In my last post, HERE, I gave my opinions on the Holy Father’s remarks to the paper La Civilta Cattolica, concerning abortion, contraception, and gay marriage.
The Catholic Fisheaters Forum (HERE) is always an interesting place to visit 
. The main website is a good resource for Catholics (www.fisheaters.com). The forum can be kind of a free for all, between people all over the Catholic spectrum, though generally of the more traditionalist bent. Warning, there may be people there that irritate you, kind of like the human race in general It just goes to show that traditional Catholics’ personalities are just as much varied as others.
I wandered over there to see what kind of discussion was going on about the Holy Father’s interview, and discovered that there is a long, and growing thread on it. There is a lot of discussion, quite a bit of ranting, and some good points (did I mention the place is lively?).
Two of my favorite posters there, Vox (Tracy Tucciarone, the owner of Fisheaters), and Tim, both made some interesting points. They are pasted below, along with the relevant page of the thread.
On THIS page, Tim stated,
The 50 million babies murdered not only points to our necessity to fight this but to the nearly total lack of progress the “pro-life movement” has made. It “could” be said the movement is just a cover to allow it to go on. . As Chesterton has said it is the job of the liberals to make the mistakes and for the conservative to not allow them to be fixed. Perhaps a group less conservative and more Catholic could get it done. This isn’t in defense of Pope Francis’ remarks which are obviously twisted to mean he’s okay with this murder, but, send us money, call your congressmen and senators, and come to the march, has done nothing but spawn larger, and larger pro-life organizations.
tim
On THIS page, Vox stated,
You can’t proclaim the whole Gospel all the time. You can’t, for ex., talk about what Jesus said to Peter in a given instance and also, at the same time, talk about what He did in the Temple with the moneychangers. They’re two different stories, but part of a whole. In a sermon, for ex., you have 15 minutes to say what you have to say. You have to pick something — and you can’t pick everything. In an interview, the same situation applies. Obviously, if someone wants to listen to you for hours and hours and hours on end, you can cover everything, but in most situations, you have to pick what you’re going to focus on. What the Pope was saying, as I understand it, is that talking only about abortion and homosexual acts isn’t going to help much, that talking only about those things misses talking about other things that are also important and which are more likely to bring souls to the Church. The message of Love, which is the essence of the Gospel, is more powerful than a whole slew of “don’t do this, and don’t do thats.” I think he is right. While we obviously have to speak out against abortion and other sins, we also have to deal with sins other than abortion and homosexual acts (like the general lack of charity in the trad world that some people get defensive about when it’s brought up), and we also have to bring people TOWARD something — Christ Himself — and not just away from baby-killing and what have you. If people meet Christ, the rest follows, but it’s not so the other way around — that not having an abortion will save you and make you complete and will bring you to the Sacraments, etc.. There are plenty of women who’ve never had an abortion who don’t know Jesus, and it’s the same with chaste homosexuals.
Second, in re. your question “So you hear about sin, the devil and hell all the time from the pulpit do ya?”: I’m assuming, because of how he phrased things, that the Pope was talking about how we should deal with folks who are (at least formally) outside of the Church. How a priest should talk to fellow Catholics who, presumably, already know Christ and the Catechism would obviously be different. But even then, the power of Christ’s Love is a stronger message than “Don’t fap” or whatever. For those who know Christ, the moral answers follow from knowing Him, and besides which, Catholics need inspiration, too, something to work TOWARD (theosis) and not just work away FROM (sin).
As for Tim’s comment, I’ve mentioned on average-catholic.com before something my dad has said – “Conservatives conserve the progress that liberals have made”. And he is right about the pro-life movement. It is not making a whole lot of progress. We have to keep up the fight, but abortion is just as legal as ever.
To Vox’s comment, I think she is right. People’s hearts have to be converted to Jesus Christ. Truly converted. If that happens, other things will start to fall into place. Someone who truly loves Jesus is not going to kill their unborn children. People need a positive vision, the ultimate thing to work toward (the joy and peace of Jesus Christ) and not just things to fight (sin). Do the first, and you win the second. This point was made by a fellow Knight of Columbus as well
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