Grateful for the Pope

Sorry for not posting in a while, but the New York Times woke me up this morning with their constant mis-reading of Pope Benedict the 16th. I wanted to quickly weigh in on the Pope's comments on condoms, because it says something about the hope and love in this man's heart. You might be asking what does the Pope's statement on condom's have to do with hope and love? The answer is everything, and that is what the world is missing within this debate.

The question for the Pope was on condoms for the prevention of Aids? Here's the Pope's answer-
There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.

Here's where the hope and love comes in, the first thing I thought when I read this was, the Pope believes there's even hope for a male prostitute. In some sense, could you fall any lower in the world away from your dignity of a child of God than becoming a male prostitute?, but there's hope for conversion even for a male prostitute.

All the Pope is saying is that Prostitution is such a grave evil, so beyond the pale, that a condom is not even a part of the moral equation. Its almost silly, can you imagine two prostitutes, saying, "lets stop, the Pope has said that condoms are evil," But if a prostitute used a condom, it is an awakening in his heart to some goodness, he is basically saying, "I don't want to harm this person any further, I don't want to sicken this person with aids," Its the beginning of conscience to think those things. Lastly the Pope makes it clear that the only answer to the Aids crises is a humanization of sex. Sex is not a drug, it is literally a life giving, and life creating act. To reduce it to mere pleasure is a real catastrophe, and sad, here's the Pope,"

"This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being. "

What a great country

As the results from yesterday's election was rolling in last night, and pundits discussed what it all meant, the thing that was going through my mind was, "what a great country," The balance of powers is a beautiful thing. I don't like this blog to be political, but I was very happy last night for two reasons that relate to the Faith. 1.) The amount of pro-life candidates who won was incredibly hopeful, and 2.) The debt and size of government is a moral issue.

Every society has to decide how much taxation is too much, and when you reach the tipping point, then the next questions becomes, where do we spend it. We don't have a revenue problem in America, we actually have a very healthy revenue with a $14 trillion economy. So where should we spend the revenue that is coming in. When you reach a point that you are going into debt, that is when you start hurting the very engine that feeds the $14 trillion. That is not fair. Like any family or group, there comes a time when you have to go into debt for an emergency, and maybe we reached that point with the economy in 08', but in the fix, you have to make sure you feed the horse that is pulling the carriage. People ask me all the time, as a Christian, don't you feel obligated that people have health care, and the answer is certainly yes, in fact, I want people to have health care, housing, cloths, food, all of the basic necessities.

The greatest way to lift the largest amount of people out of poverty, is a vibrant economy. St. Paul says, "let those who will not work, not eat," St. Paul knew that there was people in the society of his time that could not work, because they were sick, or handicapped. But he also knew that if you could work, than work was a good for man, and that if you could work, you should work.

We have to remember what pays for those services, and its our work. That is why I think Bill Clinton was so successful with Welfare reform, making work a condition of welfare. It is compassionate to live in reality, and we were made to use our creative gifts for work. We have to do the things that make our economy strong, so that we can pay for the necessary things in society. Going into debt only saddlebags a very healthy horse.