What’s above an A+? A++? Do you just get gold stars at that point?
Whatever the custom, this teenager who attends a Catholic high school deserves all the accolades, and perhaps some scratch-and-sniff stickers, because who doesn’t love those?
The 11th grader, who goes by averagesmurf, was asked to write a paper defending the morals of one of the church’s teachings.
“The assignment is to write a ‘Summa Theologica’ style paper where you present a ‘moral dilemma,’ which is where you give the objections to church teaching and then the replies from the church. The exact words my teacher said in class were that you have to provide the church teaching to ‘show and prove that the church’s position is right,'” the student writes on Reddit.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Instead he turned in a 127-page whopper of a paper, simply titled Gay Marriage is Fabulous.
Here’s how things escalated, in his own words:
In terms of what she (the teacher) went over in class, we had a whole class were kids asked anonymous questions about moral issues and then we discussed it in a large group, afterwards the teacher would provide the church’s teaching and “correct” what we said in our discussion. Then she would move on before we got to put another word in.
When the issue of “why is the church so against gay marriage” came up, I asked for the little “talking ball” and just started going for like 15 minutes on how the bible isn’t a condemnation of homosexuality and in all ways affirms love rather than hate and how god doesn’t make mistakes when he makes us, we are who we are. After which, when she started quoting Aquinas on natural law, I stood up and said that natural law has no basis in scripture, science, and fails the is-ought fallacy presented by David Hume and is bases heavily on divine command theory which fails the euthyphro dilemma. Then I went on about how, when conceiving natural law, Aquinas bases his argument on a law by the Byzantine emperor, Justinian, who wasn’t very intelligent and believed gay people caused “famines and pestilences”.
The bell rang at this point, which did not provide her an opportunity to “correct” my statements. However, in the next class, she changed the format of the class. She did not allow discussions and showed a video the whole class (link). The video insinuates that homosexuality is basically a choice or something caused by abuse and “unhealthy relationships”. Furthermore, during class she’s spouted off standard, conservative bull-sh*t arguments like the “sanctity of marriage”, “gay = aids”, “gay relationships are unhealthy”, “kids need a mom and a dad”, “Gay men are much more likely to be pedophiles”, etc.
When you do actually bring up significant arguments against the church, she vehemently steers around the question and avoids the answer. For instance, in class, when we we’re talking about “gay = pedophilia”, i said that there was no evidence nor science to back the claim up, but rather much to discredit such a laughable theory. Furthermore, I went on to say that the only people who have higher rates of pedophilia are priests who molest little boys. Her response was, “is that a fact? or is that just something the media wants you to believe.” She went on to totally deny that priests had ever molested children.
Many were quick to cry foul, questioning whether the story was made up. 127 is an awful lot of pages, after all.
In a separate response titled “I know people are just going to hate on me, but here’s the full paper,” the student provided a link to the full text, which we will ever-so-happily share here.
Related: This Flow Chart That Destroys Religion’s Case Against Gay Marriage Is So Easy, Any Zealot Can Use It
brandlover
Brave young man; also extremely intelligent. As a devout Roman Catholic myself, I have concluded with certainty that when it comes to human sexuality, the “official Church” has been screwed up for centuries. I mean, even Saint Augustine actually believed and taught that even “taking pleasure” in heterosexual intercourse within a valid marriage was “sinful.” How ludicrous is that? Most sex is pleasurable because that’s the way God designed it. In addition, the time is long past due for serious dialogue between the Church and modern behavioral science on a host of issues, especially the subject of homosexuality.
As a theologian and scholar myself, I have concluded (along with quite a few others) that God, for reasons known perhaps to Him alone, created some people gay. Why should they be left out of being allowed to live a reasonably happy life of love and commitment with another human being of similar orientation? Jesus’ most important “moral” teaching is “love your neighbor as yourself.” I’m afraid that the official Church has forgotten about the primacy of love.
SnakeyJ
You are not a “devout Roman Catholic” if you don’t believe in everything they say. What you’re following is some bastardized version where you take the “teachings” you like, and discard the ones you don’t, then fill in the blanks yourself.
