house considered “beyond the pale” was the one against Beyonce which got pulled.
“In truth, there are only two kinds of people; those who accept dogma and know it, and those who accept dogma and don’t know it.” — G.K. Chesterton
