Friday, January 28, 2011

The Mind of the Church

Now the intent of New Diasporia is to be as accurate as possible in matters of Natural Law, Church teaching and morality. It's your game and I don't have Dogma police to chase you down, if in your own game, you decide to make the Church corrupt or claim that the Church will change Dogma in the future or that Mars is inhabited by pink unicorns who serve some mythical Hindu god.
However the intent of New Diasporia is that the Church be holy as Our Lord is holy, and that as it has from the beginning that the Church's Dogma be unchanging and unchangeable. If this is your intent then it is important to understand the difference between dogma, disciplines and practice.
The perpetual virginity of Mary is a dogma. The Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is a dogma. The fact that there are seven Sacraments is a dogma.
Priestly celibacy in the Roman rite is a discipline. The custom of allowing married men to be ordained in the Eastern and Orthodox Churches, but not to allow ordained single men to marry is a practice.
It is possible for the Church to alter a discipline. So yes it is possible that some day the Roman Rite may allow married men to be ordained (as a more general rather than highly specific practice.) It is unlikely that the Church would change the very ancient practice of not allowing ordained men to marry, or of raising married men to the bishopric.
In my New Diasporia universe I have chosen to have the Roman Rite continue to follow its ancient discipline.  But it is perfectly proper to decide in your game that the Church no longer follows that particular discipline. I would not set the Dogma police on you even if I could.
The Church cannot ordain women to the priesthood. It can not give up its moral stands rooted in Natural Law, so its stands on family structure, sexual activity and promiscuity, all of which are based on Natural Law, as well as Scriptural teaching, will not change.
Will some members of the Church disagree with these stands, perhaps even live lives in contradiction to them. Most certainly. They can even be Player Characters. But under the general tone of the game they will not be highly admired and are likely to come to a bad end, barring a conversion moment. That is the reality of life and of the Church. We were never promised that the members of the Church would be holy, or that her ministers would be holy, only that the Church itself would be holy, and that only through the working of the Holy Spirit.

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