This is the Bishop Cardinal George. Please forgive my ignorance; I imagine there is an appropriate honorific that I should use. I'm not of the Catholic faith, so I've missed the lessons in rank.
Bishop Cardinal George is struggling through cancer treatments. Radiation. My mother went through that, so did many friends. It is rough on the person in so very many ways. I wish him nothing but the best.
So, why am I writing about him? Well, as I said, I found myself caught in a conflict. You see, in the past years, the Catholic Church has come out strongly against contraception and gay marriage. The reason for the contraception issue: God made sex for conception and bearing life. The reason for no gay marriage? Well, they say it's because the man/woman thing is completing, man/man or woman/woman is against God's design. (?)
And, let's face it, there are a number of other issues out there many of you could detail.
My conflict: When did God allow the use of poisonous radiation, chemotherapy, to interfere with his plan for this man to leave earth and go to heaven? I don't recall anywhere it saying that the taking in of poison is acceptable?
Further: This Church will tell you that a priest is married to the Church, is married to God. A ceremony in which the other party has not been able to stand up and say "I Do" - or at least I don't think so. And yet, I am told that my desire to marry an adult of legal standing, capable of expressing his own mind and desire to marry me, is unnatural and not tolerable.
I'm not here to be a church basher. I'm not saying that anyone is a horrible being. But, I am saying that something doesn't seem to add up. If I am to be free to love, to live life more abundantly, more perfectly, a relationship of mutual respect, concern and love ought to be enough.
I wish you abundant and long life, Sir. And, I ask, perhaps you and your cohorts could keep you nose out of my life.