All religion was created to keep people in line. “Listen to the rules, or the gods will get you!” I can’t believe people still buy into this crap.
daniwitz13
One cannot even start to read and know this is NOT his work or writings. It is a manuscript devise long in the making to have so much material and studies over time. It was most likely someone waiting in the shadows for the right occasion to bring it out on unsuspecting victims. It must have been a time consuming event and an individual that delved into it for a long span of time to get the insight that is in it. It is not the normal every day thinker that wrote this. Although very insightful and intelligent person did this,
LucasH
Give the kid his PhD already.
I kant even rite that good.
Fredrick Bertz
The school obviously taught logic and argument very well. I guess they didn’t expect one of their students to use it so well in breaking down dogma.
Terry Asher
The Catholic Church ,even though in denial of it Once Married All, Indiscriminately. Bigotry was adopted, as a means of Appeasing Hetro Church members after Ruling Mariage of Heterosexuals in Church Clergy, were costing Church to much Money . Inheritance, for Sons and Dowlries for Daughters. Prior to Confucius, lists : good-bad, straight-gay, man-woman, rich-poor, etc. You get the idea.
BigDaddy58
Good for the student to stand up for himself, human rights, and human dignity..Very impressive! ?
gaym50ish
It was not until 533 A.D., as part of a sweeping reform of Roman law, that Byzantine (East Roman) Emperor Justinian declared that homosexuality was the crime of the Sodomites and established the death penalty for same-sex relations. In other words, it was not a pope, not a prophet — not even a writer of scripture — who determined that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of homosexuality. It was an emperor who wanted to outlaw same-sex relations and who also linked famines, earthquakes and other natural disasters to the “crime” of homosexuality.
I love what Chicago Sun-Time columnist Neil Steinberg wrote to Cardinal Francis George during the Illinois debate on same-sex marriage: “But worry not — look at the church’s stance on females. While society long ago let them be doctors and lawyers and, yes, even clergy, the church refuses to follow suit. Yet it lives with the anti-women stigma just fine. It’ll be no different with gays, and the church’s position will be just one more antiquated cruelty the world will tolerate. You’ll hardly notice.”
JohnMc888
In the eraly 100o’s a copy of the legal Code of Justinian, lost to the west for centuries, was discovered on the territory of the Papal States. As teh monarch the pope took possession and he and his fellow scholars examined the Code and concluded that judges and courts should not be bound by the rules laid out by Justinian, or the precedents in the Code, but instead the pope and his scholars distilled the principles behind the rules, etablishing the principles as the basis for judgment.They also stated that their approach would allow, as necessary, for “res novae,” the Latin term for innovation, new perspectives and revolution. From there the pope founded Christian Europe’s first universities in order to teach the law and the principles of legal judgment. They added the old Roman Empire’s quadrivium and trivium thus setting the west on a course of independent thought and intellectual innovationa nd discovery.
Aquinas’s Natural law in the matter of sex was based ona primitive biology that was frozen in place centuries before the development of empirical science and biology.. Modern empirical science of course demonstrates that homosexuality is part of nature and not contrary to it. BTW, the pope in the 1800’s condemned Democracy and Liberty as contrary to Natural Law. This condemnation has never been abrogated (how can you abrogate absolute truth, they would say) but was quietly put aside after WWII as the United States and the Vatican formed an alliance to combat “godless communism.”
QGridster64
I haven’t read his paper yet, but I certainly will. What I did do was watch the video that his teacher showed to the class. What I saw were a bunch of people who were struggling to accept themselves – and finally they had to take a break from the struggle, and are now living in some halcyon sea of delusion.
But Wowzers! That Fr. Mike Schmitz is one pretty hot guy!
Mick406
Damn, this kid is smart!!! I received a Catholic education as well, and this fellow proves the value of it. Gotta hand it to the church schools. His writing is on par with someone with a doctorate degree!!!
The Bible, which MAY be inspired by God, was written and compiled by MEN. The same Middle Eastern genetics of the three religions that came out of Mesopotamia, in this order: Jewish, Christian (Catholic) and Islam. Authors of these books had similar stringent mentalities as the Imams and terrorists of today. That is, OLD MEN made rules and transcribed them as coming from God. However, it was simply men trying to control other men. It takes a ‘special person’ to tell everyone else how to live their lives, which by and large translated to: “If it feels good. If it tastes good. If it brings you pleasure, THEN IT MUST BE A SIN!” These crusty old bastards resented that younger people could enjoy sex, food and fun. They loved to say, “Get out of my yard, kid!”
