Fine to return to the nursery but not remain in it!
“Unless you become as little children you will not enter the Kingdom,” is an invitation to openness, and openness leads to growing up, putting aside ‘childish things’ as St. Paul counseled.
The current RCC prefers adults to remain as children.
In this “Year of Faith” adults need to grow up!

A mature assessment of Faith is needed at this critical time when it is manipulated.
Cf - http://wp.me/PZYEZ3-25
For an adult assessment where our Faith is undermined.

Mr. Weigel gives us something to think about - again:  the wonder of the great gift of faith.  In this year dedicated to Faith (thank you Holy Father!) we have the opportunity to ponder ‘all these things in our hearts’...  Let us pray with the Blessed Virgin Mary for God’s mercy on all of us, especially our Church and our country.

  Lovely!  I just read John Saward’s “The Way of the Lamb: The Spirit of Childhood and the End of the Age”  and this echoes the same essential theme. The dragon wants to devour the child - always and in every age - as Christians we are called upon (no matter how messy our lives and how weak our wills) to place ourselves between the child and the dragon. I’ve seen appalling human beings, who when it came down to the wire, stood shoulder to shoulder with St. Michael:  “YOU WILL NOT HARM THE CHILD!”  I’ve also seen priests quite at home in Herod’s luxurious palace where babies are butchered in the basements below.

GEORGE:

PLEASE READ AND CAPTURE THE NUB AND GIST OF THIS DIDACTIC AND INTELLECTUAL DEBUNKING OF HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE. IT COMES FROM THE HERITAGE AND WISDOM OF HOLY MOTHER, THE SACRAMENTAL CATHOLIC CHURCH. AFTER READING IT INTRODUCE IT TO THE PUBLIC IN YOUR MORE AMENABLE PROSE. THANKING YOU IN ADVANCE… 

          PRAISED BE JESUS CHRIST! NOW & FOREVER!
  BLESSED BE MARY! NOW & FOREVER!
  HONORED BE ST. JOSEPH! NOW & FOREVER!
 

HOMOSEXUALITY MARRIAGE DEBUNKED

11/16/2012

In our current age, culture has overrun the order of nature. This is the reverse of the so-called dark ages when the order of nature had its sway over the order of culture. Each order has its own priority. The priority of each vis-à-vis the other is not coequal or univocal; it is equivocal. The priority of nature is fundamental; that of culture is supplemental.

The fundamental is prior to the supplemental fundamentally; the supplemental is prior to the fundamental supplementally. A wild flower, such as a rose bush, grows spontaneously ((i.e., naturally) from a seed and from its rootedness in the soil. This growth is intrinsic precisely because the plant does not grow something distinct from its own growth. This growth is immanent; that is, it remains intrinsic to the plant itself. This agency of growth innate to the plant has been traditionally identified as the plant’s soul.

A plastic rose bush is an artificially cultivated plant. It is a plant supplementally not fundamentally. It becomes a plant by an agency which is extrinsic to its development. That is, it becomes a cultivated plant forcibly, not spontaneously (i.e., naturally). Its material pieces are forcibly brought together. It is more durable than the wild flower; yet it lacks the seductive aromatic bouquet, the delicate petals, the pastel color, and similar attributes of the wild flower plant. The agency extrinsic to the artificial plant is an artificer; the plant is the product of this artist. The production of the artificial plant is a transitive development; it is a product of both the artist’s artifiction (i.e., conception) and artifaction (i.e., execution).

The wild rose flower may grow in the wild without the benefit of any artificial cultivation. On the other hand, it is in its natural habitat no way as attractive as a dozen roses gathered together in a vase intended to enhance and to embellish the natural beauty of the plants as well as to prolong their life and aroma. This display of the roses is not natural; it is an artificial cultivation. The plants are collected and arranged together by an agent extrinsic to them. This floral arrangement is not an immanent activity; it is a transient action; it is a product of an agent that is distinct from the plants.

The wild rose plants have a natural beauty of their own. This is fundamental. They are enhanced with a cultivated artificial beauty (i.e., their floral arrangement in a vase) which adds to their natural beauty; this is supplemental.  Their inherent beauty develops naturally; their enhanced beauty develops artificially. Not from within but from without.

