# Catholics thinking of ordaining women? \[i.e. Roman Catholic Church's priorities fucked up. E **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 17, 2010, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholics-thinking-of-ordaining-women-i-e-roman-catholic-churchs-priorities-fucked-up-e/547036 "2010-07-17T15:04:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholics-thinking-of-ordaining-women-i-e-roman-catholic-churchs-priorities-fucked-up-e/547036/61 "2010-07-18T17:25:35Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Now that the thread title reflects the true nature of the OP (let’s bash the RCC), and now that there is a thread dedicated to discussing whether or not the RCC is a club, I’m going to take my argument over there. You guys can continue your bashing of the RCC here. > > **Revenant Threshold** : BTW, I was raised Catholic, indoctrinated in Catholic schools, and quite easily became a non-believer as a teenager. It wasn’t difficult in the least. Most Americans seem to have no trouble being “cafeteria Catholics”, and not letting the belief system interfere with their life in any significant way. > > For example, when I was kid, the large Catholic family was a cliche. Now it’s an endangered species. We re discussing pedophile priests, church cover ups and women being treated as second class citizens. How is it possible to discuss those without appearing to bash the church? They have been historically and presently on the wrong side for a long time. Lets not bash them. Lets say it is a private club and that makes such actions justified. It does not work for me. I was raised catholic but they accidently gave me real values. I think the church should not cover up pedophile priests and should allow women to have equal status in the church. Those positions are the thread. Defend them if you can. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholics-thinking-of-ordaining-women-i-e-roman-catholic-churchs-priorities-fucked-up-e/547036/62 "2010-07-18T17:48:12Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > But that’s the whole point of what it means to practice this religion. You get tempted all the time to disobey the rules and you choose not to give in. You could steal, but you choose not to. You could cheat on your wife, but you choose not to. You could get an abortion, but you choose not to. Right, I get that. I’m just saying that given the general effect of giving in to temptation, the effect of being removed from a club is rather less of a serious thing than is excommunication. Basically that it’s a weak analogy; excommunication is a much stronger potential negative than is being kicked out out of a club. > [@](#): > > Not a big deal, but I think it’s inaccurate. You’re not barred from attending Church services. You’re not shunned, and you’re easily able to rejoin if you repent. You’re not ejected physically, but you are ejected spiritually, as I understand it. You may still sit in a church, surrounded by fellow believers, but you no longer belong to that community. > [@](#): > > No, I didn’t mean that you were bashing the RCC. I made that post, and then realized I hadn’t answered your earlier question. Thanks for clearing it up. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholics-thinking-of-ordaining-women-i-e-roman-catholic-churchs-priorities-fucked-up-e/547036/63 "2010-07-18T18:05:02Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > This was a particularly gutless move by anonymous mods. Do they plan on making a habit of changing titles to reflect their own personal biases? If they thought the thread deserved to be moved to the pit, they should have done that, not graffitied the title. > I’d start a little ATMB thread on this, but I just don’t care enough to do so. Read the flipping thread. How many posts have even mentioned ordination of women? How many posts have addressed the issue of whether the RCC is evil? Rather than simply change the title (that was already misleading\* because the RCC is clearly not intending to ordain women), so that posters looking for the ongoing discussion could not find the thread, I added the subtext that indicated the actual discussion. I am not sure what bias you perceive. The discussion is clearly whether the RCC is evil and the limits on the length of titles precluded adding a subtitle such as: “Resolved: The Roman Catholic Church is Evil as demonstrated by their equation of priestly pedophilia to the ordination of women” (which would also have been inaccurate, but I am not dictating the positions to be taken by posters). - The title was not deliberately misleading and was probably an appropriate lead-in to the thread as it was posted in MPSIMS. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholics-thinking-of-ordaining-women-i-e-roman-catholic-churchs-priorities-fucked-up-e/547036/64 "2010-07-18T18:08:17Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > Right, I get that. I’m just saying that given the general effect of giving in to temptation, the effect of being removed from a club is rather less of a serious thing than is excommunication. Basically that it’s a weak analogy; excommunication is a much stronger potential negative than is being kicked out out of a club. You’re not ejected physically, but you are ejected spiritually, as I understand it. You may still sit in a church, surrounded by fellow believers, but you no longer belong to that community. Thanks for clearing it up. I replied in [this thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12698718&posted=1#post12698718) ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholics-thinking-of-ordaining-women-i-e-roman-catholic-churchs-priorities-fucked-up-e/547036/65 "2010-07-18T18:22:03Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > Basically that it’s a weak analogy; excommunication is a much stronger potential negative than is being kicked out out of a club. So what? If I get a chain letter warning me that I will have seven years bad luck unless I forward it to ten of my friends, I am not under any obligation, spiritual or otherwise, to comply. I don’t believe in bad luck. So I ignore it. That doesn’t mean everyone who got the stupid thing is a member of a religion and can’t leave. Either what a church teaches is correct, or it isn’t. If it’s ocrrect, it would be stupid to leave. If what it teaches isn’t correct, it would be stupid not to, and all the empty threats in the world don’t change that. