Teens Bring The Smackdown ? Catholic Sensibility

Saw this piece referenced on David Gibson?s RNS Roundup. Despite a ?This is not going to end well? assessment, it was a good thing DeLaSalle High School kids pushed back against a political message delivered by archdiocesan presenters. I?m not convinced that conservatives from the bishops on down have fully thought through the theological and moral aspects of what they?re saying. Case in point from Matt Bliss:

And comments about adopted kids, I found those to be really offensive. There were at least four kids there who are adopted.

Lydia Hannah, an adopted person, objected to the characterization of adopted children as ?sociologically unstable.?

To me, it shows the whole wrongheadedness of taking the so-called defense of marriage to ideological extremes. It sounds as if the presentation should have ended at the start of the eighth inning. as one might expect, when the presenters went off-script they found themselves deep into it. More sensible talk from young Mr Bliss:

The first three-quarters of the presentation were really good. They talked about what is marriage and how marriage helps us as a society. Then it started going downhill when they started talking about single parents and adopted kids. They didn?t directly say it, but they implied that kids who are adopted or live with single parents are less than kids with two parents of the opposite sex. They implied that a ?normal? family is the best family.

In a world where one or both parents can die before?their children are reared to adulthood, we will always?suffer from loss in such situations. We also live in a nation where a half-million children live in group homes, foster homes, and institutions because their parents are incapable of caring for them. Uttering slurs against adoption is not the way to go. And besides, if this is such a flawed situation, where are the national workshops on adoption, orphans, widowed parents with children, and what-all? Why does this become such a Big Issue when millions of gays want to overturn the heteroscxual applecart a few thousand people of the same sex want hospital visits and legal protections?

The save-marriage movement betrays itself as anti-homosexual bigotry for no other evidence than few enough of?these people cared when it was about orphaned or abandoned children. It has been the parishes on the front lines helping families coping with the loss of a father or mother. The hermeneutic of subtraction reveals this movement as a sham. Save marraige? What about promoting real marriage movements like ME? What about sending all engaged couples on EE? When was the last time these people offered?or even attended?a marriage enrichment experience at the parish, a retreat house, or at a diocesan location?

The so-called ?normal? family also has its own challenges these days: pornography on the home computers, materialism in the culture, a federal government that insists on separating families because of non-sensical military adventurism in southwest Asia, not to mention in immigration policy and practice. Throw in the stresses of modern jobs, an economy in the toilet, and the uncertainty of the future ? and I think we have the right to know why some Catholics and many bishops are out there attacking people who, mostly, don?t even consider themselves part of the flock. Stay home, bishops, and put resources into Catholic families and Catholic couples. If you want to reach out, start flooding government agencies with Catholic couples who have completed home studies. Please: don?t show your ignorance on adoption. And don?t send lackeys to insult the young.

My assessment from yesterday on this thread on disinvite stands, Archbishop Nienstadt and Bishop McManus and others have failed us not because they?re pushing and doing too much. This is a failure in ministry because they simply don?t do enough.

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