Ben Masada
Well-Known Member
The Catholic Church has outlived its time as a church. It is about time to pack and go.
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Moral example of the Catholic Church
- Thread starter Autodidact
- Start date
The Catholic Church has outlived its time as a church. It is about time to pack and go.
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
I didn't say you did. But what moral message do you get from them?
The church rewards those who commit genocide, and condemns those that save lives, and from that you get the message that human life is sacred?!?
Father Heathen
Veteran Member
The point is, even if there is a god, what fool would trust such obviously corrupt and vile humans to dictate morality on god's behalf?
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
Hitler was born, lived and died a Catholic in good standing. At no point did the Church reject, repudiate or excommunicate him. Human life sacred?
Evandr
Stripling Warrior
You have a point and it cannot be denied. For me the reasons are obvious, the trend to ignore the atrocities perpetrated by Hitler was purely wrought from the very valid fear that Hitler would have lined up and shot anyone who opposed him; then, once the trend was established it had to continue or the church would loose face. The Catholic Church has always been about appearances and pomp, truth and scripture has always been manipulated to past over the huge gaps in the reconciliation of God and the policies of the Catholic Church. The infallibility of the Pope is only considered a valid concept so far as it is convenient to do so. God never has been and never will be the author of confusion and the only religion more blatantly contradictory and starkly confusing than Catholicism is Islam.
Ben Masada
Well-Known Member
Hitler was born, lived and died a Catholic in good standing. At no point did the Church reject, repudiate or excommunicate him. Human life sacred?
Thanks Autodidact, pictures speak louder than thousands of words. I did not know about these pictures. I am impressed and feeling inside only disgust for Catholic morality.
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Biblestudent_007
Active Member
I'm not sure how to explain the relationship between the Roman Church and the the Third Reich except in the context of WWII. When someone is elected to office, in this case Adolph Hitler was elected to be the Fuhrer of Germany (1930-1945). Such a figure has some sort of universal acceptance in the social,political,and cultural life. So, if you're a history buff or a WWI and WWII buff that is what you would probably research to find out the facts that lead to answers.
In this particular case, the clergy of the Roman Church appear to be fraternizing with members of the Third Reich.
In this particular case, the clergy of the Roman Church appear to be fraternizing with members of the Third Reich.
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Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
And Mormonism.
Evandr
Stripling Warrior
Not so my fidgety friend, you have embodied in two words the culmination of your limited intellect, TWO WORDS! LOL!
Mormonism is the most coherent religious dogma on the face of the earth bar none. There is no argument among its clergy at all; no different philosophies being taught between groups (from the prophet all the way to the newest deacon anywhere in the world); no smoke and mirrors, there is a good and reasonable answer for everything that the Lord has revealed and no attempt to answer questions that He, in His infinite wisdom, has chosen not to reveal. Everything fits; there is a logical and perfectly reasonable consideration that reconciles the love of God and the concepts of justice and mercy. Although methods of teaching and temporal guidelines can and have been known to change to more fully reflect societies ability to receive the necessary spiritual realities of the Gospel (African Americans and the priesthood and plural marriage are the only two that I know of), the spiritual concepts, guidelines, and ordinances of the Gospel itself have never changed and never will.
If you think Mormonism is confusing you are either crying sour grapes or you know little if anything about it. If you think that the Mormon church is becoming more and more piquliar it is but not because the Church is changing but the world around it.
You may not like what the Mormon Church teaches but if you cannot see order where order exists then you are not looking to present a discussion that has any merit to someone who knows what they are talking about.
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
Hmmm...I'm sure you're in a position to make an objective evaluation. What religion did you say you were? While we're at it, what religion were you raised in as a child?
Evandr
Stripling Warrior
Ya know, your grasping at straws and floundering if you cannot come up with a retort better than that. A favorite movie of mine is Forrest Gump with Tom Hanks. In it he makes a statement that rings true. Its been a long time since I have watched it but the statement is something like "stupid is as stupid does."
Well, a like statement could be said about truth. "Truth is as truth does". My being raised in the Mormon Church does not invalidate anything I said about it. I am a very logical person and I have studied at length the dogmas of various prominent religions and the truth of what I said stands out pristinely. I studied for two semesters understanding terrorist psychology and Islam in college and I have tried to read the encyclopedia of Catholicism but that crossed my eyes after the first page. Stop throwing rocks and present an argument that supports what you have to say.
ninerbuff
godless wonder
What about polygamy? I do believe some LDS factions are for/against it. Wouldn't that be argument amongst clergy?
