Sacred Tradition and American Politics

There is political-ization of religion. There is also religion-ization of politics.

I stand back at what looks like an effort to impose a religious point of view on the majority in America. The gaps in moral codes in the modern age coincide with the advent of science and the convenience of birth control.

On all sorts of levels, social and religious, there has been an upheaval for the last forty odd years in America. It is not just birth control, but birth control has become the icon or code word that fronts all sorts of other issues needing reexamination, rediscovery and possible rebirth.

Because the R.C. church lost its grip after Vatican II, or in fairness lost its vision, its purpose, its message of Christ, it has taken the fight to American politics to approve through attrition and or sacred tradition the unpopular birth control encyclical Humane Vitae (human life).

I can remember in high school reading this document line per line in my junior year religion class. The worst of birth control is abortion. That everything else, the pill, condoms, their use are of equal mortal sin value. If the Catholics left in the R.C. church accept all forms of birth control as immoral, then by default, the whole document gets accepted as part of R.C. church doctrine and canon law through a concept called sacred tradition.

The R.C. version of evolution got taught to me in high school and after a few decades of no dissent, it got signed off by John Paul II in 1996 under I think the category of sacred tradition. The church can wait decades or even centuries on any issue and eventually gets its way.

After two or more generations, Humane Vitae becomes Sacred Tradition and labeled as something the faithful must fully except without question. Read the fine print of your contract before you buy the whole real propaganda package people.

Human sexuality can be turned into a commodity. Privacy and rights of privacy are light years away from some institutions' medieval thinking.

The Christian far right in America has adopted the “pro-life” anti-abortion stance. It is a wide stance and with a strange alliance that includes the far right evangelical churches and clerics of Vatican City and the R.C. bishops of America. Strange how the evangelicals don’t ask about the R.C. church’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” stand on evolution. Politics does make for some strange bedfellows.

I have known a few people, some women and men, who have confided to me regret over having gone through or knew about and or paid for the process of abortion. It is not an easy decision for some to make. I think it right that the process not be easily obtained or government funded. There are other options for unwanted pregnancy like adoption. I talk from my opinion and my heart. I am no church or religious scholar even though I have studied this issue for decades.

Do I believe that abortion is right and or moral? No. Do I believe that women have the right to choose what to do with their own body? Yes.

Why is this whole moral issue a political issue? If you are a card carrying member of the R.C. religion, it should not be an issue. Good R.C.s should conform to church doctrine – Period!

Why does the long arm of confused and failed moral politics reach across the ocean? Why does it try to be imposed on all Americans, who these days are not necessarily believers and or Christian?

America is a secular nation.

What would Jesus do about the issue of birth control?

He would be a mensch!