from beliefnet.org
Judges' Faith Does Matter
At times, a Catholic Supreme Court judge may be religiously obligated to put his beliefs first--and recuse himself.
By Stephen Bainbridge
In September 1960, John F. Kennedy famously told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association:
"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President--should he be Catholic--how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.
During his recent confirmation hearings, new Chief Justice John Roberts addressed questions about the role his Catholic faith might play in his judicial decision making by embracing the Kennedy formulation.
One of the 10 commandments is Thou Shall not commit adultry!
ADULTRY
The Lord Jesus had much to say about adultery. He went so far as to say that even the very thought of adultery is sin. The Bible teaches us that those who practice this and other types of immorality will surely come under the judgment of God. "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, no idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." (I Corinthians 6:9-10)
In the Old Testament, someone caught in the act of adultery was to be put to death. What a difference there is between how God looks at adultery and the way we exalt it on television and in the movies. Our promiscuous society will not escape the penalty for their sins. The Bible says, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." (Galatians 6:7)
For any one that has been overtaken in this sin, there is only one hope-it is the forgiveness that Christ offers to all who repent of their sinful condition and believe on Him for eternal life! Whether you are a man or a woman, it makes no difference. God is ready to forgive you if you will only ask Him to. The Bible says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (I John 1:9) Isn't it wonderful to know God loves us so? Will you pray this prayer, "O, God, forgive me of my sin. I believe that Jesus Christ died for me and rose again the third day. I receive Him now as my only hope of salvation."?
Adultery
Catholic Encyclopedia
It is the purpose of this article to consider adultery with reference only to morality. The study of it, as more particularly affecting the bond of marriage, will be found under the head of Divorce. The discussion of adultery may be ordered under three general divisions:
I. Nature of adultery;
II. Its guilt;
III. Obligations entailed upon the offenders.
I. NATURE OF ADULTERY
Adultery is defined as carnal connection between a married person and one unmarried, or between a married person and the spouse of another. It is seen to differ from fornication in that it supposes the marriage of one or both of the agents. Nor is it necessary that this marriage be already consummated; it need only be what theologians call matrimonium ratum. Sexual commerce with one engaged to another does not, it is most generally held, constitute adultery. Again, adultery, as the definition declares, is committed in carnal intercourse. Nevertheless immodest actions indulged in between a married person and another not the lawful spouse, while not of the same degree of guilt, are of the same character of malice as adultery (Sanchez, De Mat., L. IX. Disp. XLVI, n. 17). It must be added, however, that St. Alphonsus Liguori, with most theologians, declares that even between lawful man and wife adultery is committed when their intercourse takes the form of sodomy (S. Liguori L. III, n. 446).
Among savages generally adultery is rigorously condemned and punished. But it is condemned and punished only as a violation of the husband's rights. Among such peoples the wife is commonly reckoned as the property of her spouse, and adultery, therefore, is identified with theft. But it is theft of an aggravated kind, as the property which it would spoliate is more highly appraised than other chattels. So it is that in some parts of Africa the seducer is punished with the loss of one or both hands, as one who has perpetrated a robbery upon the husband (Reade, Savage Africa, p. 61). But it is not the seducer alone that suffers. Dire penalties are visited upon the offending wife by her wronged spouse in many instances she is made to endure such a bodily mutilation as will, in the mind of the aggrieved husband, prevent her being thereafter a temptation to other men (Schoolcraft, Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, I, 236; V, 683, 684, 686; also H.H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, I, 514). If, however, the wronged husband could visit swift and terrible retribution upon the adulterous wife, the latter was allowed no cause against the unfaithful husband; and this discrimination found in the practices of savage peoples is moreover set forth in nearly all ancient codes of law. The Laws of Manu are Striking on this point. In ancient India, "though destitute of virtue or seeking pleasure elsewhere, or devoid of good qualities, yet a husband must be constantly worshipped as a god by a faithful wife"; on the other, hand, "if a wife, proud of the greatness of her relatives or [her own] excellence, violates the duty which she owes to her lord, the king shall cause her to be devoured by dogs in a place frequented by many" (Laws of Manu, V, 154; VIII, 371).
