Notes: Wednesday, July 14, 2010

More on the firing of a Catholic university lecturer for stating--simply stating, apparently regardless of whether he agreed or disagreed with it--Catholic/natural-law doctrine on morality

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32491
http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32436
http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=22376

According to those reports (this quotation comes from the last of the three),

An unidentified student sent an e-mail to religion department head Robert McKim on May 13, calling Howell's e-mail "hate speech." The student claimed to be a friend of the offended student. The writer said in the e-mail that his friend wanted to remain anonymous.

"Teaching a student about the tenets of a religion is one thing," the student wrote. "Declaring that homosexual acts violate the natural laws of man is another."

So apparently Dr. Howell was not, as I suggested in yesterday's edition of Notes, fired for openly agreeing with the natural law's prohibition of sodomy, but simply for stating it! Of course, the problem with the complainant's objection is: What if "the tenets of a [certain] religion" declare "that homosexual acts violate the natural laws of [more precisely, the natural law pertaining to/binding on] man"?

More on Church of England moves towards having ladybishops

http://www.smh.com.au/world/church-of-england-paves-way-for-female-bishops-20100713-109ha.html?skin=text-only
http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=22378

New A.B.C. Religion and Ethics portal

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=22379

U.R.L. for the portal: http://www.abc.net.au/religion/

H.H. The Pope declares "Religious freedom, the path to peace" to be the theme for the 2011 World Day of Peace

The only item in today's Vatican Information Service e-mail bulletin:

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, THE PATH TO PEACE

VATICAN CITY, 13 JUL 2010 (VIS) - "Religious freedom, the path to peace" is the theme chosen by Pope Benedict XVI for the celebration of the 2011 World Day of Peace.

"The World Day of Peace", reads a communique on the subject released today, "will therefore be dedicated to the theme of religious freedom. It is well known that in many parts of the world there are various forms of restriction or denial of religious freedom, from discrimination and marginalisation based on religion, to acts of violence against religious minorities".

"Religious freedom is authentically realised when it is experienced as the coherent search for truth and for the truth about man. This approach to religious freedom offers us a fundamental criterion for discerning the phenomenon of religion and its expressions. It necessarily rejects the 'religiosity' of fundamentalism, and the manipulation of truth and of the truth about man. Since such distortions are opposed to the dignity of man and to the search for truth, they cannot be considered as religious freedom".

The communique recalls words Benedict XVI's pronounced before the United Nations General Assembly in 2008: "Human rights, of course, must include the right to religious freedom, understood as the expression of a dimension that is at once individual and communitarian - a vision that brings out the unity of the person while clearly distinguishing between the dimension of the citizen and that of the believer".

The text continues: "Today there are many areas of the world in which forms of restrictions and limitations to religious freedom persist, both where communities of believers are a minority, and where communities of believers are not a minority, and where more sophisticated forms of discrimination and marginalisation exist, on the cultural level and in the spheres of public, civil and political activity. 'It is inconceivable', as Benedict XVI remarked, 'that believers should have to suppress a part of themselves - their faith - in order to be active citizens. It should never be necessary to deny God in order to enjoy one's rights. The rights associated with religion are all the more in need of protection if they are considered to clash with a prevailing secular ideology or with majority religious positions of an exclusive nature'".

The communique concludes by highlighting how "man cannot be fragmented, and separated from what he believes, because that in which he believes has an impact on his life and on his person. 'Refusal to recognise the contribution to society that is rooted in the religious dimension and in the quest for the Absolute - by its nature, expressing communion between persons - would effectively privilege an individualistic approach, and would fragment the unity of the person'. It is for this reason that: 'Religious Freedom is the Path to Peace'".
.../ VIS 20100713 (470)

Sad. Fortunately this is only an act of the Ordinary Magisterium; for the teaching of the Ordinary and Universal--and hence infallible--Magisterium, see the comments by "Pax Vobiscum" at this AQ thread on the matter of the 2011 World Day of Peace theme.

Interesting AQ thread on Creationism:

Particularly the comments by "Blandina":

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32468

Reginaldvs Cantvar

Feast of St. Bonaventure, Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of the Church, A.D. 2010