Category: Blogposts

Posted on

Can Catholics Accept the “Marriage Pledge”? – A Reply

The fire and zeal of my fellow contributor to The Josias, Joseph, should be commended. Reflecting on the recent dustup over First Things editor R.R. Reno’s joining the call for Catholic priests (and all Christian ministers) to “get out of the [civil] marriage business” (the so-called “Marriage Pledge”), Joseph shows deep concern that Catholics may be tacitly, if not explicitly, accepting the secular dogma of separation between Church and State which has been routinely condemned by the Church’s social magisterium. The crux of Joseph’s reflection appears to be found in the following paragraph:

Continue reading “Can Catholics Accept the “Marriage Pledge”? – A Reply”

Posted on

Can Catholics Accept the “Marriage Pledge”?

First Things editor Rusty Reno has caused something of a stir this week with “A Time to Rend,” an article and pledge calling for Christian disengagement from the celebration of civil marriage.  Reno’s argument is that decades of civil attacks on the nature of marriage have perverted the civil meaning of marriage to the point that our duty to God demands a complete rejection of American civil marriage.  To sign a “marriage license” whose essence points to a reality fundamentally opposed to faith and morals gives scandal, so priests must cease to be ministers of “civil marriage”.

Continue reading “Can Catholics Accept the “Marriage Pledge”?”

Posted on

A Request to our Readers

It is tempting in a liberal world, in democratic societies, to fall into the quietism which limits prayer to private piety and the hidden life.  But in the same way that we ought to bring the truths of faith to bear in all our external dealings, we should bring the troubles of temporal affairs into our prayer.  Prayer is not merely a private act, but a public one.  The liturgies offered by the Church are public acts of service—service to God, on behalf of the people. And just as the individual good is inseparable from the common good, our prayer ought always to involve supplication for the good of the community and concern for the preservation and perfection of the secular order.

Today in the United States is the highest feast day in the political calendar.  We ask you, dear readers, in the spirit of St. Pius V, to pray Psalm 73 (74) and offer a rosary for the conversion our rulers and the restoration of Christ’s social reign among us.