In the Graeco-Roman world we find stringent laws against adultery, yet almost throughout they discriminate against the wife. The ancient idea that the wife was the property of the husband is still operative. The lending of wives practiced among some savages was, as Plutarch tells us, encouraged also by Lycurgus, though, be it observed, from a motive other than that which actuated the savages (Plutarch, Lycurgus, XXIX). The recognized license of the Greek husband may be seen in the following passage of the Oration against Neaera, the author of which is uncertain, though it has been attributed to Demosthenes: "We keep mistresses for our pleasures, concubines for constant attendance, and wives to bear us legitimate children, and to be our faithful housekeepers. Yet, because of the wrong done to the husband only, the Athenian lawgiver Solon, allowed any man to kill an, adulterer whom he had taken in the act" (Plutarch, Solon).
In the early Roman Law the jus tori belonged to the husband. There was, therefore, no such thing as the crime of adultery on the part of a husband towards his wife. Moreover, this crime was not committed unless one of the parties was a married woman (Dig., XLVIII, ad leg. Jul.). That the Roman husband often took advantage of his legal immunity is well known. Thus we are told by the historian Spartianus that Verus, the colleague of Marcus Aurelius, did not hesitate to declare to his reproaching wife: "Uxor enim dignitatis nomen est, non voluptatis." (Verus, V). Later on in Roman history, as the late William E.H. Lecky has shown the idea that the husband owed a fidelity like that demanded of the wife must have gained ground at least in theory. This Lecky gathers from the legal maxim of Ulpian: "It seems most unfair for a man to require from a wife the chastity he does not himself practice" (Cod. Just., Digest, XLVIII, 5-13; Lecky, History of European Morals, II, 313).
In the Mosaic Law, as in the old Roman Law, adultery meant only the carnal intercourse of a wife with a man who was not her lawful husband. The intercourse of a married man with a single woman was not accounted adultery, but fornication. The penal statute on the subject, in Lev., xx, 10, makes this clear: "If any man commit adultery with the wife of another and defile his neighbor's wife let them be put to death both the adulterer and the adulteress." (See also Deuteronomy 22:22) This was quite in keeping with the prevailing practice of polygamy among the Israelites. In the Christian law this discrimination against the wife is emphatically repudiated. In the law of Jesus Christ regarding marriage the unfaithful husband loses his ancient immunity (Matthew 19:3-13). The obligation of mutual fidelity, incumbent upon husband as well as wife, is moreover implied in the notion of the Christian sacrament, in which is symbolized the ineffable and lasting union of the Heavenly Bridegroom and His unspotted Bride, the Church, St. Paul insists with emphasis upon the duty of equal mutual fidelity in both the marital partners (1 Corinthians 7:4); and several of the Fathers of the Church, as Tertullian (De Monogamia, cix), Lactantius (Divin. Instit., LVI, c. xxiii), St. Gregory Nazianzen (Oratio, xxxi), and St. Augustine (De Bono Conjugati, n. 4), have given clear expression to the same idea. But the notion that obligations of fidelity rested upon the husband the same as upon the wife is one that has not always found practical exemplification in the laws of Christian states. Despite the protests of Mr. Gladstone, the English Parliament passed, in 1857, a law by which a husband may obtain absolute divorce on account of simple adultery in his wife, while the latter can be freed from her adulterous husband only when his infidelity has been attended with such cruelty "as would have entitled her to a divorce a mensâ et toro." The same discrimination against the wife is found in some of our early New England colonies. Thus, in Massachusetts the adultery of the husband, unlike that of the wife, was not sufficient ground for divorce. And the same most likely was the case in Plymouth Plantation (Howard, A History of Matrimonial Institutions, II, 331-351). At present, in our States there is not this discrimination, but divorce, when granted on the ground of adultery, is obtainable by the wife just as by the husband.
