From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re:    New Catholic Catechism: A first in 426 years
Date: 23 Nov 92 16:40:02 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: LLNL

In article <92323.233613ADMN8647@RyeVm.Ryerson.Ca> Linda Birmingham <ADMN8647@RyeVm.Ryerson.Ca> writes:
: Copied from the Globe and Mail, Tuesday November 17, 1992
: (no deletions, no comments, any spelling errors blame spell check)

: PARIS - The Roman Catholic Church unveiled its first new
: catechism in 426 years yesterday, upholding church teaching
: against divorce, abortion and homosexuality but updating the sin
: of theft to include low wages.

	Theft includes low wages? I'd like to see the Vatican
excommunicate some employer for paying his/her employees low wages
sometime...

: Here are some excerpts translated by Reuter.

: On Jews
: The Jews were not collectively responsible for the death of
: Jesus...

	It took nearly 2000 years for them to figure that out???

	And how could it be such a terrible thing if his fake death
counts as substitute punishment for sin? Since he is supposedly God,
and he supposedly rose from the dead, his "death" is fake, right?

: On the Ordination of women
: Only a baptized man may legitimately receive Holy Ordination.
: The Lord Jesus chose men to form the college of the 12 apostles,
: and the apostles did likewise in choosing the collaborators who
: succeeded them in their task...The Church acknowledges that it is
: bound by this choice of the Lord Himself.  That is why the
: ordination of women is not possible.

	And is the priesthood limited to Middle Eastern Jews also???

: On various forms of theft

	[expanded to include speculation, financial fraudulence, tax
evasion, laziness at work and so forth...]

	It will be news if anyone _ever_ gets excommunicated for any
of these.

: On abortion
: Human life must be totally respected and protected from the
: moment of conception.  From the first moment of his existence, a
: human being should enjoy the rights of the individual, including
: the inviolable right of all innocent beings to life...Formal
: participation in abortion is a grave error.

	No proof given. Do those guys have a "soul detector", and did
they ever use it on some fertilized egg?

: On war crimes and genocide

: On drunk driving

	Still waiting to do some excommuncations there also...

: On euthanasia
: Whatever the means and the motives, direct euthanasia consists of
: ending the lives of the handicapped, the sick or dying.  It is
: morally unacceptable...

	Even if they want to???

	I think that a happy death is preferable to a miserable life.
As long as death is unavoidable, why not make it a pleasant experience
instead of trying to pretend it doesn't exist?

	And why aren't they welcoming the choice of someone who wants
to get to Heaven early?

: On birth control
: Methods to regulate birth based on self-discipline and recourse
: to infertile periods conform to the objective criteria of
: morality...Any action that, either ahead of the conjugal act,
: during it or as a result of its natural consequences, envisages
: as a means or as an end to make procreation impossible, is
: intrinsically bad.

	Oh sure. What are "objective criteria of morality"? And why
does the Church think this a higher priority than (say) wartime
atrocities?

: On masturbation
: Following the line of a constant tradition, both the Church
: fathers and the moral sense of the faithful have declared without
: hesitation that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely
: disorderly act.  Whatever the motive, the deliberate use of the
: sexual faculty outside of normal conjugal relations contradicts
: the finality of that union.

	Sex should only lead to children. Good grief!

	And what do these characters have to say about oral sex?

: On pornography
: It gravely offends the dignity of those who submit to it (actors,
: distributors, public)..It plunges all of them into the illusion
: of a make-believe world...

	Bull excrement. A lot of those involved don't agree.

	"Make-believe world"? Why not complain about the rest of
literature and movies and so forth?

: On genetic engineering
: It is immoral to produce human embryos destined to be exploited
: as though they were disposable biological matter.  Certain
: attempts at engineering of chromosomatic or genetic matter are
: not therapeutic but are intended for the production of selected
: human beings according to sex or other pre-established criteria.
: This engineering goes against the personal dignity of the human
: being and his unique, unrepeatable identity.

	So should the souls be removed from embryos and stored? How
will that be done?

: On homosexuality
: Referring to the Holy Scripture, which presents them as grave
: depravations, tradition has always declared that homosexual acts
: are intrinsically disorderly.  They go against natural law....
: (Homosexuals) do not choose their homosexual condition; for most
: of them it is an ordeal.  They should be treated with respect,
: compassion and sensitivity.  All manner of unjust discrimination
: should be avoided with respect to them...Homosexuals are urged to
: be chaste.

	Love the sinner, hate the sin.

	I've never had much taste for holier-than-thou rhetoric.

: On artificial insemination
: Techniques that entail a dissociation of the parents, by the
: intervention of a person outside the couple (donation of sperm or
: egg, loan of uterus) are gravely dishonest.  These
: techniques...go against the right of a child to be born of a
: father and mother known to him and mutually bound by
: marriage...Practised by the couple themselves, these techniques
: (homologous artificial insemination and fertilization) are
: perhaps less worthy of condemnation, but they remain morally
: unacceptable...

	How? I expected these characters to _endorse_ non-sexual
techniques of reproduction. After all, sex is _so_ Ikky...
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,talk.politics.misc,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.rush-limbaugh