Seamless, shredded

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four shares, a share for each soldier. They also took his tunic, but the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top down.
– John 19:23

Of all the many things dividing the Church these days, it boggles the mind to imagine that disagreement over when it is appropriate to kill someone would be the thing to do it. And that it would be a fight from a seemingly more-ardent self-proclaimed “pro-life” right that led the way… the way to saying that we should indeed preserve the right to, well – kill someone.

Although it is probably not the best use of my time, and even less

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Some thoughts on January 22

I am pretty certain that this post will upset many. I have come to loathe the words liberal and conservative. They serve no point and I often find myself in some netherworld between the two. Anyone who knows me also knows how I feel about dualistic thinking and as such, this ends up not being an unusual position to hold – both/and.

As such, I have spent a lot of time in the past two years in the both/and space of my more (for lack of a better term) liberal friends and in my life as a Roman Catholic. Now anyone who thinks that claiming Catholicism and then automatically holding a certain set of views is not taking into consideration the ambiguity and challenge of life. Catholics are instructed to believe one thing, but that does not mean that they always do believe it. Also, sometimes they believe it at the expense of other beliefs.

As for my life as a Catholic, I have had to plumb some depths that I was not always willing to plumb; it is like that when you need to confront what you truly believe. I think that willingness is the operative word; it is for me.

Just as the word homosexual conjures up images of wanton sex and riotous living among the most conservative, the words pro-life conjure up images of people like this. That someone kills like that disgusts me and does not show us any regard for life.

Like all stereotypes, I ask you to look beyond them all.

I also post this video, which I found at the very thought provoking Catholic blog, Καθολικός διάκονος. Scott’s post was entitled, Ideology Cannot Move Us. I think he is right.

Being “for” abortion no more means that you want to kill babies than being “against” abortion means that I want to kill those who provide for them or that I want women to die in back alleys. Anyone who thinks that the reversal of Roe V. Wade is a simple solution has not thought this through. To continually demonize serves neither side; it does not serve the cause of life, the cause of peace and the cause of human dignity.

Let the comments begin.