II. GUILT OF ADULTERY
We have referred to the severe punishment meted out to the adulterous woman and her seducer among savages. It is clear, however, that the severity of these penalties did not find their sanction in anything like an adequate idea of the guilt of this crime. In contrast with such rigour is the lofty benignity of Jesus Christ towards the one guilty of adultery (John 8:3, 4), a contrast as marked as that which exists between the Christian doctrine regarding the malice of this sin and the idea of its guilt which prevailed before the Christian era. In the early discipline of the Church we see reflected a sense of the enormity of adultery, though it must be admitted that the severity of this legislation, such as that, for instance, which we find in canons 8 and 47 of the Council of Elvira (c. 300), must be largely accounted for by the general harshness of the times. Considering now the act in itself, adultery, forbidden by the sixth commandment, has in it a twofold malice, In common with fornication it violates chastity, and it is, besides, a sin against justice. Drawing a distinction between these two elements of malice, certain casuists, early in the seventeenth century, declared that intercourse with a married woman, when her husband gave his consent, constituted not the sin of adultery, but of fornication. It would, therefore, they contended, be sufficient for the penitent, having committed this act, to accuse himself of the latter sin only in confession. At the instance of the Archbishop of Mechlin, the Academy of Louvain, in the year 1653, censured as false and erroneous the proposition: "Copula cum conjugata consentiente marito non est adulterium, adeoque sufficit in confessione dicere se esse fornicatum." The same proposition was condemned by Innocent XI, 2 March, 1679 (Denzinger, Enchir., p. 222, 5th ed.). The falsity of this doctrine appears from the very etymology of the word adultery, for the term signifies the going into the bed of another (St. Thom., II-II:154:8). And the consent of the husband is unavailing to strip the act by which another has intercourse with his wife of this essential characterization. Again, the right of the husband over his wife is qualified by the good of human generation. This good regards not only the birth, but the nourishment and education, of offspring, and its postulates cannot in any way be affected by the consent of parents. Such consent, therefore, as subversive of the good of human generation, becomes juridically void. It cannot, therefore, be adduced as a ground for the doctrine set forth in the condemned proposition above mentioned. For the legal axiom that an injury is not done to one who knows and wills it (scienti et volenti non fit injuria) finds no place when the consent is thus vitiated.
But it may be contended that the consent of the husband lessens the enormity of adultery to the extent that whereas, ordinarily, there is a double malice -- that against the good of human generation and that against the private rights of the husband with the consent of the latter there is only the first-named malice; hence, one having had carnal intercourse with another's wife, her husband consenting, should in confession declare the circumstance of this permission that he may not accuse himself of that of which he is not guilty: In answer to this, it must be said that the injury offered the husband in adultery is done him not as a private individual but as a member of a marital society, upon whom it is incumbent to consult the good of the prospective child. As such, his consent does not avail to take away the malice of which it is question. Whence it follows that there is no obligation to reveal the fact of his consent in the case we have supposed (Viva, Damnatae Theses, 318). And here it may be observed that the consenting husband may be understood to have renounced his right to any restitution.
The question has been discussed, whether in adultery committed with a Christian, as distinct from that committed with a Pagan, there would be special malice against the sacrament constituting a sin against religion. Though some theologians have held that such would be the case, it should be said, with Viva, that the fact that the sinful person was a Christian would create an aggravating circumstance only, which would not call for specification in confession.
It need hardly be said that when the parties to adultery are both married the sin is more grievous than when one of them is single. Nor is it sufficient for a married person whose guilty partner in this act was also married to declare in confession the fact simply of having committed adultery. The circumstance that both parties to the sin were married is one that must be made known. Again the adulterer in his confession must specify whether, as married, he violated his own marriage pledge or; as single he brought about the violation of the marriage pledge of another. Finally, it is to be observed that in case only one of the parties to adultery is married, a more heinous sin is committed when the married person is the woman than when she is the unmarried agent. For in the former instance the due process of generation is not infrequently interfered with, to the injury of the lawful husband; moreover, uncertainty of parentage may result, and even a false heir may be imposed upon the family. Such a distinction as is here remarked, therefore, calls for specification in the confessional.
