Someone tell me to stop spanking bigots spouting legal hogwash

Will do... just, let me read it first...

Pierce is all kinds of awesome, and his "About This Blog" may be the very best About This Blog ever.

You know, I never knew that. That's kind of awesome.

Isn't it, though? Between that, the doctrine of informed conscience (i.e., if the Church says X and you examine your conscience, pray, research, ruthlessly strip yourself of all the self-justifying bullshit, devil's advocate your own argument to pieces, and yet still find a bedrock, bone-deep refusal to stomach X and a bedrock, bone-deep commitment to Not-X, God will be much prouder of you for following that inner voice than for stifling it and going along to get along), and the fact that practically everyone now knows that the Vatican took its anti-BC in direct opposition to the near-unanimous recommendation of the commission it had convened to study the question (theologians, lower-down bishops, parish priests, married couples, physicians, and therapists specializing in marriage counseling) that the Church was in fact morally obligated to say yes to BC -- in the long run, they're just totally fucked on this, from within.

It's all well and good and sometimes right on to say that you can't dismantle the master's house using the master's tools, but if the master goes around handing out its own tools to everyone, which is what Vatican II amounts to, the master's got no one but himself to blame if people use 'em and he doesn't like the results.

oi. you made a good point Consuela.

spanking bigots spouting

I would prefer never to see this phrase so close to the phrase "Santorum surges" ever again. Please, it's lunchtime over here.

JZ, I love you. That is the Catholic Church I want to be a part of. The current version is just driving me away with its intractability and resistance to change. I miss the peace I used to feel when I went to Mass. These days, I'm more culturally Catholic than anything else. My religious practice has become incredibly insular and isolated.

edited for terrible typing.

So far I'm not seeing any condescension. You're doing a great job of explaining complex and jargon-filled matters of law in clear, lay-friendly terms. No condescension, just blessed clarity. It's almost like you've studied it all and could do it for a living or something.

(((MFNLaw)))

I love when JZ gets all Catholic.

me too. it is sexier than The Thorn Birds.

Hee!