Pope Benedict to retire

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Unfortunately, people take the teachings of God and pervert them to hide their own bigotry. Like the whole gay thing. Yes, the old testament says that 2 men shouldn't lie together but, in the same book, it also says you shouldn't eat pork or shellfish and that you shouldn't lie with an unclean woman...childbirth is one of the things that makes women unclean.
People always pick and choose what they want to follow (whether that's religious or not) and hide behind other things.
At the end of the day, the first lesson of any religion is love and forgiveness FOR ALL but not many people out there are capable of putting aside their personal likes and dislikes to follow those teachings.

 

I never understood this. How can anyone, at the end of the day, defend sexual exploitation of minors? It's f'in grotesque that it was, and continues to be, defended to the extent it has been by the church.

In my opinion, not only should these individuals have been prosecuted by the appropriate authorities in their home countries (there were problems all over the globe with this, besides just the U.S.), but the church should have fully cooperated with the prosecution of these crude, exploitative bastards. Then the church should have ransacked its doctrine, schools, admittance procedures, authority figures, etc, to root all this stuff out, and in a very public way, in order to figure out why so many pedophiles were taking the cloth (1 is an abberation, 10 might be a sign of a bigger problem, but to the best of my recollection, we're talking about dozens or hundreds of priests across the globe going back decades). I also believe they should have ex-communicated (or whatever it takes to kick them out of the church, literally and figuratively) every priest who was reasonably guilty of abusing individuals, and they should publically do it, and they should have done it to every priest who had already died, too.

Of course, the burden of proof being what it is, it would be difficult to do these things. It is such a repugnant thing that it's difficult to investigate, let alone the difficulties posed by the nature of time and distance from some of these crimes.

 

I recall in my protestant upbringing (not too far off from catholicism really) that the concept of forgiveness was paramount. So basically, as long as a person is sorry for whatever they did (yes, up to and including child molestation and even murder), the church has to back them. That doesn't mean condoning what they did or campaigning for their release from jail, but it does mean not excommunicating them et al. I have no idea if any or all catholic pedophile priests repented or not, but I would suspect many did. Whether genuinely or just 'officially' is anyone's guess.

This of course doesn't address the many associated problems like "do you really mean it?" and keeping time with the dregs of the earth and so on, and it certainly doesn't get around the issues the catholic church has with operating like some gigantic government entity and all the cludgy bureaucracy that goes with one, but I think it does go a long to way to explaining the "you're off the hook" concept. The modern church isn't going to do any public stonings.

 

To be honest, I don't blame him. I'd leave my job too if my boss never showed up.

 

I'm not quite so pessimistic as BTA. I believe there are some Catholic men who find they are not attracted to women and choose to become priests -- with every hope and intent that the commitment of joining the priesthood and the help of God they will overcomes their "weakness." Unfortunately, just having faith is too often not enough.

For many, these feelings (be it homosexuality or pedophilia) are often too embarrassing to talk about and so they do not get the help and assistance they need. I do not deny the opinion that men join the priesthood as preditors and use the cloth to hide their acts; I just believe the majority join the priesthood for the right reasons.

In theory that's correct. Too bad reality tells us differently.

 

Hmmm....

http://itccs.org/2013/02/14/pope-benedict-to-seek-immunity-and-protection-from-italian-president-giorgio-napolitano-on-february-23/

 

Tal, I may have initially misunderstood you. When you referred to God leveling "palaces" I figured that comment came from someone who was never Catholic.

But I can sympathize with your emotions in that when you are let down or betrayed by those close to you (or that you care about) it can hit harder than if it was by a stranger.

To those who criticize the Catholic Church some of the stronger critics come from within.

I don't know what you talk about in specific. Here in the US it is possible for people to loose their life savings or pensions but usually by investing badly (sometimes being manipulated into it) or by those running a company taking it in a wildly risky direction without clearly explaining to shareholders, government, or the public in general what they were planning.

I don't know what you refer to specifically in Europe but it isn't impossible to see a corrupt or greedy priests or church officials stealing from donations or funds parishioners put together.

I'm glad it doesn't happen all that often (I sure hope it doesn't). But I can see it happening.

The US has bad religious actors. The US allows Scientology to get away with breaking up families and ruining lives as well as less outwardly weird branches of Christianity engaging in corruption and who knows what else.

I take it you live in a rural area somewhere that is too isolated/unpopulated to have a diversity of religions, branches of a single religion, or different parishes within the same branch of a religion. Being in an actual city I guess I'm lucky to have these as well as a home parish that, while not perfect, is good in multiple ways.

If you want to go into greater detail about what happened feel free to.







Barmy

I would be a bit cautious with that website. It could turn out to be horribly true or not.

I know US treatment of American Indians has a history of being horrible and Canada may have followed.

