Fr. Michael Rodriguez, pastor of San Juan Bautista Catholic Church.
Posted on 08/03/2010 7:19:31 AM PDT by NYer
.- Warning of the possibility of a corrupt democracy, Texas priest Fr. Michael Rodriguez has written that Catholics have the “absolute duty” to oppose abortion and all government attempts to legalize same-sex unions.
The parish priest of El Paso’s San Juan Bautista Catholic Church, Fr. Rodriguez published a short essay in the Sunday El Paso Times urging all Catholics to take the teachings of the Catholic Church to heart.
Every Catholic, out of “fidelity to charity and truth,” must oppose “the murder of unborn babies” and the legalization of homosexual unions, he said.
“Any Catholic who supports homosexual acts is, by definition, committing a mortal sin, and placing himself/herself outside of communion with the Roman Catholic Church,” the priest wrote. Those Catholics who neglect actively to oppose the “homosexual agenda” on the grounds of equal rights and tolerance would be guilty of “a most grievous sin of omission.”
Fr. Rodriguez quoted the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) November 2009 pastoral letter on marriage, noting it was endorsed by the Bishop of El Paso Armando X. Ochoa. That document said the idea that people of the same-sex can “marry” is “one of the most troubling developments in contemporary culture” and is an attempt to “redefine” marriage and the family.
This harms both the intrinsic dignity of every person and the common good of society, the bishops said, adding that justice requires denying legal status of marriage to forms of cohabitation that are not “marital.”
Fr. Rodriguez urged Catholics to treat homosexuals with “love, understanding and respect” without forgetting that genuine love requires seeking the salvation of souls.
“Homosexual acts lead to the damnation of souls,” the priest warned.
Criticizing several El Paso Times letter writers who claimed that in a democracy the majority decide between what is right and wrong, he said this logic is “not only false” but “ludicrous.” Majority decisions have no bearing on an actions’ intrinsic morality, he explained.
This morality, established by God, can be known through reason, he said. As an example of intrinsic morality, the priest noted that if a majority voted to allow rape this could never make rape morally right.
“There is such a thing as a corrupt democracy, you know!” commented Fr. Rodriguez. “Frighteningly, if the majority chooses to deny the objective moral order, then we will all suffer the pestiferous consequences.”
Ping!
I just read this a few minutes before you posted it. I have been noticing much more lately just how insidiously evil the homosexual activist movement is.
We REALLY need to pray for conversion for them.
watch as misguided leftist catholic call for his excommunication at best and his death at worst.
And yet, a supposed strong majority of “Catholics” are in favor of accepting homosexuality.
I like that phrase ... and there certainly seem to be some "pestiferous consequences" infesting the halls of government.
The good Father needs to first talk to his bishops at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the extreme left staff of former democrat operatives advising them. Their Excellencies need to stop noodling with abortion funding Catholics in Congress like Pelosi, Leahy, Biden, Mikulski, Kerry, etc., and stop celebrating at their funerals, like Kennedy.
Actually, I doubt that leftist and very liberal “Catholics” even believe in excommunication.
When I saw the photo of Fr. Michael Rodriguez that accompanied the article, I knew right away that this was an absolutely non-nonsense priest.
How did I know? Simple. Look at his vestment.
Biretta - Check
Alb - Check
Stole - Check
Chasuble - Check
That all indicates that he takes the Mass seriously, which means he takes God seriously.
Father Michael Rodriquiz should be commended by each of us in support of his outspoken message and his courage, especially as courage is on the wane in the Church. The US culture has infiltrated the Roman Catholic Church to the extent that even Holy Mother Church remains largely immersed in minimalism, which has kept too many Bishops and the universe of priests silent on matters of faith and morals when they should speak out. It is very much the Church in this country for which we are mourning and praying, and it is our Hope that we be sent a spirit of repentance, restoration and “reversion” in the new crop of younger priests, as Father Rodriquiz appears to be, to whom courage is second nature, by virtue of their holiness.