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholics-thinking-of-ordaining-women-i-e-roman-catholic-churchs-priorities-fucked-up-e/547036/66 "2010-07-18T19:04:02Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Read the flipping thread. How many posts have even mentioned ordination of women? Several have, **Tom**. Why did you steer the thread in a pitworthy direction, when with a bit of effort, you could have reinforced, the women/ordination aspect? Your “RCC=evil” labelling degraded the thread rather than improved it. IMHO, that’s not a proper use of moderatorial power, _especially_ when it’s done anonymously. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholics-thinking-of-ordaining-women-i-e-roman-catholic-churchs-priorities-fucked-up-e/547036/67 "2010-07-18T19:09:51Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > And if you get married again, you’re committing adultery. I believe the party line is, “We hope that you disgusting sinners will get into heaven, but we can’t promise anything.” So you moved the goalposts from divorce=Hell to divorce plus remarriage is akin to adultery which could be a mortal sin (of which the Church teaches you may be completely absolved), and by the way, in practice, annulments are available to just about anyone who wants one. Believe me, the most hardcore of Catholics aren’t happy (at the grassroots level) with how the institutional Church is “soft” on divorce when various Kennedys get an annulment (which is a declaration that no sacramental marriage **ever** existed) to guys who had 30 year marriages with five kids. Also, once again, all the harsh adjectives are coming out of your mouth – “disgusting sinners” was not what I got from the actual text you quoted. > [@](#): > > That’s the absolute purpose of the policy against masturbation. It doesn’t matter if no one is taken in by it (which is absurd, because for a fact I was afraid I was going to hell for beating the weasel), what matters is that these asshats are trying to make kids feel like sinning garbage. Yeah, this convinces me that you and others taking your tack have spent very little time in actual Catholic churches or schools in recent decades. It would be entirely possible to be a weekly communicant for the past twenty years without hearing a single reference from the pulpit or elsewhere to masturbation, contraception, divorce, or homosexuality. Parochial priests exert little to no effort to involve themselves in anything controversial or to run their parishoners’ personal lives. Depending on the priest, you’d have gotten, maybe, one or two homilies each year touching on abortion. Seriously, this is reality as opposed to your stereotyped, outdated, or imaginary version of how life is lived by contemporary Catholics. Ah, you contend, but the institutional Church is **trying** to force the hellfire and damnation down everyone’s throats (they’re just really ineffectual at it). But, not really. I’ve already mentioned how little stomach most parochial priests have for taking a hard line on these issues. The bishops aren’t much more active. For all that some have threatened to deny communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion, I’m not aware that this has ever happened (it may have, but not on any widespread basis). And if the Church is really interested in conveying a message of damnation sin and Hellfire, you’d think they’d be really active in pursuing apostates, masturbators, divorcees, sodomites – after all, they have the perfect ready made tool in excommunication, which is the formal separation from the supposed saving grace of the one true Church. How come these firebreathing evildoers, then, resort to excommunication to get their in terrorerm message across on a . . . almost nonexistent basis? I mentioned the topics you would have to try very hard to hear the average parish priest or educator mention or dwell on at length today. More broadly, I could have said that the words “sin” and certainly “Hell” or “going to Hell” would be orders of magnitude less commonly heard in 99% of churches, cathedrals, basilicas in the West than your strawman movie version of Catholicism posits. The Catechism and other stuff coming out of the Vatican post V II is much more apt to speak regretfully of people who misuse their free will so as to separate themselves from God’s love, and the door is always left open to repentence. Homilies are much more likely to speak of “sin” rather than “sins,” with the implication that we all, as a people, could always try harder to do the right thing (rather than enumerating individual peccadillos and singling individuals out for some form of damnation). So, no official doctrine uses the hellfire language (disgusting, garbage, sinners) that you imported; on-the-ground Catholics are not quaking in their boots over these (non-existent) threats that the priests and bishops (aren’t) delivering. I’m not seeing the evil, other than in your adjective strewn caricature of the Church as it actually exists and operates. The only two points I can join on are: –I think the Church is overly-aspirational on abstinence-only issues, and it does have implications that aren’t uniformly helpful when abstinence fails. –While the New York Times and others who hate the Church’s social policies have taken an unholy glee in attacking the Church over the abuse scandal, I don’t think the Church has any leg to stand on in counter-attacking and I think the inquiry needs to be merciless and swift. Benedict made a start by booting that Mexican pervert Maciel, but I’d be happy with them rooting out the lavendar mafia and other miscreants root and branch. Does it mean kicking out 10% or 15% of priests? So be it, and no whining from the institutional Church or its defenders. