NY Allows Gay Marriage.

I forgot it is legal in Massachusetts too.
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The issue will be on ballot for the 2012 elections in Minnesota as well.  Momentum to legalize gay marriage is growing, and so is frustration and anger on the other side of the issue.  As everyone knows, I'm against it - gay marriage that is - so need I say more or hurl invectives and condemn everyone to hell?  I don't think so.  The fact is, laws change.
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I wonder how individuals adjusted to the novelties brought on by the French Revolution, especially as laws began to change?  We know quite a bit about that, don't we?  But what was the actual experience like?  For instance, closer to our own time - what was it like in Nazi Germany when the laws began to change?  When old people and mentally disabled people were euthanized?  Culture changed radically for the German people - just as it did for the Russian people after 1917.  There was Christian resistance of course, but the laws changed nonetheless.  I'm not saying legalizing gay marriage makes us like the Nazis or the Communists or the Jacobins, I'm just wondering out loud what it was like to live in a society where traditional morality was no longer the standard, when Christian teaching was found objectionable and obscene.
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We may find out soon enough.
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Does that mean we should lose our peace over it?  I mean our interior peace - if indeed we have that.  That interior peace comes as a result of living in union with God's will.  Trusting God, though thousands around you fall.  Seeking God above all else - seek first the kingdom of God, and all of that.  Working and doing what we must, but with detachment and without anxiety, contempt, or hatred.  Letting the dead bury their dead.  At least that is the disposition of soul I'm finding necessary to remain faithful. 
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One friend left a comment on Fr. Corapi saying: "Let it go and let him go in peace to the new phase in his career."  That is very good advice.  In his precautions, John of the Cross tells the religious soul, "Never be scandalized or astonished at anything you happen to see or learn of, endeavoring to preserve your soul in forgetfulness of all of that.  For should you desire to pay heed to things, many will seem wrong, even though you live amongst angels, because of your not understanding the nature of them."
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You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
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Of course whenever I quote John of the Cross readers object because the counsel may not apply to them in their state in life.  Nevertheless I believe there is something in John's precautions that is helpful for a soul's balance in ordering one's priorities.  For instance, in the case of the Corapi scandal - Christ's answer to Peter's curiosity regarding the apostle John and his future come to mind, "how does that concern you?  Your business is to follow me."  Like the guy or not, Corapi is responsible for his own choices and in the end has to give his own personal account to God for his conduct.  So, let the dead bury their dead.  That's pretty much my personal attitude about the gay marriage thing as well.  When they ask for my shirt, I'll give them my coat as well.
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As St. John says, "Take Lot's wife as an example, because she was troubled at the destruction of the Sodomites and turned her head to watch what was happening, God punished her by converting her into a pillar of salt.  You are thus to understand God's will: that even though you live among devils you should not turn the head of your thoughts to their affairs, but forget these things entirely and strive to keep your soul occupied purely and entirely in God, and not let the thought of this thing or that hinder you from doing so."
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How can you believe when you seek approval from men?
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Christians are not approved by the world - indeed, Christians often do not approve of one another - all the snark online verifies that much.  But how does that concern me when my job is to follow Christ?  St. Seraphim Sarovsky assures us, "Keep yourself in peace and thousands around you will be saved."  So there you have it - that is what I understand by the words, let the dead bury their dead.  It is in reality a going out of sorts - outside the city gates, bearing the insult Christ bore.  For here we have no lasting city; we are seeking one which is to come.  Through him let us continually offer God a sacrifice of praise, that is the fruit of lips which acknowledge his name.  Our life is hidden with Christ in God and I need to fix my eyes on him, who inspires and perfects my faith.
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Right now, that is what I need to do - let the dead bury their dead.

God alone.

Forgetting all else...
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When I first returned to the Church, many years ago now, I remember attending my first Mass at the most traditional church in town.  My friends and I looked like hippies, long hair, beards, dressed in torn jeans, t-shirts and trinkets and amulets.  I was so intent upon attending Mass I made my friends sit in the second or third row from the front.  I was completely oblivious as to who else was there or how people were dressed, whether I fit in or not.  I had recently become captivated with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament - my eyes were fixed, as it were, my heart burned. That day I went to communion, again oblivious to my surroundings and the people who were there.  I was instantly convinced and understood that Jesus was truly and really present in the Eucharist.
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The next day I immediately began to go to daily Mass, and spent as much time as possible with the Blessed Sacrament in prayer.  It seems to me all of my attention was upon Jesus.  I never paid much attention to the priest, except as needed for confession, nor the people who attended Mass.  I never involved myself in Church affairs, church gossip, criticism of priests or bishops or the way Mass was said, or anything like that.  Nothing else mattered to me - I could easily recollect myself in the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.  I was like that for a long, long time.
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And then I wrecked everything by trying to become a monk and getting involved in the controversies that infect the Church and religious life and the laity.
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I keep trying to figure out how to return to my early love...  to let the dead bury their dead. 

Here's a thought....

