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He's someone who talks about his faith and roundly condemns abortion even though the audience he attracts tends to be materialist and libertarian. I think that's hugely admirable.
Of course I don't defend his homosexual lifestyle. But neither does he.
G.K. Chesterton said that he arrived at orthodoxy because he came to the conclusion that heresy was worse than sin. I'm not sure how solid that is in terms of the Catholic tradition, but certainly I feel much more esteem for someone who lives a sinful life but upholds true doctrine, than I do for somebody who is personally virtuous and even austere, but who preaches falsehood. Chesterton's "Song of the Strange Ascetic" comes to mind; "of them who do not have the faith and will not have the fun."
Of course, the best thing is to preach the right thing, and to practice what you preach.
By the way, liberals often attack the Church's sexual teaching because it is proclaimed by "old, celibate males". But how much stranger it is to find old celibate males proclaiming that the Church's traditional sexual teaching is impossible to live by!
I think something's wrong with the link? I'm not getting through to anything...
ReplyDeleteThanks for alerting me. Think it's fixed now.
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