III. OBLIGATIONS ENTAILED UPON THE OFFENDERS
As we have seen, the sin of adultery implies an act of injustice. This is committed against the lawful spouse of the adulterer or adulteress. By the adultery of a wife, besides the injury done the husband by her infidelity, a spurious child may be born which he may think himself bound to sustain, and which may perhaps become his heir. For the injury suffered in the unfaithfulness of his wife restitution must be made to the husband, should he become apprised of the crime. Nor is the obligation of this restitution ordinarily discharged by an award of money. A more commensurate reparation, when possible, is to be offered. Whenever it is certain that the offspring is illegitimate, and when the adulterer has employed violence to make the woman sin, he is bound to refund the expenses incurred by the putative father in the support of the spurious child, and to make restitution for any inheritance which this child may receive. In case he did not employ violence, there being on his part but a simple concurrence, then, according to the more probable opinion of theologians, the adulterer and adulteress are equally bound to the restitution just described. Even when one has moved the other to sin both are bound to restitution, though most theologians say that the obligation is more immediately pressing upon the one who induced the other to sin. When it is not sure that the offspring is illegitimate the common opinion of theologians is that the sinful parties are not bound to restitution. As for the adulterous mother, in case she cannot secretly undo the injustice resulting from the presence of her illegitimate child, she is not obliged to reveal her sin either to her husband or to her spurious offspring, unless the evil which the good name of the mother might sustain is less than that which would inevitably come from her failure to make such a revelation. Again, in case there would not be the danger of infamy, she would be held to reveal her sin when she could reasonably hope that such a manifestation would be productive of good results. This kind of issue, however, would be necessarily rare.
No need to be so formal, nancyann - most folks not hurling epithets at me just call me "timber" :wink:
Hadda laugh reading about the pup getting trapped - I can just see it. Not too long ago, one of ours managed somehow to get wedged between the washing machine and the wall behind it - whatta racket
Yeh, Timber I was so glad he wasn't head first ! He was so stuck I had to move the whole bed away from the wall and he stopped crying! What a big baby, aren't they! Your's too?
This morning he woke me up at 4 a.m.. I thought he wanted to go out to the bathroom. So I got my shoes on only to find one of them already in his mouth! When I got outside he just stood there. Nothing! So we came in. AH but when we always come in he gets his bisquit. That us what he wanted at that hour of the morning! He has been doing that lately! I keep thinking that his kidneys are failing, but he is just getting extra bisquits! I got him a new kind and he loves them!
n
Wherever God has allowed you to be in life today, burn with His love. Burn!
nancyann Deren, IOLA wrote:...As for the dog, it looks just like my almost 13 year old doberman pinscher. But "Timberlandko" from A2K found it for me and fixed it so I could post it for me. He was so kind to me! It looks just like HIM, exactly!...
Your dog looks like Timber???
Hee hee
Timber has feathers, but is mighty fine looking, just like nancy's pooch.
You guys are crazy, a nice crazy!
If anyone in the forum ever comes to Massachusetts, and would like to meet sometime, let me know and I will take you out to eat! We could chat! You could contact me at my profile!
n
It's nice to post in a thread where teeth are not constantly being bared.
Not that I can't hold my own, of course.
Neo, you are doing a fine job! Yeh I know what you mean!
n
What is the matter whith America? Are people afraid to stand up for what is right? God? Come on America?
Don't buy Pepsi in the new can. Pepsi has a new "patriotic" can
coming out with pictures of the Empire State Building, and the
Pledge of Allegiance on them.
However, Pepsi left out two little words on the pledge,
"Under God."
Pepsi said they didn't want to offend anyone.
In that case, we don't
want to offend anyone at the Pepsi corporate office, either!
So if we don't buy any Pepsi product, they will not be offended
when they don't receive our money that has the words
"In God We Trust" on it.
I don't know if you people have ever met Timber but he posted a pictute in the profile on the website he mentioned there and he is quite a good looking chap, not as good looking though as my doberman!
! Neo, beat that one! Bet you can't!
Timber you may get me back too! :wink:
n
The name of the movie is "Brokeback Mountain." I had it wrong the first time in the title!
n
Thank you for the correction. My source was not right and I did not check it. Thank you for the correction and the truth. I am so sorry everyone for the misinformation!
Nancyann
Holy Cross Family Ministries -
January 15, 2006
Holy family Ministry
Prayer of the Day
My heart rejoices in the Lord, my Savior. (1Sam 2)
God our Father, my heart does rejoice in the Lord, for he has taught us how to listen with our hearts. We pray that others will
grow in their love for the Lord and that he will show them how to listen with their hearts. As we come before you in prayer, we
pray for all that lives within our hearts and ask that you hold us close to you this day. We ask this through our Lord Jesus
Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
