I am sorry, but you are incorrect. As I said, a bishop and his diocese can be likened to the governors of states: Governors are all Americans under the same American flag and US Constitution, but no governor has any say at all in what another governor of another state does, and neither does the president.
Under Canon Law the Pope cannot just come into the Arch-Diocese of Los Angeles, for example, and start calling the shots. Its just not done. In keeping with my analogy, the president can’t come to Sacramento and start ordering around the governor’s staff either.
I really don’t think it has. I do remember reading a lot of wild headlines and accusations, but when the investigations turned up nothing, the stories sort of died away. I don’t recall (and I could be wrong) a single instance of the Vatican knowingly covering up a credible sexual abuse allegation.
Thankfully, the alleged incidences of sexual abuse seem to have peaked in the early 1980’s, so whatever the Church has been doing in terms of “screening” priests appears to be working. It’s a horrible thing to happen to even one child, but just as God forgives us, we can forgive those misguided Bishops who handeld these accusations poorly, and even the priests themselves (though we would not want them to return to active ministry).
And we have to give credit where credit is due vis a vis remedial action. People will always seek out the priesthood for the wrong reasons, and no human agency will ever be able to weed them all out, just as no school, day care, or family can be 100% prepared for an abuser within their respective spheres.
It is no secret the Lberals are infiltrating the Church and screwing things up on the local levels.
But I would ask you: Was your faith that tenuous that you let e few jugheads screw it up for you? If you TRULY believed in the Faith, you would not let them do that. To coin a phrase, “We cannot leave Peter because of Judas”.
I doubt you will be able to show statistics that prove some of the things you claim but it might be interesting. For example “Because the media PROMOTES the homosexual lifestyle” sounds like an opinion to me. An opinion you are welcome to hold if you like. My question is whether you have formulated this for yourself or is it the actual stated position of the church.
That’s very interesting. From watching my friend who has found (or maybe returned) to her faith, it seems to me to have an emotional substratum: she is much much happier now that she has her faith. And because of that, I am happy for her. I wonder whether part of that happiness is the feeling of being cared for, as one is during childhood.
Yet there is a core to faith which is utterly incomprehensible to me. I just don’t get it. If it’s not logical or rational, and it’s not emotional, what is it? I said to her once that it would literally take a miracle for me to understand it, something on the order of the Divine Finger reaching down and rearranging my brain.
So revelation is one of the axioms of the system. Makes sense to me. If you have it, you have it, and if you don’t, you don’t, and there’s not much else that can be said about it.
I wish more people got this. When people put up as articles of faith things that have actually been proven wrong, it weakens the whole intellectual authority of religion.
It’s as if I said, “The sky is purple”. Not “I believe that the sky is purple”, but an actual statement of fact that the sky is purple. And you looked outside and saw that it was blue. Then you’d be less likely to believe any of the other things I say.
You consider the catholic church - a human organization created by human (Jesus was human even by Catholic standards), and staffed by humans and has undergone human changes for 2000 years, to be God’s invention?
Was selling indulgences God’s invention? How about the crusades? The people responsible for them were being guided by God after all.
I’ll let the biblical experts deal with the writing of the bible part…
An actual analysis of the historical behavior of the Catholic Church would seem to demonstrate just how human it is…
The pope can remove a bishop. The pope appoints bishops. The pope directs and admonishes and supports bishops. When bishops do things the Vatican actually wants to take action on, the Vatican takes action. Let a bishop, for example, start marrying gays and see how long it takes for the Vatican to step in.
It’s absolute bullshit to in any way compare this to state governors and the president. A much closer analogy is ambassadors and the president.
And yeah, I know that the Vatican tries to argue, now, that they just had no idea and no ability to control those wascally bishops now that it’s a matter of record what the bishops were doing (sometimes at the behest of the Vatican) and now that the Vatican is in danger of lawsuit for their craven and despicable efforts to guarantee that RCC priests had a constant supply of ignorant victims.
I’d like to repeat this question. I’m not Catholic, but a close cousin (Anglican) and my political views are very similar to Beniamino’s – which makes it hard to choose who to vote for, although I typically end up voting Democrat. I know conservative Anglicans who consider voting for any pro-choice candidate practically an unforgivable sin, yet do not worry about the rights of the poor or powerless. Jesus addressed one of these two issues quite often, and it wasn’t abortion… Do you find yourself identifying more closely with one political party or the other?
See, that’s what I was getting at with my post #19. I don’t know if you’re drawing a distinction between the word “liberal” in the sense of “politically liberal”, e.g., concerned with social issues, or “theologically liberal”, e.g., ad-libbing the mass or other liturgical abuses.
Would you mind addressing my question in post #19?
The Catholic Church is a Divine Instution with human members. Huimans sin: I never denied that. But the “teachings” are what are not in error, and that is duw to the Holy Spirit.
I have given you my perspective. I never said I was going to convince you that I am right
BTW: Indulgences are not an error. “Selling” them was a sin, not condoned by Rome
Thank you. I would like to answer questions about true “Catholicism”, not about the sins of individual people… …an area in which NONE of us are “saints” I think its fair to say.