The natural horticultural development itself can be manipulated or managed artificially; the plant’s growth itself cannot be accelerated or retarded artificially. The nature of the wild rose plant is fundamentally alive; the technical artificial enhancement (i.e., arrangement) by the horticulturist adds no supplemental life of its own to the plant’s life.

These radical distinctions are not eliminated when a farmer cultivates wild roses in a flower garden. He is a horticulturist. Yet, the flowers he cultivates are not products of his cultivation. They still grow spontaneously and not forcibly. It is to be granted that they do grow more lavishly and bountifully due to their being supplementally nurtured and protected from harsh elements. Yet, his skilled agency is not intrinsic to their growth; it is extrinsic.

Yes! His skillful managerial and executive techniques contribute supplementally to the growth and beauty of the plants. But, again, this contribution is not immanent to the plants; it is a transient and transcendent product of the horticulturist himself. He is supplementally serving as a midwife in the birth of a child. The horticulturist is not himself or herself giving birth and growth to the plants.

With these clear-cut distinctions at hand, let us venture to the subject of homosexuality. The term itself is an oxymoron. Why so?  To speak of sex is to speak of a faculty that is innately endowed with the power to beget life. Certainly, this is the case for the brute and human animal. Yet, the sense of “homo” is understood to be the antithesis of heterosexuality. The faculty of sex that begets new embryonic life is heterosexual in both the brute and human individual. There is no exception to this. The expression “homosexuality” is an artificially abortive cultivated quasi-term. It aborts sexuality from both the sexual person and that same person’s faculty of heterosexual procreation.

It is innate to a human person to be either male or female but not both simultaneously. It is also innate to brute animals to be either male or female but not both simultaneously. Both brutes and humans seek to spontaneously (i.e., naturally) copulate sexually in begetting new embryonic life. Brute animals are devoid of intelligence; they act instinctively. They do not understand the formal object and purpose of sexual copulation; still, they both copulate spontaneously (in season) and instinctively beget embryonic life.

The human person is intelligent (and free) and understands that the objective of sexual copulation is to engender new embryonic life. Each male and female individual is endowed naturally with the spontaneous exercise of the sexual faculty. The sexual faculty is a sensory faculty similar to the eye, ear, nose, tongue, and hand. The eye sees, the ear hears, the nose smells, the tongue tastes, and the hand touches. More precisely it is the human person that senses and the brute animal that senses by dint of these sensory faculties. Accordingly, it is the human person that procreates by dint of the heterosexual sensorial faculty of procreation.

In the case of the brute animal, it is the paw that “touches.” Since the senses of the brute animal are not permeated with intelligence as is the case with the human person, brute animals sense brutishly and not intelligently. This difference is usually punctuated by explaining that brute animals act instinctively rather than intelligently. Nonetheless, both sense spontaneously (i.e., naturally) whether it be instinctively or freely.

All sensory faculties are organic; that is, they have an anatomical and biological organism suited to their specific sensibility. But, do not confuse the faculty with its organism. The faculty of sight is not bifold; it is unifold. Yet, it is endowed with two separate organisms. The organs of sight are the two eyes including the complex anatomical structure linking together these two orbs.

A person can see with only one eye. Such sight, however, is constrained. Two eyes complement each other and contribute to a rotund vision. Whether a person “sees” with only one or both organs of sight, it is precisely with the very same faculty of sight that the person “sees.” The faculty of sight may be confused with its twofold organs. Such a confusion is erroneous. The faculty in its normal status “sees” with one and the same vision. This vision is holistic when both organs contribute to sight’s peripheral vision. A person who experiences double vision esteems this to be a deviant vision; it is not normal.

“Seeing” is not a transient or transitive activity. The eye does not produce what it sees. Seeing is an intransitive activity. It remains immanently intrinsic to the person that sees. The physical body that is the object of sight exists independent of sight and sight’s seeing. Sensing and seeing with the faculty of sight is not a productive activity. The same can be stated of every sensory faculty peculiar to both the brute and human animal. Each sensory faculty has its own formal object of perception and its medium of connecting with its sensed object (i.e., physical bodies).