Evandr
Stripling Warrior
No, not at all; polygamy is a temporal concept or directive used by God to serve His purposes and has nothing to do with the unchanging and everlasting Gospel. It is important to understand that the Gospel of Jesus Christ does not change but the temporal methods of administration has historically changed to take into consideration the social strata of the people and what is needed to be able to teach them. That is one reason the Bible falls short of being a sufficient text for our time, too many misinterpretations, translation errors and/or changes to the spiritual concepts of the Gospel. It is confusion along these lines that causes so many to erroneously believe that they have valid arguments against the LDS Church; they simply do not understand the difference between temporal administration and spiritual guidelines and ordinances.
There is the FLDS group that practices polygamy but that group disenfranchised itself from the LDS church a long time ago by appointing its own prophet never claiming any current revelation from God or the literal laying on of hands which is necessary for the progression of authority, it is a separate entity that the LDS church does not recognize or have anything to do with. If you are going to choose, it will be one or the other just the same way you would have to choose between Mormonism and any other Christian denomination. If you choose to follow the FLDS religion then you will be ex-communicated from the LDS Church. It is true that those within the church may have opinions on the subject that spark some personal debate but you will never find opinions or such debate as part of any instruction within the framework of the church. The leadership of the LDS Church teaches the Gospel as it is revealed by Christ to His prophet and there is no other source from which instruction is garnered; opinion is irrelevant.
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
I see. From before the age of reason, you were inculcated with the belief that LDS theology is the only rational one; you hold this belief to this day, and you think you're in a position to make an objective evaluation of the theology of Catholicism and Islam?
If you would like me to start a thread about all the parts of LDS theology that strike non-Mormons as completely whacko, I'll be happy to do so. We're getting pretty far outside the scope of this one.
I'll just ask this: Had you been born a Muslim in Peshawar, do you think you might feel the same way about Islam vs. LDS as you now do about LDS vs. Islam?
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
And if this seems crystal clear, logical and just plain common sense to you, you may be Mormon. To the rest of us, it seems contorted and bizarre.
Jordan St. Francis
Well-Known Member
The credibility of the Catholic hierarchy may indeed be at an all time low. Similar things have happened before. The Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy and the general corruption of the Medieval episcopate both contributed much to the Reformation and the permanent sundering of Christian unity in the West.
So, I would say, personally, I don't believe God has promised the Church protection from any such kinds of corruption and resultant decline. Those responsible for it may have to answer questions on judgement day the rest of us will be spared.
I forget what saint it was who declared the road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops and priests.
As for the Church's moral authority, well, I don't believe its authority really rests with the present Magisterium, and certainly not in who they decide to ex-communicate or what political priorities undergird their presentation of the Gospel. The Pope and the bishops are not the Church alone, nor are they the living incarnation of sacred tradition.
Those Catholics who feel the constant need to point us to the Pope's words, who quote John Paul II and G.K Chesterton in every second breath are, I think, victims of the ultramontane ghost that has haunted Roman Catholicism for a long time.
Popes have said many insightful things, but also many foolish and reprehensible things. The Catholic people need to shake this sense that the Pope is the ordinary spokesperson for the religion. The papacy certainly never began that way. Popes come and go and contradict each other. When Catholics hang off of his every utterance as though he is disclosing the will of God or holding up the definitive interpretation of the tradition, they all too quickly find themselves with their foot in their mouth.
I have to say, I learned my Catholicism foremost from my mother, grandmother, aunts and school teachers. Suspiciously, from few priests and certainly not the pope. My doctrinal knowledge came later. If most people are honest with themselves, the religion does not begin as an abstract set of ideas to assent to from the hands of a Roman congregation with "living authority", but a living practice in their community who passed on to them, in whatever measure, the substance of traditions from generations past.
So, I would say, personally, I don't believe God has promised the Church protection from any such kinds of corruption and resultant decline. Those responsible for it may have to answer questions on judgement day the rest of us will be spared.
I forget what saint it was who declared the road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops and priests.
As for the Church's moral authority, well, I don't believe its authority really rests with the present Magisterium, and certainly not in who they decide to ex-communicate or what political priorities undergird their presentation of the Gospel. The Pope and the bishops are not the Church alone, nor are they the living incarnation of sacred tradition.
Those Catholics who feel the constant need to point us to the Pope's words, who quote John Paul II and G.K Chesterton in every second breath are, I think, victims of the ultramontane ghost that has haunted Roman Catholicism for a long time.
Popes have said many insightful things, but also many foolish and reprehensible things. The Catholic people need to shake this sense that the Pope is the ordinary spokesperson for the religion. The papacy certainly never began that way. Popes come and go and contradict each other. When Catholics hang off of his every utterance as though he is disclosing the will of God or holding up the definitive interpretation of the tradition, they all too quickly find themselves with their foot in their mouth.