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholics-thinking-of-ordaining-women-i-e-roman-catholic-churchs-priorities-fucked-up-e/547036/68 "2010-07-18T19:26:00Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > Several have, **Tom**. Why did you steer the thread in a pitworthy direction, when with a bit of effort, you could have reinforced, the women/ordination aspect? Your “RCC=evil” labelling degraded the thread rather than improved it. IMHO, that’s not a proper use of moderatorial power, _especially_ when it’s done anonymously. Nothing has moved this thread toward the Pit and if you have any more complaints about Moderation, take it to ATMB. [/Modding] ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholics-thinking-of-ordaining-women-i-e-roman-catholic-churchs-priorities-fucked-up-e/547036/69 "2010-07-18T19:32:29Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > So you moved the goalposts from divorce=Hell to divorce plus remarriage is akin to adultery which could be a mortal sin (of which the Church teaches you may be completely absolved), and by the way, in practice, annulments are available to just about anyone who wants one. Believe me, the most hardcore of Catholics aren’t happy (at the grassroots level) with how the institutional Church is “soft” on divorce when various Kennedys get an annulment (which is a declaration that no sacramental marriage **ever** existed) to guys who had 30 year marriages with five kids. Also, once again, all the harsh adjectives are coming out of your mouth – “disgusting sinners” was not what I got from the actual text you quoted. I didn’t move the goalposts. I suggest that most if not all people who get divorces intend to pursue additional relationships afterwards. As for what you get from the text, it sounded to me like someone being polite to a guest that’s just shit himself. > [@](#): > > Yeah, this convinces me that you and others taking your tack have spent very little time in actual Catholic churches or schools in recent decades. It would be entirely possible to be a weekly communicant for the past twenty years without hearing a single reference from the pulpit or elsewhere to masturbation, contraception, divorce, or homosexuality. Parochial priests exert little to no effort to involve themselves in anything controversial or to run their parishoners’ personal lives. Depending on the priest, you’d have gotten, maybe, one or two homilies each year touching on abortion. Seriously, this is reality as opposed to your stereotyped, outdated, or imaginary version of how life is lived by contemporary Catholics. Again, the fact that some people are ignoring what the Church’s tenets are doesn’t mean that the RCC as an organization isn’t doing evil things. It means that most people are good, and will ignore monstrous gibberish that the Church wants to impose. > [@](#): > > Ah, you contend, but the institutional Church is **trying** to force the hellfire and damnation down everyone’s throats (they’re just really ineffectual at it). But, not really. I’ve already mentioned how little stomach most parochial priests have for taking a hard line on these issues. The bishops aren’t much more active. For all that some have threatened to deny communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion, I’m not aware that this has ever happened (it may have, but not on any widespread basis). And if the Church is really interested in conveying a message of damnation sin and Hellfire, you’d think they’d be really active in pursuing apostates, masturbators, divorcees, sodomites – after all, they have the perfect ready made tool in excommunication, which is the formal separation from the supposed saving grace of the one true Church. How come these firebreathing evildoers, then, resort to excommunication to get their in terrorerm message across on a . . . almost nonexistent basis? They don’t sell hellfire nowadays because there is less of a market for it. I would assume that they don’t excommunicate often because it’s not worth the trouble unless the person is high-profile. > [@](#): > > I mentioned the topics you would have to try very hard to hear the average parish priest or educator mention or dwell on at length today. More broadly, I could have said that the words “sin” and certainly “Hell” or “going to Hell” would be orders of magnitude less commonly heard in 99% of churches, cathedrals, basilicas in the West than your strawman movie version of Catholicism posits. The Catechism and other stuff coming out of the Vatican post V II is much more apt to speak regretfully of people who misuse their free will so as to separate themselves from God’s love, and the door is always left open to repentence. Homilies are much more likely to speak of “sin” rather than “sins,” with the implication that we all, as a people, could always try harder to do the right thing (rather than enumerating individual peccadillos and singling individuals out for some form of damnation). > > So, no official doctrine uses the hellfire language (disgusting, garbage, sinners) that you imported; on-the-ground Catholics are not quaking in their boots over these (non-existent) threats that the priests and bishops (aren’t) delivering. I’m not seeing the evil, other than in your adjective strewn caricature of the Church