  The formal object of sight is the color of physical bodies. Physical bodies that are not colorful (viz., air) are invisible to the sense of sight. The medium for the physical eye’s sight is the light emitted naturally by the sun and by fire and the light emitted artificially by electricity. The same is the case for all of the senses. Each has its own natural and proper artificial medium. The medium for the ear is the earth’s atmosphere; the medium for taste is water. Water spontaneously-naturally dissolves solubles; a stone that is not soluble is tasteless.

How do we know that our sensory faculties are distinct from their anatomical organs? By a simple examination of the distinction that distinguishes one from the other. When one eye malfunctions because of an organic biological defect, a person is still endowed with the faculty of sight albeit the partial malfunctioning. Indeed, when both eye balls along with their extended anatomical complexion malfunction a person is considered to be totally blind.

Blindness may be understood negatively or privatively. That is, as an absence in that which is not naturally and spontaneously able to see; this is the case with a stone. This is a negative blindness. And, as an absence in that which is naturally and spontaneously able to see but is unable to do so due to an anatomical malfunction. This is a privative blindness. This nature still enjoys a faculty of seeing in spite of the physical anatomical malfunctioning. The blind person still has the faculty to see albeit it’s sight’s anatomical malfunctioning.

The multiple senses with which we are quite familiar are each one a unitary faculty with bifold complementary and compatible organs. Touch is more complete when both hands can fondle an object. Yet, there is only one unitary faculty of touch not two; similarly for all of the senses. The one exception to this is the heterosexual sense of procreation. There is only one unitary faculty even though the sexual organs inhabit two separate animal bodies.

Now to the faculty of heterosexuality found in both brute animals and humans. This sensorial faculty, similar to all the senses, is one faculty with two separate and compatible and complementary anatomical organs. The faculty itself cannot be reduced to its anatomical organicity no more than can the faculty of sight be reduced to its bifold anatomical organicity. The female sexual organ differs from the male and vice versa, the male from the female. Yet, there is one and only one heterosexual faculty.

The issue is not that the male has half the faculty and the female the other half. It is the case that the faculty exists simultaneously in two separate human bodies and remains in this separate state until and unless two separate human complementary and compatible bodies copulate (i.e., marry) together in a manner commensurate with the intelligence and freedom inherent in each human body. Brute animals, of course, do not copulate freely; they do so instinctively. When this occurs, one and the same heterosexual faculty in propitious conditions (i.e., two separate bodies) begets new embryonic life intransitively and spontaneously (i.e., naturally).

The object of this heterosexual faculty is not an artificial or technological product. This copulation pursuant to its free and spontaneous enactment within conditions propitious to its intercourse is undertaken and consummated by one and the same heterosexual faculty albeit the bifold male-female anatomical bodies. This sexual engagement is not a transient or transitive activity; it remains an intransitive and immanent activity.

Begetting embryonic new life bonds the husband and wife in one and the same heterosexual faculty of parents. The father initiates the birth; the mother consummates the birth. Each is anatomically suited to mutually cooperate in this one facultative birthing of new embryonic life. Parentage is not spoken of in regard to brute animals because their bonding does not extend to the entire life of the offspring.

Given this elementary view of human and brute heterosexuality, it is obvious that the instinctive behavior of brute animals precludes the element of freedom in its spontaneity. At the same time, it highlights the delicacy of the normal and natural exercise of the heterosexual faculty of procreation among humans. In view of the offsprings of this sexual intercourse the bond between the parents is indissoluble in view of the upbringing and the care due to the offsprings themselves. The inherent and ineluctable beneficiary of this sexual intercourse is not merely the offspring; it is, moreover, the wedded couple who find their heterosexual self-fulfillment and interpersonal prosperity in the mutual complementarity of their own heterosexuality.

From the preceding reflection, it should be obvious and indisputable why the term, homosexuality, is an oxymoron. At the same time it should be obvious why it is not humanly normal and normative in the exercise of the faculty of procreation. Homosexuals engaging their anatomical sexual functions cannot as homosexuals enter into a facultative copulation begetting new embryonic life as heterosexual parents.