I have to say, I learned my Catholicism foremost from my mother, grandmother, aunts and school teachers. Suspiciously, from few priests and certainly not the pope. My doctrinal knowledge came later. If most people are honest with themselves, the religion does not begin as an abstract set of ideas to assent to from the hands of a Roman congregation with "living authority", but a living practice in their community who passed on to them, in whatever measure, the substance of traditions from generations past.
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Some quotes from George Weigel I thought you might all enjoy:
Overwhelming Majority Of Abuse Cases Was Homosexual Molestation
According to press reports, confirmed by the studies of reputable scholars, the most prominent form of clergy sexual abuse in recent decades has involved homosexual priests abusing teenage boys and young men. It took editors, television personalities, and radio talk-show hosts approximately two and a half months to recognize what print reporters had, in fact, been uncovering for months: namely, that the overwhelming majority of cases of abuse did not involve prepubescent children, but rather teenage boys and young men, often in school or seminary settings. While clinical distinctions (Fixated ephebophilia, regressed or stunted homosexuality) may be helpful for purposes of professional study and therapy, normal English describes such abuse as homosexual molestation.
---------------------------------------
The sexual and physical abuse of children and young people is a global plague; its manifestations run the gamut from fondling by teachers to rape by uncles to kidnapping-and-sex-trafficking. In the United States alone, there are reportedly some 39 million victims of childhood sexual abuse. Forty to sixty percent were abused by family members, including stepfathers and live-in boyfriends of a childs motherthus suggesting that abused children are the principal victims of the sexual revolution, the breakdown of marriage, and the hook-up culture.
Hofstra University professor Charol Shakeshaft reports that 6-10 percent of public school students have been molested in recent yearssome 290,000 between 1991 and 2000. According to other recent studies, 2 percent of sex abuse offenders were Catholic priestsa phenomenon that spiked between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s but seems to have virtually disappeared (six credible cases of clerical sexual abuse in 2009 were reported in the U.S. bishops annual audit, in a Church of some 65,000,000 members).
Yet in a pattern exemplifying the dogs behavior in Proverbs 26:11, the sexual abuse story in the global media (and amongst the Church Haters here) is almost entirely a Catholic story, in which the Catholic Church is portrayed as the epicenter of the sexual abuse of the young, with hints of an ecclesiastical criminal conspiracy involving sexual predators whose predations continue today. That the vast majority of the abuse cases in the United States took place decades ago is of no consequence to this story line.
For the narrative that has been constructed is often less about the protection of the young (for whom the Catholic Church is, by empirical measure, the safest environment for young people in America today) than it is about taking the Church downand, eventually, out, both financially and as a credible voice in the public debate over public policy. For if the Church is a global criminal conspiracy of sexual abusers and their protectors, then the Catholic Church has no claim to a place at the table of public moral argument.
So we know the game. Yawn. What else is new?
Overwhelming Majority Of Abuse Cases Was Homosexual Molestation
According to press reports, confirmed by the studies of reputable scholars, the most prominent form of clergy sexual abuse in recent decades has involved homosexual priests abusing teenage boys and young men. It took editors, television personalities, and radio talk-show hosts approximately two and a half months to recognize what print reporters had, in fact, been uncovering for months: namely, that the overwhelming majority of cases of abuse did not involve prepubescent children, but rather teenage boys and young men, often in school or seminary settings. While clinical distinctions (Fixated ephebophilia, regressed or stunted homosexuality) may be helpful for purposes of professional study and therapy, normal English describes such abuse as homosexual molestation.
---------------------------------------
The sexual and physical abuse of children and young people is a global plague; its manifestations run the gamut from fondling by teachers to rape by uncles to kidnapping-and-sex-trafficking. In the United States alone, there are reportedly some 39 million victims of childhood sexual abuse. Forty to sixty percent were abused by family members, including stepfathers and live-in boyfriends of a childs motherthus suggesting that abused children are the principal victims of the sexual revolution, the breakdown of marriage, and the hook-up culture.
Hofstra University professor Charol Shakeshaft reports that 6-10 percent of public school students have been molested in recent yearssome 290,000 between 1991 and 2000. According to other recent studies, 2 percent of sex abuse offenders were Catholic priestsa phenomenon that spiked between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s but seems to have virtually disappeared (six credible cases of clerical sexual abuse in 2009 were reported in the U.S. bishops annual audit, in a Church of some 65,000,000 members).
Yet in a pattern exemplifying the dogs behavior in Proverbs 26:11, the sexual abuse story in the global media (and amongst the Church Haters here) is almost entirely a Catholic story, in which the Catholic Church is portrayed as the epicenter of the sexual abuse of the young, with hints of an ecclesiastical criminal conspiracy involving sexual predators whose predations continue today. That the vast majority of the abuse cases in the United States took place decades ago is of no consequence to this story line.