as it actually exists and operates. Again, the Church is a (the) path to salvation. Like a salesman they create the problem (the need for salvation) and want to sell you the solution. To someone who actually believes (not the Cafeteria-Catholic type) the teachings are vital to achieving salvation. And if someone does actually get an abortion or whatever, they often have horrible guilt. The guilt is also the fault of the RCC. > [@](#): > > The only two points I can join on are: > > –I think the Church is overly-aspirational on abstinence-only issues, and it does have implications that aren’t uniformly helpful when abstinence fails. > –While the New York Times and others who hate the Church’s social policies have taken an unholy glee in attacking the Church over the abuse scandal, I don’t think the Church has any leg to stand on in counter-attacking and I think the inquiry needs to be merciless and swift. Benedict made a start by booting that Mexican pervert Maciel, but I’d be happy with them rooting out the lavendar mafia and other miscreants root and branch. Does it mean kicking out 10% or 15% of priests? So be it, and no whining from the institutional Church or its defenders. I do agree with that. I don’t have problem with Catholics, I know quite a few, I just think of them as victims of the RCC’s insane policies. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholics-thinking-of-ordaining-women-i-e-roman-catholic-churchs-priorities-fucked-up-e/547036/70 "2010-07-18T19:48:03Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Nothing has moved this thread toward the Pit and if you have any more complaints about Moderation, take it to ATMB. > > [/Modding] Okydoke. I just don’t want to participate in a stupid “RCC=evil” thread. Had it been labelled as such from the start, I’d’ve stayed out. Now that it is labelled that way, I’ll stay out. But I want it clear that that’s not the way this thread began its life. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholics-thinking-of-ordaining-women-i-e-roman-catholic-churchs-priorities-fucked-up-e/547036/71 "2010-07-19T02:06:21Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > I think you just answered your own question. Condoms would be more effective in preventing AIDS in Africa if not for Catholic propaganda against their use and effectiveness. > > If you’re going to claim that _any_ other organisation has expended the organisation’s resources to repeatedly move child abusers to greener pastures when they get caught, _I’ll_ be needing a cite. > > Yes, they have that _legal_ right. That does not prevent their desired laws from being _morally_ abhorrent. Yeah, those guys screwing prostitutes and having multiple non-spouse sexual partners refrain from using condoms because they want to follow the Pope. > [@Lobohan](#): > > The only birth control that works is artificial birth control, so you’re wrong there. Being pregnant and not being able to terminate will inevitably lead to suffering. Try hard, I trust that you will eventually come up with a scenario. > > You are mis-informed. There isn’t a willful attempt to move around and hide the information about pedophiles in any other industry I’m aware of. And seriously, fuck the pope for being a part of it. > > Condoms work. Explain in detail how African Aids has super powers. > > Read my quotes above to find out why you’re no correct. Or you could write in detail why I’m wrong. 😃 > > There is no person involved in the vast majority of cases. But even if you are silly enough to believe in a soul, killing the mother to save no one is evil. > > They don’t have a right to make others live by them. And in any case, they’re still evil. You can see it, you just don’t want to. Sorry your church’s administration is a bunch of assholes. > > Catholics in general are probably as good as the population. Catholic administrators have worked together to produce an evil organization. If they aren’t evil, they’re incompetent. I can come with scenarios galore, it doens’t invalidate my point. I’m sure that not being able to kill an innocent human being can cause suffering. Handing out condoms by the miilions doesn’t work and hasn’t worked. If you wanted to decrease the prevalence of AIDS by the increase of condom use, you must do several things before and after the handing of rubbers. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/27/AR2009032702825.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/27/AR2009032702825.html) > **[Response: The Catholic church is right: the condom is no cure for Aids in Africa](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/oct/07/catholic-church-condoms-africa)** > > Response: The countries preaching abstention and faithfulness have seen a drop in cases, says Giuseppe Caramazza ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholics-thinking-of-ordaining-women-i-e-roman-catholic-churchs-priorities-fucked-up-e/547036/72 "2010-07-22T21:17:55Z")
ATMB Discussion of thread rechristening may be found here: [Is this mod behavior acceptable [editing titles with bias]?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=571494) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholics-thinking-of-ordaining-women-i-e-roman-catholic-churchs-priorities-fucked-up-e/547036/73 "2010-07-22T21:34:58Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > They’re so not OK with pedophilia, as a matter of fact, that they made it as serious an offense as abusing the host and a woman acting as a priest. OK, let’s see, you’ve got this woman in priest’s vestments, and she’s lubing a host with vaseline and there’s a 9-year-old boy lying facedown naked on the altar – have I got the whole picture here? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholics-thinking-of-ordaining-women-i-e-roman-catholic-churchs-priorities-fucked-up-e/547036.md?page=3)