Accordingly, such sexual conduct is devious, unnatural, and abnormal. This does not mean that we are empowered to condemn homosexuals even though their conduct is aberrant and abnormal. These are human persons with an innate dignity. At the same time, it does mean that homosexuals have no innate moral right to impose their asexual claim to marriage on heterosexuals under the monocle of “homophobe.”

Furthermore, marriage is a natural bonding of female and male persons who are innately compatible and complementary in their mutual heterosexual ability to bond together in the one parental faculty of begetting embryonically offspring from their own free will and uncoerced mutual consent. Sexuality is inherently the begetting of incipient new life in both the brute and human animal. Even when new life is not the result of every copulation, the act itself brought to its mutual completion is innately intended to beget incipient new life. Any failure in achieving this intention is incidental to the act itself and not essential to its fulfillment.

Impotency in the heterosexual faculty of procreation may be traced to one of the marital parents or, even, to both. Impotency is not attributable to the faculty itself. It is attributable to the faculty’s heterogeneous organ in one parent or, even, in both parents, if this turns out to be the case following biological examination. Traditionally, it was construed that impotency in one heterogeneous parent was sufficient to consider the marriage to be void.

This pronouncement may from the outset be deemed to be harsh and heartless. The reason for this consideration is rooted in the act of matrimony involving the heterogeneous act of begetting newborn life. The consent to this must be mutual on the human parental partners without any element of coercion if the marriage is to be regarded as efficacious. 

This copulative activity in human persons is not instinctive; it is voluntary. Not merely voluntary as a matter of exercising free choice; it is also voluntary as a matter of exercising a need for self-control. One marital partner should not make demands on the other; neither should one marital partner enter into this marital act as a “reward” for some favor rendered.

The term, faculty, is not reserved exclusively for the sense of procreation. All of the senses are discrete faculties. Each sense has it proper formal object and intention. In cognitively “seeing” the color of physical bodies, the eye additionally discerns the multiple physical properties peculiar to a physical body: its size, shape, location, im(mobility), number, etc.. These physical characteristics are discernible by all the sensory faculties.

This word (viz., faculty) emphasizes that all appetitive, cognitive sensory and intellectual powers are merely proximate but not remote agents of cognition and appetition. Strictly speaking, as previously pointed out in this article, the faculty is not to be confused with the biological and anatomical organs of this faculty. The faculty is considered to be the very soul of any sensory or intellectual power. It is not the eye that actually sees, it is the person endowed with sight that actually sees; so also for every other intellectual and sensory power. It is one and the same person that sees and beholds, hears and harkens, wills and chooses, thinks and ponders, embraces and begets new life, etc..

The medical practitioner may examine the organs of sight; the faculty of sight is not itself a biological or anatomical or chemical constituent. Furthermore, the very word, faculty, is reserved more for the very formal object and objective of a singular academic activity. This is the case when in the university different departments of learning are spoken of as faculties. This understanding of faculty derives from the reality of the human intellect and the will which are inorganic faculties. These two faculties do not reside in the human person’s physical body. They reside exclusively in the human soul which is both spiritual and inorganic.

In the preceding paragraphs, not one word was spoken in reference to the Bible. Neither was any mention made of the Judeo-Christian
Religions that are born of the Bible”s Old and New Testaments. Yet, the Bible succinctly captures the heterosexuality of Adam and Eve, our very first parents, in simple terms that are both sagacious and cogent. Adam and Eve were created as one and the same flesh albeit their sexual disparity. That is, the “same flesh” is equivalent to one and the same heterosexual faculty of procreation.

Prayerfully and cordially yours,

RICHARD E. DUMONT, OCDS, PH.D., PROFESSOR EMERITUS

“One might have expected cynicism and irony from the Magi, the “sages” from the East. They were, after all, intellectuals; cynicism and irony are trademarks of full-up membership in the academic guild. Perhaps the Magi were untenured.”  Isn’t this a bit of cheap shot, Mr. Weigel?  It’s not only a cheap shot, it is also cynical and ironic.  It’s cynical, b/c Mr. Weigel knows that intellectuals are no more prone to selfishness and error than anyone else.  It is ironic coming from Mr. Weigel, who is himself an intellectual.  Mr. Weigel is training Register readers to indulge their cynicism and irony.  Otherwise, a nice column.