
It all started this past May with an email composed by an undergraduate student in “Introduction to Catholicism and Modern Catholic Thought,” a course offered in the Religious Studies department at the University of Illinois. The student forwarded to the department chair an email the class had received from the instructor, Catholic theologian Kenneth Howell, discussing the relative merits of utilitarianism and Natural Law in assessing the morality of homosexuality.
Howell’s letter, reprinted here, explained why Catholic Natural Law doctrine maintained that sexuality must not be separated from procreation, and did bleed into some preachiness. Howell argued that because anatomical differences between men and women were part of the “real” world, sexual morality ought not be governed by utilitarian ethics but by the “inherent meaning” of the act.
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Editor’s note: This is a pretty comprehensive report of what happened at the University of Illinois, and of the various philosophies that have come into play there, regarding the Howell affair.
It appears that Professor Howell accurately explained Catholic doctrine, in response to an email request from a student. Taken within the context of the course work, there should have been no problem with that.
When Professor Howell’s email was (deliberately) taken out of context (by a third party … or parties) he quickly ran afoul of today’s overwhelmingly liberal academic establishment, along with the homosexual subculture, both of which are typically, unalterably opposed to anything (particularly the Catholic Church) that might stand in their way.
The age-old argument against homosexuality… based on the natural law … which … interpreted in light of Catholic tradition … serves as the logical basis for human morality … as well as most western concepts of law and justice … is simply unacceptable to those who wish to create a new order of things … in their own seriously disordered image … and so, in their eyes … it (and Howell) must be strongly opposed and hopefully, destroyed.
Margaret Sanger and the eventual wide-spread acceptance of artificial forms of birth control set the precedent for cultural paradigm shifts of this type, and the homosexuals (and their liberal supporters) hope to achieve nothing less.
What these radicals do not understand is that should they actually succeed, they will be attempting to legitimize their perverted and destructive behavior at the expense of the unalterable truth. Professor Howell pointed this out, and now he is suffering the consequences.
Should that sad day actually arrive, it would mark the end of civilization, as we presently know it … since the natural law is (and always has been) as fundamental to the smooth workings of society … as is gravity (and all the other various physical laws) to the smooth and proper functioning of the universe.
Ironically, Margaret Sanger’s perverted view of things, along with her explicit rejection of the natural law, proves this … since nothing that Sanger ever did, said, or promoted … even when coupled with huge sums of money, provided through widespread government and private subsidies … ever served to accomplish anything other than making it legal for desperate, misguided people to (cheaply and efficiently) kill huge numbers of innocent human beings (mostly babies).
In short … ANYTHING that runs counter to the natural law MUST (by nature) be a lie or a falsehood … so it should be rejected.
Thanks to the widespread ignorance and/or rejection of the natural law in today’s society, the ideological linkage between the pro-death, pro-homosexual, anti-family and anti-church movements continues to become stronger and stronger. And that, my friends … is the type of CHANGE that Barack Obama (along with liberal Democrats, Republicans, academics and clergy) have been peddling, for lo, these many years!
July 15, 2010
Categories: Books & Publications, Catholic Q & A, Events, Human Rights, Politics . Tags: Barack Obama, birth-control, Catholic-Church, civilization, death, homosexuality, liberals, lies, Margaret Sanger, natural law, Professor Howell, University of Illinois . Author: Hosted by Doug Lawrence . Comments: Leave a comment