The Bible was codified by the Catholic Church in a 4th century council, where they (MEN!) selected what books THEY thought belonged in the Bible. Then, factor in the various languages of the early writings and all the different meanings of words and language, and these fellows came up with THEIR version of what they THOUGHT God wanted. Down through the ages, the books of the Bible were changed during many new interpretations. The Kings James Version left out 7 books of the original Catholic Bible, tailoring it to the brand new anti-Catholic inspired workings of Henry VIII.
What you get is a corrupt book that is designed to keep a rope around the necks of the masses, just like the Muslims are still trying to do today. It really frightens me when I think of WHERE our religions came from: Twisted Arab logic. The ‘misery’ people. It is hard to believe that the motor that ran the early church was invented by Arabic brains.
Strangely enough, I LOVE most of the aspects of my Catholic Church, yet . . . because I know it is flawed, I pick and choose what I think God is telling ME to do. Not some old men. The Church is a family, just like the flawed families we all come from. Some family members are tolerant and some are not.
I applaud this young man for his take on this subject and his bravery. He is fighting City Hall.
JohnMc888
An international study of secondary schools concluded that Cathoilic schools were rigorous on academics and weak on instilling religion. Protestant schools were found to be weak on academics but rigorous on instilling religion.
fur_hunter
I don’t believe it…..FINALLY!!!!……Someone who GETS IT!!!! Mick406, I have wondered if there was anyone out there who totally understood that THAT BOOK was written by MEN……….NOT GOD! It just drives me crazy when I hear those pathetic, ignorant and bigoted fundamentalists waving it in the air, condemning people, saying……”This is the Word of God!!!” What Bull $H!T. There are so many errors in it, it is laughable. And I have YET to find any other unbiased historical information to support the stories in it. The Egyptians and the parting of the sea. You would have thought some Egyptian scribe would have documented such a jaw-dropping, incredible event. NOTHING!!!!! Not one word. Not one mural. Then you have an old geezer and his sons building a wooden boat, from scratch with axes, hand saws, hammers, that is over half the length of the Titanic and 5 stories high. RIGHT. Sure. In a pig’s eye. The stupidity of that story was proven when they built the replica in Kentucky. Oh….and, of course, the universe and earth all be created in 6 days. WOW!!!! Not millions of years…..Noooooo……..6 days. Mick, you should check out the ark replica. Do you know they have a cage on board with 2 dinosaur replicas in it and they are telling everyone that the dinosaurs died in Noah’s flood. Yep! I have a picture of the cage and the dinosaurs in it. I guess the old adage is true. You can’t fix STUPID. Sorry for taking up your time, but I was so amazed when I read your post I would have done cartwheels, but I have a bum arm. I did clap and cheer, though…..Thanks…..I will look for posts done by you in the future………..Thornton
Archie
I ask Christians and Jews if the one of the Ten Commandments is “Thou shall not kill”. They all answer yes. Except that the correct translation may be “Thou shall not murder”. If they can’t even get the Ten Commandments right then they certainly aren’t going to get anything more complex than bullet points correct.
JamJewel
Speaking of the Ten! I always ask how come, with forty days and forty nights to think about it, he couldn’t get even one mention of sex in there. The closest he came was the one about coveting the neighbors wife which could just as easily have been lumped into coveting the neighbors property because back then, wives were property. So, from jump-street, sex was obviously not seen as a big deal. [Again, sex being weirdly omitted considering the lesson of the apple leads to propagation via incestuous seed making for tons of potential admonitions!] Then along comes the kid and he doesn’t have much to say about it either, all the time hanging with his all-male posse… and the beard. And the dove, and tongues of fire didn’t add anything to the discourse because – no language. Then more than 300 – or 500, if gaym50ish is to be believed – years later, along comes a bunch of pagans to set the record straight about sex and sexuality. Good grief!
JohnMc888
Ah, but the Commandments do not say “Thou shalt not lie,” so the churches are given a license by God Himslef to lie.
The Illuminatti
JohnMc888, there is a commandment about not lying, the 9th commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour”.
Maude
The Bible is not infallible.
