From the Chicago Tribune:
Chicago Cardinal Francis George has stepped in the ring on Chick-fil-A’s gay marriage controversy in a blog post, criticizing Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s statement that the fast food chain’s values “are not Chicago values.”
“Recent comments by those who administer our city seem to assume that the city government can decide for everyone what are the ‘values’ that must be held by citizens of Chicago,” George wrote on the Archdiocese of Chicago’s blog Sunday. “I was born and raised here, and my understanding of being a Chicagoan never included submitting my value system to the government for approval. Must those whose personal values do not conform to those of the government of the day move from the city?”
George went on to write: “Approval of state-sponsored homosexual unions has very quickly become a litmus test for bigotry. … Surely there must be a way to properly respect people who are gay or lesbian without using civil law to undermine the nature of marriage.”
Last week, Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno, 1st, announced he will block Chick-fil-A’s effort to build its second Chicago store in Logan Square because the chain’s top executive has made clear his opposition to gay marriage.
. . .
Moreno, who touched off the debate last week, fired back at George.
“It’s unfortunate that the cardinal, as often happens, picks parts of the Bible and not other parts,” said Moreno, who added that he was raised Catholic in western Illinois, attended a Catholic grade school and was an altar boy. Moreno said he now occasionally attends church.
“The Bible says many things,” Moreno said. “For the cardinal to say that Jesus believes in this, and therefore we all must believe in this, I think is just disingenuous and irresponsible. The God I believe in is one about equal rights, and to not give equal rights to those that want to marry, is in my opinion un-Christian.”
One question: who the hell is Joe Moreno?
Oh, he went to Catholic grade school? He occasionally attends church? He perfunctorily flipped through the Bible once, ten years ago, maybe? He unworthily receives communion the half-dozen Masses a year he attends? Whoever this guy is, he’s hardly a wellspring of theological expertise. He’s a jumped-up functionary in one of the most clinically corrupt cities in America. And his five-year stint as an altar boy hardly entitles him to be mouthing off against the bishop authorized by God to teach in His name and to carry on a magisterial tradition 2,000 years old.
“The God I believe in is one about equal rights,” he says! This is the God who had a chosen people, right? The one who burned Sodom to the ground? For Heaven’s sake!
How does one even begin to reason with such rank and thoughtless temerity? I supposed you don’t — you just pray for him.
But what do you pray?
“How does one even begin to reason with such rank and thoughtless temerity? I supposed you don’t — you just pray for him.”
It’s logically impossible to reason with a fool, with a man who will say *anything* (and its opposite).
In whose eye is the speck? In whose is the beam?
M
You’re so ignorant, Bonald. Joe Moreno used to be an altar boy. Of course he knows more than Cardinal George about the Catholic faith.
Thanks for the engaging link, swauck, but let’s not discredit Bonald by attributing to him my proletarian screeds!
While I don’t always agree with Mark Shea, he nails it: “I was born and raised Catholic” is nature’s way of warning you that what is said next will be a raving farago of nonsense.
It’s enough to drive a Quaker to quit worrying and love the Inquisition…and I’m only HALF joking.
Which half?
Is it “heretic” or “apostate”?
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And his five-year stint as an altar boy hardly entitles him to be mouthing off against the bishop authorized by God to teach in His name and to carry on a magisterial tradition 2,000 years old.
Seeing that he is Chicago’s youngest alderman (http://aldermanmoreno.com/about/), you can be certain that when he was attending Catholic grade school he learned little to nothing of the Faith and certainly nothing about the authority of the Bishop or the concepts of Tradition and the Magisterium.