For the narrative that has been constructed is often less about the protection of the young (for whom the Catholic Church is, by empirical measure, the safest environment for young people in America today) than it is about taking the Church downand, eventually, out, both financially and as a credible voice in the public debate over public policy. For if the Church is a global criminal conspiracy of sexual abusers and their protectors, then the Catholic Church has no claim to a place at the table of public moral argument.
So we know the game. Yawn. What else is new?
Not just hints; mountains of evidence.
I agree with part of your argument: sexual abuse is not just a Catholic problem. However, there are two issues at play:
- the abuse itself, which reflects only on the abuser.
- the Church's systematic coverup of the abuse, which very much reflects on the entire institution.
The first issue applies to many other organizations. The second issue seems to be unique to the Catholic Church, at least in terms of this scope and scale.
And the abuse cases are still an ongoing concern. Just looking at the religious order that runs my wife's church, there are lawsuits and criminal cases before the courts right now involving four different priests who served in Ontario.
And that's even before we consider very recent developments like the Ryan Report.
If you don't like the media attention, too bad. It's news when child rapists and those who protect them are brought to justice. And when it involves a "cold case", sometimes that increases the story's newsworthiness.
Jordan St. Francis
Well-Known Member
To the factual basis of that, I'm not sure.
But even if so, so what? How does that change anything? Homosexuals are not like a species of creature, so that if a given number of self-denying men are buried deep in the Roman celibate caste where they perpetrate what is criminal it should have some great bearing on gay people who are out and living typical, unrepressed lives.
It's sad to see people try and pawn off the Church's immense moral failure on homosexuals or anything or anyone else. This can't be turned around for another chip in the culture wars. Regardless of who was abusing who, their age or sexuality, we know who and what enabled a culture of secrecy and hid abusers. Its the leaders of our Church.
Really, it doesn't matter if they were homosexuals, pedophiles or Martians. They were still Catholic priests!
But even if so, so what? How does that change anything? Homosexuals are not like a species of creature, so that if a given number of self-denying men are buried deep in the Roman celibate caste where they perpetrate what is criminal it should have some great bearing on gay people who are out and living typical, unrepressed lives.
It's sad to see people try and pawn off the Church's immense moral failure on homosexuals or anything or anyone else. This can't be turned around for another chip in the culture wars. Regardless of who was abusing who, their age or sexuality, we know who and what enabled a culture of secrecy and hid abusers. Its the leaders of our Church.
Really, it doesn't matter if they were homosexuals, pedophiles or Martians. They were still Catholic priests!
Jordan St. Francis: It's sad to see people try and pawn off the Church's immense moral failure on homosexuals or anything or anyone else. This can't be turned around for another chip in the culture wars. Regardless of who was abusing who, their age or sexuality, we know who and what enabled a culture of secrecy and hid abusers. Its the leaders of our Church.
Really, it doesn't matter if they were homosexuals, pedophiles or Martians. They were still Catholic priests!
--------------
DJ: I heartily concur with your conclusion. But pointing out the nature of the abuse crisis -- denying, for example that it has something to do with pedophilia or celibacy, etc. is perfectly legitimate and is not "pawning it off on homosexuls," as you so memorably put it. The Catholic Church in the US did a very probing and honorable report on the crisis so we know what it was about. As for other countries we can only guess but the Church's detractors are coming forth with the same old same old.
And 9-10ths_Penguin: there are no "mountains of evidence" of an "ecclesiastical criminal conspiracy involving sexual predators whose predations continue today." Get a grip. No one claimed the crisis was "over" either, just that the precipitous drop in cases since the Church began enforcing Benedict XVI's directives is good news that the hysteria mongers tend to elide gracefully over.
dj
Really, it doesn't matter if they were homosexuals, pedophiles or Martians. They were still Catholic priests!
--------------
DJ: I heartily concur with your conclusion. But pointing out the nature of the abuse crisis -- denying, for example that it has something to do with pedophilia or celibacy, etc. is perfectly legitimate and is not "pawning it off on homosexuls," as you so memorably put it. The Catholic Church in the US did a very probing and honorable report on the crisis so we know what it was about. As for other countries we can only guess but the Church's detractors are coming forth with the same old same old.
And 9-10ths_Penguin: there are no "mountains of evidence" of an "ecclesiastical criminal conspiracy involving sexual predators whose predations continue today." Get a grip. No one claimed the crisis was "over" either, just that the precipitous drop in cases since the Church began enforcing Benedict XVI's directives is good news that the hysteria mongers tend to elide gracefully over.
dj