I can believe that even as recently as the 1960s and 70s a US American Indian reservation was allowed to be run like a strongman's dictatorship with thugs enforcing his will.

That being said I find the allegation that Catholic, Methodist, Anglican, and more church officials cooperated with the Canadian government as recently as the 1970s to molest and then murder 50,000 American Indian children questionable.

I'm sure other churches have had their problems with pedophiles (as have secular organizations such as youth groups).

The Catholic Church is even worse in that church officials often helped cover up the crimes (perhaps thinking that the pedophiles had reformed or simply wishing to avoid embarrassing the Church and thus betraying members of the flock they were to care for).

Perhaps to a level that even reached the current Pope (the coverup rather than the pedophilia).

But the allegation of mass scale multi-denominational and governmental atrocity and coverup I question.

Horrible things have been done and proven to be true later-as the US military testing chemical weapons on a group of its own troops during the Vietnam War era. (Not to mention a number of atrocities done during that war.) Or purposeful infection with and avoidance of treatment for black people with syphilis.

I can also believe conspiracies are quite possible today. Perhaps a group of wealth and/or corporate interests bribed or bullied a victim of child molestation into falsely taking back his claims about a former prosector that dropped his case so said prosector could go on to win an important State Supreme Court race that was even gaining some national attention.

But it is also possible the victim made false accusations about said State Supreme Court Justice and let his own hurt and anger lash out even at people who were innocent.

Horrible things can and have happened. But before one claims a more modern day and purposefully done Trail of Tears took place be careful, ask if those making the claims may be stretching a bit.

 

As someone who was raised Catholic, and who attended a Catholic University, I was surprised that in one of my religious classes - taught by a priest no less - plainly stated that this was a primary motivation for the ban. While he stated that the Church sugar-coated it at the time - and still do to this day - the most reasonable explanation was to keep the wealth within the church. Do not forget that short of nobility, priests/bishops/cardinals/etc were among the wealthies individuals in the nation.

My opinion is quite simple and I'll state it as bluntly as possible. People like sex, and if you are in a position where members of the opposite sex aren't possibilities, you'll f--- whatever is around. Some will turn to other men, some will turn to boys, and some will go visit the most recent initiates of the nunnery - the typical age to join in the Middle Ages was 12. Nuff said.

 

While I would agree that rational people can follow even irrational beliefs (i.e. I believe Kenneth Miller is a Catholic for example), you are really stretching here to claim that there is an "organized atheism". That there are many who agree with atheism and find common grounds to argue for atheism per se, does not make the case for this claim.

That organized religion can be so for good causes, charity etc. I would agree. But they do so as an aside from their being religious. In other words, charitable people act charitably. Bill Gates is a charitable person. There are many charitable Catholics. There are undoubtedly non-religious and also atheistic persons who are not charitable is true also.

I am a fan of charity and doing good. I see no reason to tie such to religion or lack thereof. I am against there being a "Catholics for feeding children" as well as a "People who are against religion but are for feeding children" charity.

Why? Because we do not need to tie the act of feeding children to being religious or being against religion.

Being irreligious is irrelevant to the matter.

 

What would you consider organized atheism? Look at the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. These guys essentially organize around eliminating religion from society wherever possible. Not to mention that their figurehead promotes stereotypes of religion and religious people that are untrue and downright degrading at times.

I'm not sure I agree. Perhaps this is true for some people, but I fail to see the logic in the idea that believing in a code of conduct that states that charity is an essential part of morality has no effect on their charitable actions.

Why? Christian values heavily promote charity as well as openly expressing their beliefs (as far as I know, i'm not an expert in the bible but i've read most of it). What is wrong with Catholics calling themselves Catholics while they help people? It's not like their going to force you to believe like they do in order to get aid.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/201...amid-gay-bishop-blackmail-inquiry?INTCMP=SRCH

Hmmmm.

 

That's a good publication, too. Probably the best newspaper in the UK.

 

I find the new guy kind of interesting -- he's clearly more canny politically and his selection of 'Francis' as his papal name serves, I think, as a profound indication of his opinion on the state of the modern Church. Moreover, his decision at the time to ask the congregation to bless him before he delivered his invocation was incredibly unusual as well, and definitely in keeping with the spirit of what St Francis stood for. I expect a lot of change -- at least on the surface.

Francis is credited with saving the Church from itself during the protestant reformation. That this new pope would choose this name indicates either hubris or clear eyed recognition of the desperate straits of the modern Church. I'm inclined to go with the latter. I doubt that this man is truly as humble as he wishes to appear, but I do believe he recognizes the importance of appearing as such. We may well see the Church dragged (kicking and screaming, I'm sure) into the modern world in our lifetimes.

It won't bring me back to the Church -- I'd need to believe in God for that -- but it will probably go a long way.

 

Hey Drew ... kind of late to the party on this one. You should join on a few of the other threads as well....