"Holier than thou."
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I was thinking how some of my acquaintances/friends get upset with me when I say or write things in defense of traditional marriage - that is, union between a man and a woman, not the Extraordinary Form of celebrating matrimony.  They take it as if I'm insulting them personally.  Aside from my own personal conviction regarding the matter - which happily accords with the teaching of the Church - I also find it necessary - when the issue becomes so public - to voice or express my convictions whenever I am asked, challenged, or confronted with the issue.  As the document Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Same Sex Unions makes clear (and will you people please read it!):
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10. If it is true that all Catholics are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are obliged to do so in a particular way, in keeping with their responsibility as politicians. Faced with legislative proposals in favour of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are to take account of the following ethical indications. - CDF
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Thus, I am only doing my duty, it is part of my faith, my witness to express these convictions, which are no mere personal opinion on the subject.  Naturally those in favor of gay marriage will and do oppose my position and reject it - and some times they reject me personally.  Thus one understands my skepticism as regards authentic friendship and worldly loyalties and honors.
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I'm accustomed to such attitudes however, as well as the limitations such 'conditional' friendships impose.  I grew up in a family where it seemed I was the only one who was 'religious' or tried to keep the commandments.  Without going into detail repeating all the scandals in my family, let me tell you that it was very difficult trying to remain faithful to the Catholic faith and practice - despite the fact my mother saw to it that we attended Catholic school.
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If I questioned or asked my parents to come to Mass, to stop using God's name in vain, or ask why they drank so much and fought so much, or when I said I couldn't lie for them, I was accused of being a little hypocrite or a 'holier than thou little bastard'.  My siblings treated me the same way - on Sundays they would go to the soda fountain at the drugstore after dropping me off at Mass with orders to get 3 bulletins to show our parents on our return home.  I had to hide my devotions because I was made fun of for my piety.  Believe me I wasn't a saint - but I tried to live as faithfully as possible.  (I was so bad in 5th and 6th grade I think I went to confession every Saturday, so my parents were not wrong in calling me a hypocrite.)
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Over the years I've grown accustomed to false friends and fair weather friends.  I see through a lot of religious facades many church people erect - liberal or conservative. So-called rejection and persecution for one's religious convictions is something I'm accustomed to - and I'm accustomed to bigotry just as much if not more than some same sex couple campaigning for equal rights/rites, while condemning Catholic teaching.
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The point I really want to make is this:  If it was so bad growing up as I did in a traditional family setting - opposite sex parents, legally married, etc. - I assure you a household with two same sex parents is totally insane.  My parents should never have had children.  I can't even imagine how freaking insane it would be to be raised in a homosexual environment.  It makes for a fun sitcom (Modern Family) - but it is far from reality.
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Today's Gospel offers some consolation however: "If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first."  Nice to know - much better to experience.
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Photo:  Cast of 'Modern Family'.  Very funny show BTW.

USCCB Pro-Homosexual?

Is that why stats 'appear' to be showing that American Catholics are open to same-sex marriage?
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I had the creepiest dream just as I was returning to the Church/Sacraments in my early 20's.  It took place in a large Gothic church during High Mass, many priests and bishops were celebrating, their backs to the congregation.  At communion time, emerging from a cloud of incense, the presiding bishop dressed in layers of ornate Gothic vestments and lace, turned and approached the communion rail, accompanied by numerous deacons and servers carrying candles.  As the entourage moved forward to give me the sacrament, I noticed the bishop and his assistants were wearing heavy make-up, and the fingernails on their bejeweled hands were long and polished.  Smiling salaciously, looking into my eyes, the bishop opened his cope to reveal a fetus, obviously to be consumed as communion.  I pulled back in horror.  That was a bad dream, but I think of that dream every time I read stories such as the following.
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The USCCB and New Ways Ministry.
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In his classic work New Lies For Old — The Communist Strategy of Deception and Disinformation, ex-KGB Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn defines "strategic disinformation" as "a systematic effort to disseminate false information and to distort or withhold information so as to misrepresent the real situation, in, and policies of, the communist world and thereby to confuse, deceive, and influence the noncommunist world, to jeopardize its policies, and to induce Western adversaries to contribute unwittingly to the achievement of communist objectives." [1]
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Over the last 40 years, a similar program of strategic disinformation and deception has been waged against faithful Catholics in America by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops/U.S. Catholic Conference (NCCB/USCC), known today as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

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From day one, with malice and forethought, the NCCB/USCC, a creature of the Second Vatican Council (although its roots go back to the pre-Conciliar era), has been systematically attacking and undermining Catholic dogma, faith, and morals, thereby creating a climate of confusion, deception, and apostasy among rank and file Catholics.

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And there is no area in which the USCCB's disinformation program has been more successful than in the realm of Catholic sexual morality as it applies to homosexuality and pederasty — the main driving forces behind the clerical sex abuse scandal in AmChurch today. [2] - Finish reading here.
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My comments:
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This particular report depicts Cardinals and Bishops apparently in collusion with New Ways over the years, since its founding.  It also demonstrates the sleight-of-hand in switching of religious orders the two founders of New Ways, Jeanne Grammick and Robert Nugent, performed to remain active in gay ministries.  Is it credible?  I don't know, although as for the religious order shell game, it is not unknown that religious congregations and abbeys have frequently been a place of refuge for the homosexually inclined. 
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While the Bishops have spoken out against New Ways, evidently they aren't saying enough, as the author notes regarding Cardinal George's statement earlier this February:  "Cardinal George's February news release issued by the USCCB Media Department was prompted by New Ways' attack on the Catholic Church for its opposition, limited as it was, to homosexual and lesbian "marriages."  It was a masterpiece of deception and disinformation." (ibid)  Engel comes close to calling the Cardinal a liar. 
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That said, the article was written by Randy Engel. I honestly do not know who she is, but I noticed that she is the author of a book called The Rite of Sodomy.  Evidently in her book - as in this article, she makes some very provocative claims against some American Bishops.