HENRY MATTHEW ALT

TO GIVE A DEFENSE

Month: September 2016

God defines marriage. To accept same-sex marriage is heresy.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • September 15, 2016 • Exegesis; Moral Theology

In order to deny that Church teach­ing on this mat­ter is a point of divine rev­e­la­tion, one would have to deny: that the words of Christ in Matt. 19:4 do not count as divine rev­e­la­tion; or, that Matt. 19:4 does not apply to the ques­tion of same-sex mar­riage. I don’t see how one could sus­tain either claim. Since Christ is God, what­ev­er he teach­es is, by def­i­n­i­tion, divine rev­e­la­tion. To claim that, though Christ is answer­ing a ques­tion about divorce, he is not stat­ing a prin­ci­ple that applies to any ques­tion about mar­riage, seems arbi­trary and unnec­es­sar­i­ly lim­it­ing.

Bishop DiLorenzo responds to Tim Kaine on same-sex marriage.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • September 14, 2016 • In the News; LGBT Issues; Moral Theology; Politics

Clear, brief, and no-non­sense. Though some, undoubt­ed­ly, will want to kvetch that DiLoren­zo does not men­tion Kaine by name, he does indi­cate that his words were prompt­ed by “recent state­ments from the cam­paign trail.” Kaine’s words had prompt­ed myself, as well as oth­ers, to call upon the bish­op to cor­rect the sen­a­tor. If Kaine wish­es to con­tin­ue his sup­port of same-sex mar­riage, let him do so, but let him do so as a dis­si­dent Catholic — not under the guise of a “devout” one. A devout Catholic does not pub­licly defy the teach­ing of the Church. End stop.

It is time for “devout Catholic” Tim Kaine to be publicly corrected.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • September 11, 2016 • In the News; LGBT Issues; Moral Theology; Politics

Sen. Kaine, in remarks at the annu­al gala of the Human Rights campaign—McClatchy reports on it—said he believes the Church may even­tu­al­ly change its posi­tion on same-sex mar­riage. “I think it’s going to change,” Kaine says, “because my church also teach­es me about a cre­ator who, in the first chap­ter of Gen­e­sis, sur­veyed the entire world, includ­ing mankind, and said, ‘It is very good.’ ” So? What does that mean? I’m sor­ry, Sen. Kaine, but you are caus­ing con­fu­sion and scan­dal. God said “it is good,” but he also cre­at­ed them male and female for com­ple­men­tar­i­ty.

Muslims are “brothers and sisters in the faith of Abraham.”

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • September 9, 2016 • Blind Guides & False Prophets; Islam

This is not, or need not be, com­pli­cat­ed: Catholics, Protes­tants, the East­ern Ortho­dox, Jews, and Mus­lims all wor­ship the same god. The dif­fer­ence is in what they believe about him. But regard­less of what they believe about him, the god they wor­ship is the god of Abra­ham. Dr. Shabir Ally (he’s a Mus­lim schol­ar and apol­o­gist) does not wor­ship some dif­fer­ent divine fig­ure than Pope Fran­cis does. Now, the Church affirms all this in Nos­tra Aetate. Lumen Gen­tium says the same thing, as do Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Bene­dict XVI. Write them off if you can.

Yes, Virginia, Catholics can say abortion should be legal.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • September 7, 2016 • Politics; Pro-Life Issues

I sym­pa­thize with Fr. Malone’s main con­cern, which was the pres­ence of pro­test­ers as Sen. Kaine arrived for Mass on August 28. One of them held a sign that said that he and Mrs. Clin­ton are “a match made in Hell.” Anoth­er held a sign cit­ing canon 915. These love­ly peo­ple would be bet­ter advised to go inside, kneel, pray, and attend to their own wor­thi­ness to receive the Eucharist. If they have con­cerns about canon 915, or about Sen. Kaine, they should write his bish­op. Engag­ing in self-right­eous street the­ater does no one any good, includ­ing the pro-life move­ment.

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