<p>Gobluu-</p>
<p>I understand your point about the importance of faith, but faith and reason should never contradict each other. Even the great mysteries of the Church and the fullness of the glory of God, while too great for us to fully comprehend with our finite human minds, are not illogical. You may not be able to see them with your own eyes or prove that they are true, but you can’t prove them wrong either. That is where faith is important. Catholic tradition has never supported simply blindly accepting things that don’t make sense. There would be no great church thinkers if it had. If reason is bringing you away from something you have faith in, perhaps one of them is wrong. That is my issue here. I continue to gather new information and try to reason through it to see if I eventually come to the same conclusion as the Church, but I find I cannot reconcile that with my conscience. I may be wrong on this, but I think I we all have the right and responsibility to question moral teachings that make us uncomfortable. Not ones that we feel are inconvenient, but those that we feel are wrong. The Church is more than a bunch of bishops making arbitrary decisions and telling everyone what to do. The quest for truth is based on both faith AND reason and doesn’t just involve the pope, cardinals, and bishops, but ALL members of the church. That doesn’t mean that all discordant beliefs are right, that would be illogical and ridiculous, but why would God give us reason if not for us ALL to seek to better understand Him? Even authoritative teachings of the church have been refined or even changed in the past. This is of course a fantastically complicated process, but no change would ever occur if people didn’t bother thinking about these things. I think the greatest mistake we can make is getting complacent and stopping our search for moral answers or deferring it to others without question. God gave us the gift of reason, we really ought to use it.</p>
<p>Now I do believe that the Church does not teach anything that will lead one astray from the path of salvation if one is obedient to it. The non-infallible teachings of the church represent the deepest understanding the Church has reached at a given time, but that doesn’t mean they are never wrong. I think that a closer relationship with God requires further inspection into matters of faith and morality than blind obedience. I suppose that has led me to dissent and may make me a bad Catholic, but I’m coming to terms with that.</p>
<p>At least I’m not a Michigan fan :)</p>