Was Same-Sex marriage a Christian Rite?

If you have been lurking around on the internet recently, you may have come across a link to an article titled When Same-Sex marriage was a Christian Rite. The article is based on the research of the late Prof. John Boswell of Yale University on Adelphopoiesis and the icon of two 4^th century martyrs, Sts. Sergius and Bacchus. Later documents talk of the love between Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, which has led many to believe that these Saints were married under an ancient liturgical rite of same-sex unions called Adelphopoiesis. The article is reasonably convincing and throws around enough big words and acronyms to make the reader think that this is sound scholarship and begin to suspect some sort of conspiracy on the part of Rome to cover it up and ruin people’s lives.  It of course isn’t a giant conspiracy, nor is it even particularly fine (or even unbiased and honest) scholarship.  The first thing to take into account is our use of the word “love.”  As modern day Americans our culture is absolutely saturated with sex and the idea that love and sex are somehow interchangeable words.  If two people go “make love” there is no doubt in our minds what is actually going on. The writings in question, however, are not modern. They are from hundreds of years ago and they are Church writings. Church writings frequently use the word “love” to mean something completely different from mere carnal union (sex). The idea that two Saints must be gay just because they were best friends seems to be a bit of a stretch. This is where an appropriate and accurate understanding of the word Adelphopoiesis is so important.  Prof. Boswell chose to translate the rite of Adelphopoiesis as the Rite of Same-Sex Union.  Adelphopoiesis is a compound of two other Greek words, Adelphos, meaning “brother” and Poiein meaning “to make.”  So rather than being a Rite of Same-Sex Union, it is really a Rite of Brother Making.  The Rite itself even states that the union is spiritual, not carnal. To insist otherwise is completely dishonest.  Interestingly enough this Rite is still used by some Christians in parts of the Middle East. It is something more like the idea of becoming blood brothers than anything sexual.  Even when Prof. Boswell wrote his book promoting his view of the translation of Adelphopoiesis back in the early 1990’s, it received very unfavorable reviews from his peers for its poor scholarship. All in all this article serves as a warning for us to be careful about what we read and believe on the internet. Just because someone with the letters PHD after their name said something, that doesn’t make it true.  The Church has never had some super-secret Rite of Same-Sex Unions, and it never will. We have always believed that God made marriage to be between one man and one woman. Above all, we are all called to chastity, no matter who we are attracted to.  Jesus commanded us to “love one another as I have loved you” and we all know he wasn’t talking about sex.

Jimmy Akin has a video interview here where he does an excellent job of breaking down the whole debate

The Hunger Games and me

I always seem to be one step behind the rest of the world in reading whatever is popular. I attribute this problem to several factors. 

1)What I think qualifies as a good book and what the rest of the world thinks qualifies as a good book differs, sometimes vastly.  Reading the Twilight saga only confirmed this theory.

2)My reading list is already quite long. I am perfectly comfortable reading something that was written over 1000 years ago and understanding that it is extremely relevant to my life today (and I am not referring to the Bible in this particular case) Human nature hasn’t really changed a whole lot and I doubt that it ever will.

3)I don’t really get a whole lot of time to sit down and read. It is unhealthy both for me and my family if I am reading a book that is so good that I just can’t put it down, because I won’t.

These are just three reasons that I have put off reading the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. However, since I picked up a bit of a cold at our lock in last weekend and needed a sick day to recover I decided to give it a go. I don’t really know what to say other than it was one of the most disturbing things I have ever read.  To be honest I never really liked the main character, which may influence why I doubt I will ever reread the series. Most of all I found the whole concept of the society where the book takes place to be horrible, gruesome, and far too close to our own.  The basic premise of the story line is that you have the Capitol and 13 outlying districts. The 13 districts provide everything for the Capitol and in return are kept in conditions little better than slaves. This led to a revolution roughly 75 years before the first book. The revolution was put down, one district (13) was bombed off the face of the earth, and the Hunger Games were instituted. The Hunger Games are basically a giant gladiator match in huge arena that are televised throughout the whole country. Winning the Games makes you wealthy and famous and is about the only way to escape poverty. The contestants, however, are all children between the ages of 12 and 18 and there are 2 from each district, a boy and a girl. They are most commonly chosen, though you can volunteer. They are taken by the government to go and kill each other for the amusement of those in the Capitol, though everyone is required to watch. The message to the districts is clear, we can even take your children and there is nothing you can do to stop us. We will make you watch as your children kill each other, and we will make it a national holiday.   

It is disgusting beyond belief and as I read the books I could only wonder where it all began. At what point did people give up their freedoms so completely that the culture was able to be reduced to this level?  Was it when the government started telling them that they had no right to a conscience? When the government became the soul arbiter or right and wrong, good and evil. Or maybe it was the point where human life had so little value that was ok to murder children while others made huge profits off of their deaths? Maybe it was the point where keeping people in bondage little better than slavery was ok; as long as they produced cheap goods and the wealthy didn't have to see them starve? The books never say, but it is an interesting thought to ponder.