What a profound statement!
The Priest's observation applies alike to the majority votes of citizens, as well as those of the Judiciary.
The following essay from "Our Ageless Constitution" discusses the philosophy of America's Founders. Clearly, a different philosophy prevailed then concerning liberty and law.
"Man ... must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator.. This will of his Maker is called the law of nature.... This law of nature...is of course superior to any other.... No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this: and such of them as are valid derive all their force...from this original." - Sir William Blackstone (Eminent English Jurist)
The Founders DID NOT establish the Constitution for the purpose of granting rights. Rather, they structured this government of laws (not a government of men) in order to secure each person's Creator endowed rights to life, liberty, and property.
Only in America, did a nation's founders recognize that rights, though endowed by the Creator as unalienable prerogatives, would not be sustained in society unless they were protected under a code of law which was itself in harmony with a higher law. They called it "natural law," or "Nature's law." Such law is the ultimate source and established limit for all of man's laws and is intended to protect each of these natural rights for all of mankind. The Declaration of Independence of 1776 established the premise that in America a people might assume the station "to which the laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them.."
Herein lay the security for men's individual rights - an immutable code of law, sanctioned by the Creator of man's rights, and designed to promote, preserve, and protect him and his fellows in the enjoyment of their rights. They believed that such natural law, revealed to man through his reason, was capable of being understood by both the "ploughman and the professor" (Jefferson's phrase). Sir William Blackstone, whose writings trained American's lawyers for its first century, capsulized such reasoning:
"For as God, when he created matter, and endued it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for the...direction of that motion; so, when he created man, and endued him with freewill to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby that freewill is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws."
What are those natural laws? Blackstone continued:
"Such among others are these principles: that we should live honestly, should hurt nobody, and should render to every one his due.."
The Founders saw these as moral duties between individuals. Thomas Jefferson wrote:
"Man has been subjected by his Creator to the moral law, of which his feelings, or conscience as it is sometimes called, are the evidence with which his Creator has furnished him .... The moral duties which exist between individual and individual in a state of nature, accompany them into a state of society . their Maker not having released them from those duties on their forming themselves into a nation."
Americas leaders of 1787 had studied Cicero, Polybius, Coke, Locke, Montesquieu, and Blackstone, among others, as well as the history of the rise and fall of governments, and they recognized these underlying principles of law as those of the Decalogue, the Golden Rule, and the deepest thought of the ages.
An example of the harmony of natural law and natural rights is Blackstone's "that we should live honestly" - otherwise known as "thou shalt not steal" - whose corresponding natural right is that of individual freedom to acquire and own, through honest initiative, private property. In the Founders' view, this law and this right were inalterable and of a higher order than any written law of man. Thus, the Constitution confirmed the law and secured the right and bound both individuals and their representatives in government to a moral code which did not permit either to take the earnings of another without his consent. Under this code, individuals could not band together and do, through government's coercive power, that which was not lawful between individuals.
America's Constitution is the culmination of the best reasoning of men of all time and is based on the most profound and beneficial values mankind has been able to fathom. It is, as William E. Gladstone observed, "The Most Wonderful Work Ever Struck Off At A Given Time By he Brain And Purpose Of Man."
We should dedicate ourselves to rediscovering and preserving an understanding of our Constitution's basis in natural law for the protection of natural rights - principles which have provided American citizens with more protection for individual rights, while guaranteeing more freedom, than any people on earth.
"The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom." -John Locke
Footnote: Our Ageless Constitution, W. David Stedman & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Editors (Asheboro, NC, W. David Stedman Associates, 1987) Part III: ISBN 0-937047-01-5
here
Need more like him.
A true spiritual warrior!
Indeed! I tried to find that photo in a larger size online to post it ... it’s great!
I just returned from my lib family in Nebraska. Pray for them.....They all listen to NPR.
It breaks my heart to say it, but they may have been among the CINOs who voted for Obortion Obama.
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