See post #44.
I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about the RCC, and it’s apologists who maintain that when priests screw up, it’s their own fault, but have no problem taking credit for the priests’ good works.
Is being a really great guy part of taking orders?
It’s a simple concept. A priest is assumed to be speaking for the RCC until he says something bad, at which point he becomes a rogue, or a renegade, or a grandstander. As I said, pretty convenient. I wish I could live my life only being responsible for my good works.
You’re sort of misunderstanding what I’m saying, I think. The RCC is responsible for the actions of their priests when their priests are acting under the instruction of the RCC. Lets start on the most basic level, where the priest in question is acting totally independently of his role.
Lets say a priest kills someone. The Catholic Church didn’t tell him to do it, and doesn’t approve of him doing it. Obviously, the Catholic Church isn’t to blame for that.
With a happier example, the Susan Komen Race for the Cure is going on this Saturday in Washington DC. It’s a charity that raises money to fight breat cancer. Lets say our priest participates in that. Now, that’s certainly a good thing, and I’m sure the Catholic Church wouldn’t have a problem with him doing it, but still, it’s all on him. The Catholic Church isn’t responsible for his racing.
Now, we move on to this example. The priest is doing something that’s against the rules of the Catholic Church. They didn’t want him to do it, if they knew he was going to do it, they would have told him not to, and they wish he didn’t do it. So how are they responsible that he did it?
See the tort-law doctrine of respondeat superior.
Exactly. That link says exactly what Captain amazing has been saying!
That’s beside the fact that its probably a stretch to say a Catholic priest is employed by the church.
Administering a sacrament (or deciding not to) is definitely within the scope and course of a priest’s employment, regardless of when or where.
By whom, then?
This is not a tort case, of course, I only brought up respondeat superior to illustrate the principle. (Think of it as a parable.)
Was he acting as an agent of the Church when he killed someone? The priest in question was acting as a priest. Of course the Church is not responsible for *everything *a priest does. Where did you get that idea? Surely not from me.
Did any victims of the Spanish Inquisition die from their injuries? Was the Church responsible for their deaths? Has the Church ever ordered anyone to be killed? If so, is it responsible?
He was acting as an agent of the Church. Sort of like when a policeman oversteps his authority. The department that trained him and authorizes him accepts responsibility for his actions. They acknowledge it. They institute reforms. They punish him. They do not disavow him by claiming that one should not judge the police force by its members. No respectable organization would behave that way.
From the Catechism: "2267 The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor. "
Surely life in prison with no possibility of parole would defend human lives, and the death penalty would never be the only praticable way?
You could still attend, just not receive. Frankly, I don’t know what to say to friends who receive when I know they shouldn’t. Part of me wonders if they know they shouldn’t receive and do anyway.
If you take communion while in a state of sin, what is the spiritual effect? Is that in itself a sin? Is communion under such circumstances not a true sacrament, just bread and wine in your mouth without Christ’s presence?
Just wondering.
I do find it amusing that Brainglutton is after an irrelevant legal concept to justify his bigotry.
No, a lot of people are really quite heinous and perfectly capable of violence even then.
Taking communion with the weight of venial sin upon you is not sinful.
Taking communion with the weight of mortal sin is itself also a sin, but it’s still the Body and Blood of Christ. It’s the sin of sacrilege, which, if done with full knowledge and deliberate intention, is a mortal sin.
Well, you could imagine a society which cannot possibly sustain a system that can reliably imprison someone for life. In such a situation, the death penalty is permissible.
Here today in the United States, it’s a grave wrong.
It is bigotry to hate Catholics; it is not bigotry to hate the Catholic Church; and it is possible to Pit it without hating it. (If I Pit the U.S. government when it does wrong, that doesn’t mean I hate America.)
But you ARE a liberal, right?
::d&r::
I kid, I kid because I love…
I would go even further and say that there are lots of American Catholics who are critical of the RCC and do not obey its teachings to the letter. There is nothing wrong with being critical of an institution such as the RCC; it does not follow that because one is disapproving that one is a bigot towards those who are a part of that institution. Are the only ones allowed to fault-find those who are members and anyone else is bigoted? Where and when did that rule get written?
Agreed. Without the local Franciscan community, my family would have starved. At our mother’s funeral recently, the two Sisters Rose who had done so much for us for twenty years also led the services. There’s no calculating how much they did for us. I’ve met a lot of nuns and most of them were pleasant, intelligent and wellrounded people.
It is my understanding that if a person goes to communion in the state of sin they commit a sacrilege. As far as I have learned the Bread and Wine are always supposed to be the body and blood of Jesus once the priest has consecrated it at mass.
Monavis
Now, that’s just crazy talk, woman!
I understand that. You are bigoted because you seize upon any chance to hate, and violate the principles and precepts you claim to hold dear to do so. All hate is bigotry, to see the worst and always and everywhere believe the worst. Hate has no place in any good man.
A good man loves even his enemies. You do not.
Anyway, to exapnd upon my earlier remarks referring to the law, it is irrelevant because the law has nothing to do with responsibility. It fixes legal responsibility according to convenience and neccessity, not moral issues.
As a very direct allegory, if I am your employee in a Joe’s Family Carpentry Shop*, and you tell me that a customer is coming in. He will pick up his nice wooden bread serving platter. I am supposed to give him this platter. If I decide I simply don’t like his face, or feel like I have a grudge agaiunst him, and refuse to give him his platter, whose moral fault is that? Mine. If he brings suit against the company, he would be legally correct in saying that as owner you have responsibility. But I am the one who comitted the crime, not you (morally; it’s be a civil infraction instead of a criminal offense, etc. etc.). You may be called to account, but I am the one who did wrong.
Just so here. The Church’s teaching is clear and unequivical. The priest was wrong and it’s obvious he was wrong and several Catholics have already said that this is wholly against Church doctrine and policy. What more can be said? What more could we do?
We have not even the option of “firing” the priest, as excommunication is reserved for the most serious heresies.
(* 
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No, it is not. Nor is all bigotry hate.