Happy feast of the beheading of Saint John the Baptist

The Gospel reading for today came from the Gospel of Mark:

Herod was the one who had John the Baptist arrested and bound in prison
on account of Herodias,
the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married.
John had said to Herod,
“It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”
Herodias harbored a grudge against him
and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so.
Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man,
and kept him in custody.
When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed,
yet he liked to listen to him.
She had an opportunity one day when Herod, on his birthday,
gave a banquet for his courtiers,
his military officers, and the leading men of Galilee.
Herodias’ own daughter came in
and performed a dance that delighted Herod and his guests.
The king said to the girl,
“Ask of me whatever you wish and I will grant it to you.”
He even swore many things to her,
“I will grant you whatever you ask of me,
even to half of my kingdom.”
She went out and said to her mother,
“What shall I ask for?”
She replied, “The head of John the Baptist.”
The girl hurried back to the king’s presence and made her request,
“I want you to give me at once
on a platter the head of John the Baptist.”
The king was deeply distressed,
but because of his oaths and the guests
he did not wish to break his word to her.
So he promptly dispatched an executioner with orders
to bring back his head.
He went off and beheaded him in the prison.
He brought in the head on a platter and gave it to the girl.
The girl in turn gave it to her mother.
When his disciples heard about it,
they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

 

As I was on my way to work this morning I was praying the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary.  I couldn't help but think of all the women in the Gospel, but especially our Lady. As I meditated on tthe Joyful Mysteries, I couldn't help but think about Herodias and her daughter. How they were politically so very powerful, and yet they turned their back on God, even to the point of killing John the Baptist. How very unlike the Blessed Virgin who gave God her ultimate, creation changing yes. She brought life to the world, where Herodias and her daughter only took life. She is the ultimate example of womanhood, where Herodias and her daughter seem more the ultimate example of misguided feminism. It was just a thought.

My thoughts on Harry Potter

For those of you who somehow missed the multi million dollar mass media campaign to announce and promote the release of the last Harry Potter film last weekend, I am here to tell you that it is all finally over. At least until someone figures out some way to milk the whole project for another couple hundred million.  Ever since the Harry Potter books began to rise in popularity there have been well meaning Christians out there who have been crying foul over the use of magic and denouncing the whole series as blatantly satanic.  A 30 second internet search will have no trouble whatsoever yielding you a myriad of  websites telling you that if you and your children are reading Harry Potter, you are probably going straight to Hell. I do not, however, agree with them. While I will be one of the first to admit that there are, in fact, some references and imagery from modern day wicca (witchcraft) I do not find it to be too particularly alarming. One of the things to remember about reading Harry Potter is that it does not occur in a vacuum. If we have lost our grip enough to throw out all our flashlights and start holding up sticks at shouting quasi Latin phrases like lumos in order to see in the dark, I don’t think Harry Potter is the real problem.  The problem is that you have begun to take fantasy literature and live it out in real life. But that is not the real point. The real point is that magic is not the focus or the point of the Harry Potter story. It is merely a means to an end. While I may find the wiccan imagery a bit on the dangerous side, what I find far more so is the theme of using people as tools and objects. Of rationalizing lying and rule breaking as good things and generally saying that the end justifies the means. As long as we are fighting for a good goal it doesn’t really matter how we achieve it.  Such themes go against everything we believe as Catholics and we are called to reject them. All that being said, however, I still recommend reading, if not owning, all the Harry Potter books. Rarely on the negative websites will you see any of the Christian imagery discussed. Nobody talks about how the Griffon has been seen as image of Christ himself, a combination of the lion and the eagle. The lion represents the king of beasts (everything on the earth) and the eagle is the king of the air (all birds, but can also represent everything non worldly, i.e. the spiritual realm). Christ is both of these.  The dark wizard is represented by the snake. Throughout Christian art and allegory the snake is always seen as a symbol of temptation and the devil (beginning in the Garden of Eden). Evil incarnate looks kind of like a snake, and so does Voldemort. There are a multitude of other Christian/Catholic symbols (like the phoenix, the stag, and the resurrection to name a few) but I won’t go into them here. The point is that they are there.  The real point of Harry Potter, both in the last book and in the last movie, is that there comes a point where good men and women must draw a line in the sand and say to evil, “no more.” That no matter how much we may deplore violence there are some things in this world worth fighting for, worth dying for. Harry dies at the end of the movie (sorry if I just spoiled things for some of you) and I was happy that he did so. He didn’t die in some epic confrontation or battle. Instead he willingly went forth and laid down his life for his friends. He gave his life so that others might have a chance to live.  No one forced him to do it, in fact his friends tried to talk him out of it. In the end he realized that to give his life was the only way to defeat evil and protect those whom he loved.  I seem to remember that being a major theme in another book I read recently.  Now is Harry Potter a perfect allegory of the Jesus Christ? No, not by a long shot. But are there really strong, good themes in the books that can inspire all of us (especially youth) to live better lives of self-giving love? Absolutely. These positive themes, just like the negative themes, need to be discussed within our families, and just because the books are appropriate for some doesn’t mean that they are appropriate for everyone. While I would recommend the books for those in high school and older, I would be more cautious about them depending on the maturity of younger readers, but that’s what parents are for.   As previously stated, Harry Potter doesn’t occur in a vacuum, it occurs in the real world in the context of our families and our friends.  Treating others as a objects or tools to be used (even for good reasons)  without recognizing their human dignity is always wrong, as is doing an evil action in order to get a good result. These themes run rampant in our secular world, not just Harry Potter. Themes of sacrificial love, chaste friendship, and dying for a good cause are not so readily available. 

