By Paul Dion, STL
Our BURNING QUESTION is one that I hope has the power to make you all think about a subject that I'll bet you didn't even know existed. Nevertheless, I'm throwing it at you because the answer you give will have to come from the deepest convictions that you have about life.
As you all know, the Church is our teacher in Faith and in Morals. The Church teaches us about Dogma, the Doctrine that reveals God's existence and how we are related to it. The Church also teaches us about Morals, the Doctrine that enlightens our conscience as the regulator of our behavior in relationship to God through our fellow humans.
This question is about the Church's focus on two things. First are issues of peace, justice and the protection of nature. The other focus covers issues of life and the family.
~ Read this breaking news and see why we think this issue is so relevant today.
Here is the Burning Question:
Do you think that the Church should put more emphasis on teaching the faithful about "life and family" or should it focus its teachings on issues of "peace and justice?"
Recent developments in the Catholic Church have made it clear that this is a decision that the Church has to make to help teach the people of the world in the formation of their conscience.
Pick one or the other. And of course, I expect that you are going to state your reasons for your choice.
Share your thoughts today. The choices are simple. "Life and Family" or "Peace and Justice?"
Life and Family are my first choices. First of all, there must be love in the family in order to share that love with others to promote ‘peace and the justice’ that is due every one of God’s children. With the love of God and a real relationship with Him, our love should spill over into our families, then outside our families, to our churches, neighbors, cities, countries, and the world. Sadly, it often doesn’t and we live in little shells protecting our own little corner of the world. If only… But loving God first is the only way to grow in the love of others, through Christ as our guide. We can’t say that we love God if we don’t love our neighbor. It all starts one person at a time. That’s what Jesus did, loved unconditionally and then they in turn, spread it around. I like that old 60’s phrase, ‘spread the love’, but not with the meaning some of them meant, I mean it spiritually, and practically speaking in practicing the Beatitudes. That’s my pennies worth.
ReplyDeleteHello Paul:
ReplyDeleteLife and family without peace and justice is an existence without love or human rights. The Church must emphasize, peace and justice first!
In the year 1587 Pope Sixtus V. approved The Litany of the Blessed Virgin. Within the pages of the book "Our Lady in Catholic Life," by Lawrence G. Lovasik the importance of peace and justice to The Catholic Church is revealed, including its notable mention within the lyrics of The Litany of the Blessed Virgin. Mr. Lovasik, sometimes referred to as Father Lovasik, states...in biblical language justice is the perfect observance of God's commandments...Ivory is suggestive of peace,wealth and joyous feasting. Lovasik calls Mary a "Tower of Ivory" reaching to the heavens as a sign of peace. In Her (he records) is the wealth of grace that comes from (the) union with God.
In conclusion, without peace and justice, our life and family suffers an emptiness of the life Our Lord planned for us. We will be on our way to filling this emptiness through devotional communication with God, perhaps by the recitation of The Holy Rosary or The Litany of the Blessed Virgin:
I Believe in God, the Father Almighty...show unto us the blessed Fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary...That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ...Lord, have mercy on us...Holy Mary, pray for us...Mirror of justice, pray for us...Tower of ivory,pray for us...Queen of peace, pray for us...Pray for us O holy Mother of God. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ...Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Thank you.
Tolstoy wrote that, "All happy families are happy in the same way; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." The family is the micro-cosm in which we discover and employ the concepts and practice of peace and justice. Only to the exrent that we come to understand and enact these notions in the family circle can we apply them in the wider social setting.
ReplyDeleteThe effect on our affect of how we are reared up can only be changed with great effort and for compelling reasons, any change for the better also requires the request for and the gift of God's grace for its accomplishment. (Pschiatrists and pschologists have also, in their way, been known to be
helpful.)
In our family life our goal is to find that harmonious path on which all happy families travel, and travelling thereon to seek to apply the same principles to our behavior toward our brothers and sisters outside our immediate family circle. In this way we serve the ideals of justice and peace at home and abroad.
I think that it is fairly obvious that justice must precede peace as in; "To harvest peace, sow justice." Dennis
BURNING QUESTION RECAP BY PAUL DION, STL
ReplyDeleteI know my position and to see how far out or how close in I am to the population at large, I have asked several people this Question. 3 said Peace and justice. 5 said Life and Family. Two said that separating these two things is not correct. They are all of the same cloth, maybe with a little different color.
The Church and the faithful and the world at large should put as much soul into both categories, which in fact are all one under the command of God to His human creatures to be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over the earth. One of the the last two is a Protestant. All the rest are good and faithful servants of the Catholic persuasion.
I looked it up on the site of Vatican City and here is what I found.
Pope Benedict XVI said, “it is only if human life is respected from conception to death that the ethics of peace is also possible and credible.” In this, pope Joseph Ratzinger places himself squarely on the path of his predecessor.
We should recall what John Paul II said at an audience with the Movement for Life on May 22, 2003: “Fundamental consistency demands that those who seek peace should defend life. No action in favor of peace can be effective if it does not oppose with like vigor the attacks against life in every one of its phases, from its beginning until its natural end.”
Now, read your answers and you will see that there is really no division ion this question at all. It all starts from life and family and flows into peace, justice and the protection of nature. The choice that I asked you to make drove you to think about outr human morality in categories that are not real as separate opposed realities, but one and the same reality suffusing itself through the entire expression of human behavior.
Look at your answers and you will see that you did not need the pope nor anyone else to tell you that. You already know it.
This is an interesting debate; rather like "the chicken or the egg" question.
ReplyDeleteTo me it seems that life and family are inseparable from peace and justice. But, without the sanctity of life (birth to natural death) there can be no justice, hence, no peace.
PJPII: "If you want peace, work for justice". But also - all life is basic, but human life is granted the soul from God; life is the greatest gift from God and thus needs to be protected as the foundation to peace and justice.
Another two cents.
This is an interesting debate; rather like "the chicken or the egg" question.
ReplyDeleteTo me it seems that life and family are inseparable from peace and justice. But, without the sanctity of life (birth to natural death) there can be no justice, hence, no peace.
PJPII: "If you want peace, work for justice". But also - all life is basic, but human life is granted the soul from God; life is the greatest gift from God and thus needs to be protected as the foundation to peace and justice.
Another two cents.
Peggy:
ReplyDeleteIs it interesting because it is one of those distinctions that we make in our minds in contravention to what reality presents us.
About two weeks ago Pope Benedict XVI confronted the German bishops with his clarification of the question. These bishops were saying that the Church had to begin being as hard lined about Peace, Justice and the Protection of nature as it is on Life and Family issues in its public communications. The Pope told these bishops what you said and what appears here in this very enlightening blog.
Thank you for being there for us.