The Art of Loving

Recent reports on CNN suggest that the wholesale abandonment of Christian values in the US by those in public life, continues apace. Those in positions of political power, ala the New York governor, are scrambling to find the most politically expedient way to survive and are now flip flopping on the issue of homosexual ‘marriage’. They plan to accord homosexual civil unions the full status that is accorded to normal marriages. They have typically tried to dodge the issue with the ‘let’s move beyond this debate’, which of course, attempts to divert attention and / or mute any rational analyses of the moral turpitude of their position. This debate has proved divisive, most strangely amongst Christians and even Catholics for some reason. The intolerance of the liberal media to opposing views has, frankly, approached something akin to the most fascist totalitarian regimes of the last century, but guilt must also be apportioned to those who have used the issue to direct a cruel bigotry towards those who find themselves afflicted with this disorder. The Church’s position is crystal clear and I will outline it in some detail in my next blog, but I have always found the commentary by Erich Fromm , a Jewish secular humanist to be eerily close to the Catholic position, so before I lay dogma before the issue, I thought I would open discussion on this disorder with the views as expressed in his book, The Art of Loving:
The male-female polarity is also the basis for interpersonal creativity. This is obvious biologically in the fact that the union of sperm and ovum is the basis for the birth of a child. But in the purely psychic realm it is not different; in the love between man and woman, each of them is reborn. (The homosexual deviation is a failure to attain this polarised union, and thus the homosexual suffers from the pain of never-resolved separateness, a failure, however, which he shares with the average heterosexual who cannot love.)

Universality

One of the most awesome things about being a Catholic, is that wherever you go in the world and whatever the language, when you attend Mass, you can follow it. The liturgical seasons are the same, etc. When you travel, you really get a sense of the universality of the Church as a diverse and incredibly rich Body of Christ. When I visited Notre Dame Cathedral a couple of years ago, I, as a South African, went to confession in the French capital to a Ugandan priest! On this weekend past, I went with my wife to another Christian faith community for a baptism which was done in the context of their regular Sunday service. It was Palm Sunday and yet the pastor never mentioned it; he had his own message and focus. That of course is his perogative, but more and more, I am noticing that non-Catholic and even evangelical communities are adopting some of the liturgies and seasonal celebrations of the Catholic church - like Lent, to name one example. It speaks to a unity of worship which effects the unity it symbolises - much as the shared rituals / traditions / memories of a family bind that family. It is a different and more sustainable approach than that of communities built around the cult of a particular pastor. This catholicity / universality is a profound treasure of the Church and is expressed so eloquently in the hymn: 'The day thou gavest..'

We thank thee that thy Church unsleeping,
While earth rolls onward into light,
Through all the world her watch is keeping,
And rests not now by day or night.

As over continent and island
The dawn leads on another day,
The voice of prayer is never silent,
Nor dies the strain of praise away.

The sun that bids us rest is waking
Our brethren 'neath the western sky,
And hour by hour fresh lips are making
Thy wondrous doings heard on high.