You can pick and choose if you want too, or you can just turn away. Your choice.
What then, is conscience?
Is there not an (for want of a better word), emotion of sorts that forbids cruelty for cruelty’s sake?
Where does that arise from?
Our questions always lead us to more questions..
The more we learn or think we learn, the more the questions.
The quest for the answers has plagued humanity since time immemorial.
There is only one answer that truly answers all the questions and it is not religious…It is logic.
Logically speaking, thought itself is all encompassing.
It is the perpetual quest for unattainable answers that bring the questions that continues the near impossibility of self contemplation….There are no answers, there are are only questions.
karl61058
Top marks for standing against bigotry!
To be frank, however, he should, maybe, focus on grammar and spelling so more people will take him more seriously. It’s a little confusing when you need to translate vernacular English to actual English.
Just a thought.
Also, since when did any catholicism crack open a Christian Bible, i.e. God’s Word in written form and not rely on dogma that hasn’t changed and is hateful.
karl61058
Should be a ? on the end of my question and not a period.
JohnMc888
The entirety of the Bible is read at Catholic Masses and Anglican Eucharists over a three year cycle.
Hermes
All forms of Catholicism (Roman, Anglican, Old, Liberal and Utrecht – in order of size, I think) read the entire Bible at Eucharist (Mass for the Romans) on a three year rotation. Now, at least for the Anglicans. I do not know of any who think its “God’s Word in written form” – rather we think its a nice book, written by human beings about human beings seeking deity – but nevertheless its read routinely – you’ve been lied to about other faiths – that might be worth thinking about.
Kind thoughts,
Hermes
chuck
I’m atheist but want to praise this young man for this courageous paper. I found one thing scanning the paper I found questionable, “Mainly, this will present the argument that the Church has no reason to not recognize a committed and loving, monogamous, homosexual marriage.” Aside from the fact that the church is unnecessary at all thanks to civil marriage, monogamy is very questionable as a requirement.
I do admit that we need more people in the world who are anything like this fine young man!
Hermes
Excellent paper – I’ve actually saved it. It crossed my mind that his paper was as erudite and well written as my Master’s thesis (although on a much different topic). I congratulate him.
Kind thoughts,
Hermes
millvalleydon
Excellent, well-researched paper. Apply to Harvard, young man.
karl61058
That’s great, wasn’t brought up in an religious household. I have been studying the Bible for nearly 40 years. And I read what is written to me every day. Since I am not Jewish the Old Testament was not written for me. Because there weren’t any Christians in the majority of that text, yet those scriptures were written “for out learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.”
Do they teach that?
karl61058
Sorry, “for our learning” not “for out learning.” Although…..
James
More reasons to hate the catholic church. Obviously nothing but a hate group on steroids.
John
While the student is more open minded and I agree with his philosophy that wasn’t the assignment. Just like in any debate you should be able to argue a side even if you do not agree with it. Sorry kiddo.
Tombear
Oh please ladies, the concepts of God and Jesus are manmade. Prayer is bogus but it does make the person praying feel better. That is your theology lesson for today.
Invader7
VERY smart student. He showed that a-hole teacher. He ran circles around her lame rhetoric . It’s called CRITICAL thinking skills. Something a lot of schools DO NOT teach students today-to keep them ” dumbed down” so they won’t question the Status Quo / the Establishment. The teachers attempted reinforcement of the RC Churches blatant anti-gay dogma is one reason I quit practicing ANY religion years ago.I’m way happier ,content and free of the insane immorality of “organized religions.” They’re all about control ,$$$ and power.
loulou2lou
Critical thinking is too revolutionary for today thus most students leave school without knowing a twit about it.
ShowMeGuy
Anyone would be hard pressed to defend the morals of the Catholic Church, today.
Everything is a sin but thanks to the confession booth you are forgiven and next weekend you can go out and do all those sins all over again and then revisit the confessional booth again…..lather, rinse, repeat.
Chuck
Thanks for the GREAT advise. Oh wait, I don’t need it… I left the Catholic Church when I transferred out of the Catholic High School. They tried to screw me out of some of my credit, but it backfired on them. My new High School put them in there place. KARMA !
loulou2lou
In small doses it’s o.k. but I wouldn’t make a life out of it.