Monthly Archives: March 2011

Stating the obvious

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But I suppose it’s right and proper that the Pope does so.

The Jews are not to blame for Jesus’ crucifixion: since he died to atone for the sins of all, we are all to blame.

From here:

The Jews are not to blame for the crucifixion and death of Jesus, Pope Benedict  XVI said today.

In extracts released from his forthcoming book on Jesus of Nazareth, the Pope  completely exonerates the Jewish people of any culpability of the death of Christ.

He directly confronts the controversial text of St Matthew’s Gospel in which ‘the Jews’ demand the execution of Jesus and shout to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate: ‘Let his blood be on us and on our children.’

The passage has been described even by Catholics as a ‘rallying cry for anti-Semites down the centuries’.

But the Pope says the Gospel writer meant the mob in the courtyard and not  the Jewish people in general.

As such the crowd was representative of the whole of sinful humanity, he said.

Then he explains that the blood of Jesus was not ‘poured out against anyone, it is poured out for many, for all’.

Archdeacon David Selzer and the Nazis

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In its battle with ANiC over church property, the Diocese of Ottawa acquired St. Alban’s Church and ANiC retained St. George’s. Not inconsiderable sums of money were also exchanged, with the diocese coming out well ahead – not that the diocese is primarily interested in money. Not at all.

The Diocese of Ottawa has no congregation to put into St. Alban’s, so it is moving a shelter for the homeless there instead. The only problem is, the residents who live close to St. Alban’s don’t want to live next door to a homeless shelter.

Archdeacon David Selzer, exhibiting the kind of tact that distinguishes many ACoC priests, made the point that the residents had no basis for complaining by comparing them to Nazis. The Ven. David Selzer doesn’t live in that neighbourhood himself, of course, nor does he plan on moving there – even after the property values plumment.

From here:

OTTAWA – An Ottawa Anglican Diocese official is comparing neighbourhood opposition to the relocation of a downtown homeless centre and comments by those opposing it to “Nazi Germany.”

After a heated meeting with area residents Monday night, archdeacon David Selzer is “appalled” by comments describing the homeless.

“There was a huge degradation of people using Centre 454 as human beings,” said Selzer.

“People were saying we ought to get rid of these people, carted away. It sounded like Nazi Germany.”

Centre 454 — currently at 216 Murray St. — serves 250 people daily and operates during the day.

Many downtown residents are opposing its move to St. Alban’s Church at 454 King Edward Ave — where it operated from 1976 to 1999. In 2000, the centre moved to its current spot, but that lease expires at the end of January 2012.

Coincidentally, Archdeacon David Selzer appears to have no inclination whatsoever to make any comparisons between the North American abortion industry and the Nazi holocaust – even though the comparison is rather apt. That is because he is staunchly pro-abortion – making him, also, staunchly hypocritical.

The Rev. David Selzer, the rector of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd and an outspoken supporter of abortion rights, is leaving Buffalo to start a new ministry in Ottawa.

Selzer, who is 56, will be joined by Pastor Ann Salmon, 51, also of Good Shepherd, to lead a joint congregation of Anglicans and Lutherans in Ottawa, the first of its kind in Canada.

Selzer and Salmon, along with their spouses and children, will be honored Aug. 24 at the church at a special ceremony.

Selzer came to Good Shepherd in November 1995 and became a vocal advocate for abortion rights in Western New York, offering a contrasting viewpoint to local Catholic leaders who are opposed to abortion………

He served as chairman of the board of Planned Parenthood (now Planned Parenthood of WNY) and was the moderator for the WNY Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

 

The Fall was really a rejection of stewardship

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According to the Anglican Church of Canada:

The first crisis of human stewardship came with our first ancestors’ decision to test the sovereignty of God by consuming the only fruit in the garden reserved exclusively to the Creator. Rejecting stewardship and embracing the illusory promise of sovereign possession of the garden, they initiate a continuing pattern of exploitation, entitlement, violence and destruction that plagues human participation in the life of the earth. There is only one essential stewardship question: Will we make use of resources entrusted to us to serve God’s mission, or for purposes that we ourselves devise or that are thrust upon us by an economy that depends absolutely on growing consumption to sustain it?

The ACoC must be really desperate for money if it has resorted to a more literal interpretation of Adam and the apple than the most fervent fundamentalist.

The usual interpretation of the unhappy events in the Garden of Eden is that Adam rebelled against God by disobeying the one thing God asked him not to do: eat the apple from the tree of life. Adam ate because he wanted to become like God and when he did, sin entered the universe, polluting it and us until the end of time.

Not so for the Anglican Church of Canada: for them it’s all about the apple. It’s God’s apple, you see – he really likes apples – and we pinched it from him: thus began the evil of capitalism.

All this reminds me of what my dog must be thinking when he licks yellow snow and I pull him away: “master wants to lick it himself”.

Paedophilia is a ‘sexual orientation’

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From here:

In a recent parliamentary session on a bill relating to sexual offenses against children, psychology experts claimed that pedophilia is a “sexual orientation” comparable to homosexuality or heterosexuality, a definition that was questioned by one Member of Parliament who was present.

Bill C-54, an Act to Amend the Criminal Code, seeks to increase or impose mandatory minimum penalties or punishment on sexual offenders of children for particular crimes.

Parliamentary discussion on February 14 centered on the mandatory minimum imprisonment and how offenders respond to treatment.  Dr. Vernon Quinsey and Dr. Hubert Van Gijseghem, experts on the issue, were called to witness.

“When we speak of therapy or when individuals get therapy and we feel as though everyone is pacified, the good news is often illusory,” said Van Gijseghem, psychologist and retired professor of the University of Montreal.

“Pedophiles are not simply people who commit a small offence from time to time but rather are grappling with what is equivalent to a sexual orientation just like another individual may be grappling with heterosexuality or even homosexuality,” emphasized Van Gijseghem.

Although this opinion was voiced sooner than expected, I knew it was only a matter of time.

Making paedophilia a sexual orientation prepares the ground for the next step: declaring that the impulse to have sex with children is a morally neutral one.

Since no sane moral framework would ever condone the active expression of a paedophile’s impulse, it’s difficult to see the impulse itself as anything other than wrong.

The same could be said for homosexual inclinations, of course, and that is why the Anglican Church has laboured mightily to convince its flock that there is at least one outlet for homosexual activity that is not wrong: a monogamous, civilly married same-sex partnership.