The New Golden Calf – Gay Marriage

In Ireland today we saw yesterday the fullness of the failure of the Bishops and priests in their duties to protect the faith and instruct the faithful. We heard crass dialogue about the new realities the Church should adjust her teaching to accomodate from the Bishop of Dublin who refused to tell Catholics it was wrong to vote for Gay Marriage. We saw gold poured into the Idol of Gay Marriage in ridiculous quantities by a single American Group. We have entered the age of the Golden Calf and abandoned God for idols like “Marriage Equality”. I don’t know about you – but trading God’s grace for progressive ideals is not something I am willing to do.

I’d ask you to read this passage form the bible and see if you think it applies:

Exodus 32
And the people seeing that Moses delayed to come down from the mount, gathering together against Aaron, said: Arise, make us gods, that may go before us: for as to this Moses, the man that brought us out of the land of Egypt, we know not what has befallen him.

2 And Aaron said to them: Take the golden earrings from the ears of your wives, and your sons and daughters, and bring them to me.

3 And the people did what he had commanded, bringing the earrings to Aaron.

4 And when he had received them, he fashioned them by founders’ work, and made of them a molten calf. And they said: These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt.

5 And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and made proclamation by a crier’s voice, saying: To morrow is the solemnity of the Lord.

6 And rising in the morning, they offered holocausts, and peace victims, and the people sat down to eat, and drink, and they rose up to play.

7 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Go, get thee down: thy people, which thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, hath sinned.

8 They have quickly strayed from the way which thou didst shew them: and they have made to themselves a molten calf, and have adored it, and sacrificing victims to it, have said: These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt.

9 And again the Lord said to Moses: See that this people is stiffnecked:

10 Let me alone, that my wrath may be kindled against them, and that I may destroy them, and I will make of thee a great nation.

11 But Moses besought the Lord his God, saying: Why, O Lord, is thy indignation kindled against thy people, whom thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, with great power, and with a mighty hand?

12 Let not the Egyptians say, I beseech thee: He craftily brought them out, that he might kill them in the mountains, and destroy them from the earth: let thy anger cease, and be appeased upon the wickedness of thy people.

13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou sworest by thy own self, saying: I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven: and this whole land that I have spoken of, I will give to you seed, and you shall possess it for ever.

14 And the Lord was appeased from doing the evil which he had spoken against his people.

15 And Moses returned from the mount, carrying the two tables of the testimony in his hand, written on both sides,

16 And made by the work of God: the writing also of God was graven in the tables.

17 And Josue hearing the noise of the people shouting, said to Moses: The noise of battle is heard in the camp.

18 But he answered: It is not the cry of men encouraging to fight, nor the shout of men compelling to flee: but I hear the voice of singers.

19 And when he came nigh to the camp, he saw the calf, and the dances: and being very angry, he threw the tables out of his hand, and broke them at the foot of the mount:

20 And laying hold of the calf which they had made, he burnt it, and beat it to powder, which he strowed into water, and gave thereof to the children of Israel to drink.

21 And he said to Aaron: What has this people done to thee, that thou shouldst bring upon them a most heinous sin?

22 And he answered him: Let not my lord be offended: for thou knowest this people, that they are prone to evil.

23 They said to me: Make us gods, that may go before us: for as to this Moses, who brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is befallen him.

24 And I said to them: Which of you hath any gold? and they took and brought it to me: and I cast it into the fire, and this calf came out.

25 And when Moses saw that the people were naked, (for Aaron had stripped them by occasion of the shame of the filth, and had set them naked among their enemies,)

26 Then standing in the gate of the camp, he said: If any man be on the Lord’s side let him join with me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him:

27 And he said to them: Thus saith the Lord God of Israel: Put every man his sword upon his thigh: go, and return from gate to gate through the midst of the camp, and let every man kill his brother, and friend, and neighbour.

28 And the sons of Levi did according to the words of Moses, and there were slain that day about three and twenty thousand men.

29 And Moses said: You have consecrated your hands this day to the Lord, every man in his son and in his brother, that a blessing may be given to you.

30 And when the next day was come, Moses spoke to the people: You have sinned a very great sin: I will go up to the Lord, if by any means I may be able to entreat him for your crime.

31 And returning to the Lord, he said: I beseech thee: this people hath sinned a heinous sin, and they have made to themselves gods of gold: either forgive them this trespass,

32 Or if thou do not, strike me out of the book that thou hast written.

33 And the Lord answered him: He that hath sinned against me, him will I strike out of my book:

34 But go thou, and lead this people whither I have told thee: my angel shall go before thee. And I in the day of revenge will visit this sin also of theirs.

35 The Lord therefore struck the people for the guilt on occasion of the calf which Aaron had made.

Exodus 33
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: God, get thee up from this place, thou and thy people which thou has brought out of the land of Egypt, into the land concerning which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying: To thy seed I will give it.
We are about to be chastised – stay strong, it’s going to be a bad one.

2 And I will send an angel before thee, that I may cast out the Chanaanite, and the Amorrhite, and the Hethite, and the Pherezite, and the Hevite, and the Jebusite.

