I got an e-mail from my mom the other day; nothing new there. It was a copy of a letter she had sent to the Education Minister of Alberta; something new here.
Even though Alberta is generally considered the Canadian Bible-belt, they are putting forward a new law that would force everyone – even Catholic schools – to teach kids that homosexuality was normal. (I know certain Americans are probably already shaking their heads: “Well look at you Canadians.”) I would encourage anyone who has the grace to be an Albertan to write your MLA (Member Legislative Assembly) and the education minister like my mom has but I think there is a bigger issue than this particular government’s action.
What is normal?
Normal can either be descriptive or prescriptive. A descriptive normal means what most do or what comes naturally: chicks take 21 days to hatch, most boys like sports, or some people have homosexual desires. A prescriptive normal would instead mean what one should do: don’t drink motor oil, don’t lie, or thou shall not discriminate.
Such anti-discrimination laws take a descriptive norm (some people are homosexual) and make a prescriptive norm (homosexuality is good). However, if all descriptive norms become prescriptive norms, there are no prescriptive norms – or, put another way, society does not know what is good for man. True love and true happiness come from doing what is truly good: a man can claim he is happy as a street bum but even he would rather have a roof. True good is obviously prescriptive.
A strong Catholic faith does not fall into the descriptive norms today, but it is a prescriptive norm for humanity. God wants everyone to know Jesus in his Church. Those of us who live our faith strongly in Regnum Christi and the Legion – or in a myriad of other ways the Church offers – are truly normal.
We may seem like we are on the loosing side, but Christ already won; those of us left here on earth just haven’t realized yet (the book of Revelation is the movie trailer). A priest represents the door to the other side. The prescriptive norm for our whole life is found in the Old Baltimore Catechism (Q. 6) “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in heaven.”
