re: #1236 jill e

I really don’t like this man at all. But I do not and can not know the state of his soul. A believing Catholic who is excommunicated is essentially spiritually dead. This man is a modern day Prodigal Son. None of us are privvy to what he has recanted. We’re all assuming he’s the same hate-filled, nonsense spewing person he was before. I think Daisy said it earlier that this is an act of mercy. It’s just too bad that this is being used as another opportunity to do the same to the Catholic Church. I’m officially done on this thread! Thanks to anyone who listened!

Jill -
I think I read that you converted to Catholicism after 9/11.
I was born and raised Catholic, and so perhaps if I were newer to it all, I might have the gentler view that you have.

We do not know what is in this man’s soul, that is true.

What we do have is our observations about his character, from what he says and espouses.

When I was a teen, my mom would not allow me to go to Elvis movies nor to the Annette “Beach Blanket” movies.

I had a friend, however, whose mom allowed her to go to those movies, as long as she went to confession afterwards.

I proposed this to my mom once, who was smart enough to let me know right away that confession does not exist to allow us to go about sinning freely, to have the sins blessed away, and then to continue committing the same sins.

I see that as what has happened with this fellow. His “sin” was so egregious that he was excommunicated. His words are still hate-filled nonsense, and that does not give me the feeling that he has reflected on and repudiated his sins. In fact, he seems quite content to continue on, in the belief that his sins can be “blessed away” after the fact, and the reinstatement seems to me to have given him reason to believe that.

So I feel free to speak out against his reinstatement.

But you are correct, I do not know what is in his soul. And so I will hope that I am wrong in my assessment that he should not have been reinstated.