3 That thou mayst enter into the land that floweth with milk and honey. For I will not go up with thee, because thou art a stiffnecked people: lest I destroy thee in the way.

4 And the people hearing these very bad tidings, mourned: and no man put on his ornaments according to custom.

5 And the Lord said to Moses: Say to the children of Israel: Thou are a stiffnecked people; once I shall come up in the midst of thee, and shall destroy thee. Now presently lay aside thy ornaments, that I may know what to do with thee.

 

 

Pax Christi

How we lost Marriage

Wait! I know what you’re going to say about how Marriage is alive and well. It’s not alive and well, it is fractured and broken. The Church has been cleaved in two by political activism and social progressives recently in an effort to finish Sacramentally what was started in the late 60’s civilly by recognizing the divorced and remarried without annulments which effectively lays the same waste to Sacramental Marriage, just as no fault divorce did to the civil side of marriage.

We lost Marriage when we allowed No Fault Divorce. Since so many don’t understand what no fault divorce meant here is a definition from Wikipedia:

No-fault divorce is a divorce in which the dissolution of a marriage does not require a showing of wrongdoing by either party.[1] Laws providing for no-fault divorce allow a family court to grant a divorce in response to a petition by either party of the marriage without requiring the petitioner to provide evidence that the defendant has committed a breach of the marital contract.

California started the downward spiral of marriage in 1969 by making the marital contracts, both social and legal, unenforceable. In fact the state now had effectively redefined the contract as only binding on the man who was responsible to fork over half the assets and pay child support in addition – adding insult to previous injury when an unfaithful spouse decided to leave him for her lover.

Lost to history was the fact that feminists opposed no fault divorce unsuccessfully, as they saw it leaving women vunerable. I will repost the arguments against it here – also from Wikipedia:

The National Organization for Women opposed the introduction of no-fault divorce in New York state because it would allow a party who actually is at fault to obtain a divorce in which “alimony, maintenance [and] property division” would be determined without the judge considering “the facts, behavior and circumstances that led to the break-up of the marriage”.[10] A paper published in The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, written by Douglas Allen, on the economics of same-sex marriage, argues that the introduction of no-fault divorce led to a six-fold increase in just two years, after a century of rather stable divorce rates. Also, the law increased the rate at which women entered the workforce, increased the number of hours worked in a week, increased the feminization of poverty, and increased the age at which people married.[11] Stephen Baskerville, a political scientist at Howard University, argues that no-fault divorce rewards wrongdoers, reduces the need of marital binding agreement contracts at the public’s expense, and helps women take custody of their children at the husbands’ expense in many cases where the man has done nothing wrong. He also adds that a ban on divorce will not work, because people will separate themselves and be in a permanent state of adultery, or they will create a hostile home environment for the children.[12]

If one is to be truthful – the divorce rate has soared, the number one factor in the poverty of women and children is single motherhood. Marriage not only lifts women and children out of poverty but also lifts the father up socially and economically as well.

I know some readers will be defensive about single mothers claiming this is a fallacy, but the facts get in the way and the facts constitute a damning indictment of single motherhood and out of wedlock births. I suggest you read this study from Ohio State University.

Once the marriage contract became unenforceable – it was left to rely only on the commitment of the spouses which was often based on a feeling of being in love, and not a binding lifetime commitment from which true love would grow over time. This led to more divorce, more single motherhood, more broken homes, and more hurt children.

It also led to most men in the current generation choosing not to marry – as freely available birth control has lowered the price of sex from a lifetime bonded commitment before God and enforced by the state to as little as 15 mins conversation and a cup of coffee. The financial risks of marriage to men, as well as the emotional devastation wrought by the ability of their spouses to tear their lives and finances apart, keep them from their children, and have the same state who refuses to enforce the marriage contract enforce child support laws with an cruel iron fist. It took longer than I expected for men to catch on.

This was exacerbated by the state taking over the husbands role as provider – allowing a woman to cast off her husband without cause and then be supported by public assistance so that all taxpayers in the country can then support them.

If we had at fault divorce – women who were wronged would be much better protected and could receive alimony preventing them from being wrongly cast off, men who were wronged would be much better protected and not lose their home and retirement, and Marriage would become the refuge it once was – based on a committed partnership raising the whole family up. What we have now is destroying our society.

I don’t know that there is a way back — and if gay marriage is allowed it will further trivialize marriage and result in continued poverty for women and children. and the side effect that men no longer revere women, but in general use them until they are tired of them and cast them off. I suspect it will do marriage in entirely – outside of strictly sacramental marriages. The consequences to women and children – as well as to men are too dire to ignore.

Ask yourself what possible benefit does no-fault divorce offer? When you realize it does not offer any benefit to men, women, or children, but instead harms them all. Then you work with your state legislators to repeal it state by state.

We will have to take back one thing at a time to retake our society. Since the family is the building block of society, let us start with taking back marriage and restore the building block by getting rid of the failed no-fault divorce experiment.

Prayerfully,

Colin