If I am not mistaken, you’re correct; that is precisely what the Church asserts.
It is not precisely what you said in your laundry list above. And what Bricker responded to was the imprecision.
When engaging Bricker, precision is important. It has been my experience that he is honest and above-board when his opponents hold themselves responsible for the same level of precision that he holds himself to. It has also been my experience that on the occasions when he gets sloppy with his precision, and is called out on it, he accepts correction.
I do not intend to imply that my experience of his posting history and patterns represents the totality of his posting history and patterns.
I’m not inclined to give the RCC a lot of slack, here, but if defrocked isn’t the best term, then suspend the priest, or investigate him, or curtail activities that include contact with children, whatever… The point being that even a single case of a shuffled pedophile priest resets the RCC’s credibility to zero, and they’ll need a good decade or more, I figure, to move it up even slightly. I’m afraid the priest has chosen to affiliate himself with an organization that gets little or no sympathy from me, so I’m entirely unmoved by the plight of the wrongfully accused.
Among the egregious repeat-abuse cases, which is most recent, anyway?
Founded by Jesus Christ, I believe is how they prefer to put it. And if a non-divine entity is given credit, I think that is generally assigned to Paul.
Actually, while I disagree with a lot of what the church teaches, that’s actually wrong. The Catholic church teaches that while each sex act should be OPEN to the possibility of creation, it doesn’t mean it’s WRONG to have sex for pleasure. Just that you should welcome the possibility of a child if it you happen to conceive.
Otherwise, that would mean infertile couples and the elderly would be forbidden to have sex, which isn’t true.
NOT that this excuses the church’s position on birth control.
Yes. But surely you can see that the two statements are not the same.
Sex for non-procreative purposes is fine. Even sex that is planned to avoid procreation is fine: a couple can use the same techniques that fertility doctors suggest to enhance chances of conception to avoid it: charting basal temperature and precise times of ovulation is perfectly acceptable.
What the Church forbids is artificial methods that prevent even the possibility of conception.
Scream all you like about what a foolish view that is. You won’t hear a peep from me.
But you may not characterize it as “sex between married couples for non-procreative purposes is bad.” Sex for non-procreative purposes is fine. Sex that involves an artificial barrier to conception is bad.
That is the current protocol: even s single accusation results in suspension while the allegation is investigated.
Unfortunately, this reads like “advice” from someone who wants to see the Church vanish, and I don’t agree it should be taken at all seriously. You SHOULD be moved by the plight of the wrongfully accused.
Agreed. If the case has any traction, the accused should, at minimum, be removed from contact with children in general and the group of children involved in the accusation in particular. However, the priest has both canon law and civil law right that should not be abridged.
Do all organisation that shuffle child molesters get the same zero-credibility treatment?
Thanks for the honesty. You’re still going to hell tough :), but thanks.
Shit, I only read this very last page of this thread, and I can tell you Bricker knows that full well; he’s taking jabs at the anti-Church side for claiming that anyone who’s not out-and-out condemning the Church with every post is a defender.
Well Bricker, you’re a smart guy - you know that what is just as important as what’s said, is the way that it’s said.
What if the Bishop guy had said something along the lines of “well although canon law automatically excommunicates in cases of abortion, should the facts prove that the mother was at imminient risk of her life, the Nun will be reinstated post haste”?
Just the same as in you policeman case, if the Commisionier of police stressed that the “investigation” was an administrative matter and that he had every confidence that the officer in this case has behaved properly and within the bounds of his training?
And please don’t come back citing some sort of sub-judice clap trap or an unwillingness to influence or pre-empt the findings. With 15 minutes thought, someone famililiar with Canon Law can come up with the appropriate wording for a opinion neutral statement that showed support for the nun.
It is really much more complicated than Bricker suggests. You must have the possibility of pregnancy with each and every sexual act of any kind. The CC accepts PIV intercourse sufficient for this that’s why old people can have sex. However say the husband is impotent because of diabetes for instance, that couple is forbidden from engaging is any kind of sexual expression.
Also NFP “birth control” must only be used for “just reasons” you can’t simply say we are only going to have two children spaced three years apart you must have a good reason to limit family size.
The old rhythm method and the new method is as un natural as it can get! Trying to fool God by not having sex when one can get pregnant, is not good for the couple and their sexual lives. If that were true, then using tubes etc. to keep a person alive when God wanted them dead, would also be a factor. Not allowing the morning after pill when there may not even be a conception is (in my opinion ) just a way of controling a person, if that were allowed, not calling it abortion ,it would leave less women to think of abortion,and a fertile egg is no more a person than a sperm that contains human life as well. I have Catholic friends and relatives whose marriage was bad because they didn’t want as many children as they had. Some lived together nearly 50 years in unhappy marriages because of that! If God wanted to have a couple to be open to conception at any or all times, they had sex, then He could just as well interfere and have the condom or pill,etc, not work. The more babies the more Catholics? Look on this board alone and see how many are ex-Catholics.
The RCC church has (in my view) a very unhealthy attitude about human sexuality. It may not want to admit it, but sex is a biological act not a religious one.
I have no idea what the bishop actually said. I know that expecting the media to quote him fully and accurately to convey such an impression, even if he said something along the lines of what you’re suggesting, is fuitile. And if nothing else, I know this from my own experience in 2004, when I was interviewed by NPR (on a Catholic issue, interestingly enough!)
Catholics don’t trust their God to be able to find a way around things like blowjobs, etc to get women pregnant even though Mary got herself knocked up without a dick being anywhere near her. Seems to me if God wanted you pregnant then there isn’t a damned thing that you can do to stop it. Unless he isn’t real and the church had to make sure their flock was large enough to fleeced on a regular basis, that is.
As unnatural as surgery, of course, an what seems to be the problem? The word “natural”?
I guess by “fertile egg” you mean “fertilised”. If that’s the case, you might want to go back to your biology books and go for “haploid”, “diploid” and the difference between a single-cell individual and a single cell from a multi-cell individual.
Of course it’s biological, just like punching a person; it doesn’t mean it has no religious connotations.
Hey, not all of us are bastards! I’m even a Buddhist, I guess.
If I recall ethics class correctly, a lawyer has the obligation to report a definite and imminent threat. If a client details how they’re about to fly a plane into an IRS building, you have to report that. But if you know a client has really and truly molested children, you still can’t report that as a case of threat of harm, by itself. Of course, if they tell you about specific plans, that’s another thing.
And most importantly - if you are in charge of hiring for your firm’s in-house daycare, you are perfectly OK to refuse to hire that person, and I would argue you have a moral duty not to hire him. It goes without saying that discovering someone molested children in your daycare, actively covering up evidence external to the attorney-client privilege, and moving the person to another branch of the firm where no one is aware of the danger is right out.
I hope he agrees 