A shining example of how religion can foster a twisted view of morality.
[US Cardinal Raymond Burke] has spoken out again, telling an interviewer that gay couples and divorced and remarried Catholics who are trying to live good and faithful lives are still like “the person who murders someone and yet is kind to other people.”
No, they aren’t. Not at all. You can have reservations about unilateral divorce, especially if it’s done with cruelty or brutality, but it’s still not a close relative of murder.
“If you are living publicly in a state of mortal sin there isn’t any good act that you can perform that justifies that situation: the person remains in grave sin,” Burke said in an interview with LifeSiteNews, a U.S.-based web service focused on battling abortion and promoting other conservative causes.
Nonsense. Burke’s church considers the rape of children not a “mortal” sin. That’s all you need to know about Burke’s church.
“And to give the impression that somehow there’s something good about living in a state of grave sin is simply contrary to what the (Catholic) Church has always and everywhere taught,” said Burke, who spoke to LifeSiteNews in Rome.
Asked if being “kind” and “generous” and “dedicated” is enough, Burke replied: “Of course it’s not. It’s like the person who murders someone and yet is kind to other people.”
He’s a moral monster, but then that’s how the Catholic church is. There are good people in it, but they’re good in spite of the evil shite the Vatican talks, not because of it.
On the surface, Burke’s comments break little theological ground; the church has always taught that sin is sin, and some sins are especially serious. For example, cohabitation, homosexual relations and adultery (which is how the Catholic Church views the relations of a couple who are divorced and remarried without annulling the first marriage) are viewed as mortal sins, as is murder.
But not the rape of children. Not the rape of children by priests they’ve been told to respect and obey and consider close to god.
Burke, 66, has raised eyebrows, and made headlines, with previous comments. Earlier this year, he argued that the church has become too “feminized” and he blamed the introduction of altar girls more than 20 years ago for the decline in vocations to the church’s all-male priesthood.
The cardinal also blamed gay clergy for the church’s sexual abuse crisis, saying priests “who were feminized and confused about their own sexual identity” were the ones who molested children.
Yeah. It’s always the bitches’ fault.
“If you are living publicly in a state of mortal sin there isn’t any good act that you can perform …
Yeah, that doing it publicly (= getting caught) is the core no-no, right, Burke?
… adultery (which is how the Catholic Church views the relations of a couple who are divorced and remarried without annulling the first marriage)…
But if that first marriage was annulled, then whatever sex happened during that was a big bad sin, no? Maybe not a mortal one, though, but the kind that can be made good by copious groveling and large donations to The Church™…
saying priests “who were feminized and confused about their own sexual identity” were the ones who molested children.
Sounds more to me like priests who fetishized dominance and control over those weaker than themselves, just like their imaginary sky-daddy. I don’t know what “feminized” sexuality would actually be, but preying on youth seems to have less to do with gender than power differentials.
Not that I sympathize, but I could actually understand that argument. They are conditioned to obey an abusive other. I could imagine that role-reversal would be a powerful urge for someone who had spent a lot of their life banging their head on the floor and saying “I’m not worthy.” Shit trickles down.
““And to give the impression that somehow there’s something good about living in a state of grave sin is simply contrary to what the (Catholic) Church has always and everywhere taught,””
GYAH. You keep using the word “taught” when you mean “opined.” Stop that, it’s annoying.
One billion Catholics will agree with everything he says.
Dissenters will represent less than 1% of the tithe-paying mugs in the pews.
Personally I like the concept of “sin”. It’s a useful distinction, marking out things that are actually morally wrong (stealing, unprovoked violence and so on) from things your imaginary friend has told your boss are wrong (eating pork, having sex with whichever consenting adult you like and so on). Anyone talking about something as “sinful” usefully destroys their credibility before they start.
In other false-equivalence news, committing adultery is exactly like committing genocide while being vegetarian.
‘…committing genocide while being vegetarian.’
Ah, but he was a self-described CATHOLIC vegetarian.
I think child abuse would be considered as a form of rape, which is a mortal sin, see for instance http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=35963
Therefore anyone who is habitually and unrepentantly committing child abuse is in a state of mortal sin. I would expect that the church would allow a child abuser to remain a priest only if he had repented and promised to stop it. That’s the theory anyway.
Personally I like the concept of “sin”. It’s a useful distinction, marking out things that are actually morally wrong
Oh, yeah, a great big laundry-list rooted utterly on authority.
That’s worked great so far. I can see why you might like the concept.
According to Cardinal Raymond Burke homosexuality is, in and of itself, a mortal sin, but raping children, is not … Homosexuality is a mortal sin; raping children is not.
Cardinal Raymond Burke, fuck you very much.
@Marcus Ranum, 9: I think you think I meant the opposite of what I meant.
It looks to me that the takeaway from this is that if people are living in grave or mortal sin anyway, they might as well commit a whole bunch of other sins. It’s a shame these religious types don’t have a source of morality like we atheists do….