I think I'm starting to understand

The hip fashion statement for Mass

Are you worried yet?

I kinda am.

Every time I start to 'understand', things shift a bunch.  Anyways....

Most of today was consumed with thinking about Bilgrimage's post regarding anti-gay measures in different US States which quickly got into a discussion about the whole 'hate the sin, love the sinner' canard.

I say canard because it is predicated upon the idea that one can judge a person, find them wanting and then say that you love them, but hate parts of who they are and what they do.  That's specifically not a Christian attitude.  Christ taught that a person is not to judge others.  Christ taught that you are to love your neighbor....period.

Whether it is Genesis or James (or a dozen places in between) we are reminded that mankind is made in the image and likeness of the Divine.  That includes women...and gays...and people who have sex (even for non-procreational purposes!).  To instruct, teach or otherwise inculcate that these folks are any less human or more imperfect (dare I say, intrinsically disordered) than a priest (single, straight, celibate male) is against the teachings of Scripture, a bald-faced statement I will make without resorting to the dozens of times Christ points out the iniquities of the priests.

The conversation continued about the priestly abuse scandal and how the victims are the ones treated as pariahs and where the ones doing the abuse (and those covering up said abuse) are either lauded or, at worst, have excuses  and 'reasons' made for them.

So..after a lot of hand-wringing and rewriting, I finally post stuff, then come home and finally do my daily reading.

"Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire...." (Mk 9.42-43)

He goes on about feet and eyes, but you get the point.  So, applying that to the above-mentioned topics...well, it kinda seems obvious, doesn't it?  In the past, the synchronicity would have been cool, possibly creepifying.  Now?  Just another day in the Good Book.