Pope’s January […]
Tag: intention
St. Paul’s celebrates Masses for Facebook followers
MADISON — On Monday, July 21, the St. Paul University Catholic Center Facebook page was sitting with a strong following of 900 followers.
After the page’s administrator had a short conversation with Fr. Mark Miller — the recently arrived new director of student ministries at St. Paul’s — the following was posted on the page:
“If we reach 1,000 Facebook page ‘likes’ by the end of the week, Fr. Mark will say a Mass for just our Facebook followers:) Please click on our page and on the left hand side, click to invite your friends to like our page!”
Black and white, or gray?
One widely-encountered idea today is that there is no black and white when it comes to morality, only a kind of “gray area.” This is often taken to mean that we really can’t know with certainty what is right and wrong, allowing us to “push into the gray” as we make certain moral decisions that at first glance appear to be immoral.
The behavior of the semi-legendary figure of Robin Hood is sometimes mentioned as an example of this “gray area” phenomenon, since he was a character who would steal money (morally bad) for the purposes of helping the poor (morally good).
‘Gray’ shrouds immoral actions
By focusing on the good intentions motivating our choices, and by arguing that morality is ambiguous and mostly “gray” anyway, a person can more easily justify and provide cover for morally problematic actions. When we begin to scrutinize the claim that morality is “gray,” however, we encounter significant problems and contradictions.