Protecting the ones we love.

Alicia has a very good post on her blog here. I think it was precipitated by a rather lively discussion I became involved in on the Lilac Rose blog with a commenter named Anon.

Alicia writes:

I have my share of it too. I want to protect those I love and even those I have never met from what I see as the errors of common value systems such as secular humanism, scientism, the worship of sexual expression as the highest good, or whatever.

I totally agree with that. It was one of my motivations for participating on debate boards, and it was a motivation for starting this blog. In particular I feel called to defend marriage, family, children, motherhood and how all of those relate to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

In my mind however, I understand that defending the Church and her treasure of teachings is NOT the same thing as defending some of the abuses that have gone on by some of the individuals in the church. I totally understand that before the second coming, the church is going to be run and lead by sinners, my self included in any area I am given stewardship of. What the dilemma becomes then, is trying to show people that the church of Angela’s Ashes isn’t the church at all. In fact, those people abused the very church they claimed to love and serve as much as they hurt individuals. But the trick is to separate it all out and that’s very difficult sometimes when there is a lot of raw emotion and painful experiences in the mix.

I’m not always successful at it. I’m pretty sure Anon doesn’t think so. My experience from long-time participation on message boards is that this type of witness takes, weeks, months, years. It’s possible that type of witness might not have any effect for decades, when some other event causes it to suddenly start to take root, long after my participation is gone and forgotten.

It’s also probable that sometimes I shoot myself in the foot. My rant about Scott Peterson sure wasn’t a good witness. Anon called me on that one and was right to do so. So that post is gone. The nice thing about being a Catholic is that we are a church of repentence, forgiveness and moving forward in our pilgrimage.

So I’ll blog here as a witness as best I can. I’ll comment elsewhere as I’m able – knowing full well that this blog leaves me naked, and exposed and gives anonymous commentors an advantage. It’s just what I feel called to do for now.