When Jesus said love your enemies, I think He meant rejoice in their death.

I doubt very much that there is anyone in the United States who has not by this time heard that Osama Bin Laden is dead.  My brother called me to share the news the night it happened because he knows I don’t have TV and he thought I might want to see what was going on in the world. He was, of course, quite correct. What I saw was more or less what I expected to see, but not always where I expected to see it.  I don’t know how many people posted status updates on facebook saying things like, “rot in Hell you…” or “ding dong Osama’s gone.”  I find it rather interesting that so many people are taking such joy in the death of another human being.   When we look at what it truly means to be Catholic, one of the first things that has always stood out to me is God’s mercy and forgiveness.   Now I don’t say this to advocate an attitude of “sin as much as you want because God will forgive you,” but rather because I see so many people saying that Osama is not worthy of God’s forgiveness.  I read one blog that compared Osama to the unrepentant thief on the cross next to Christ. The author commented about how the thief was not worthy of God’s mercy and would no doubt be in Hell. The same, he said, applies to Osama. I understand where the author and many other Americans are coming from on this. Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist organizations killed thousands of people, many of them Americans and we finally feel like we have gotten our revenge. Or have we?  Is his death really going to make a difference in our hearts?  One of the things I have discovered about hatred is that it is not so easily satisfied. Once the object of our hatred and anger is gone, we simply find another. It eats at our soul and can destroy our lives.  Is Good Friday already so far gone from our minds and our hearts that we have forgotten how Jesus Christ suffered and died for ALL sinners, not just those of us living our comfortable suburban lives?  The Vatican spoke out and said “Faced with the death of a man, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibility of each and every one of us before God and before man, and hopes and commits himself so that no event is an opportunity for further growth of hatred, but for peace.”  Yet the Vatican spokesman was criticized by some for not rejoicing in the death of a fellow human being. To me, this is the great tragedy. We must not let hatred for the actions of a man, no matter how evil they may be, stop us from praying for his conversion. I find it ironic that news of this death would arrive on our shores on Divine Mercy Sunday, yet so many would deny that mercy to one who needs it most. The death of any man who has declared himself an enemy of God and His Church is not a cause to rejoice. Rather it is a cause for weeping over a potentially lost soul. We should increase or prayers for Osama Bin Laden’s soul and pray that we might someday call him brother in Heaven. I know that I stand with the minority on this one, but I don’t want to see anyone suffer Hell. To say that he deserves Hell would be true. To say that we all deserve Hell would be a better way to put it. We all need Christ, that is why He came. Instead of rejoicing in his death, maybe we should have a Mass said for Osama bi Laden's soul instead.

“Rejoice not when your enemy falls, and when he stumbles, let not your heart exult”

Prov 24: 18

Good Friday veneration of the Cross

I just got home from Good Friday Veneration of the cross. I was unable to attend Mass last night because I was traveling with my family. I was disappointed to have missed Mass, but there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it, so I was really looking forward to tonight and the veneration. Unfortunately my joy and hopes were crushed. I have never walked out of a liturgical celebration until tonight. The homily, which should have focused on the passion and suffering of Christ did exactly the opposite. Instead it stripped the Passion of all pain and suffering, because it apparently turns people off and makes them feel uncomfortable. instead we just focus on how Jesus looks lovingly and forgivingly down from the cross on all mankind. I felt bad about walking out, but I figured it was better than yelling or saying something stupid during the homily. What happened to the wild and passionate God who swooped in and saved His people time after time in the Old Testament? Where was the Christ who loved His bride so much that He would let nothing come between them? Where was the knight in shining armor of holiness who sweat blood in the garden, was beaten and crowned with thorns, forced to carry the instrument of his own death up the hill and then brutally killed? I don't know where he was, but I know he was never mentioned during the homily. All we got was the watered down happy Jesus who joyfully died a happy death full of peace and forgiveness on the cross.