Oh, I never said they couldn’t remain Catholic, but why does that mean they should do nothing? How about no more tithing to the church? How about abandoning the building and starting house churches, with families meeting to pray and have Communion? How about boycotting the church until it enacts real reform?
Families meeting outside the church, unless there’s a priest, can’t have real communion, gobear, you know this. All they could do is enact a worthless, meaningless substitute of it. They could get that a Baptist church.
Kirk
gobear: Now you’re just being silly. Others have told you that they’re remaining Catholic and not doing nothing. Matter of fact, they’re doing the exact opposite of “supporting child molestors.” They’re demanding that the organization, which is made up of people, make an institutional act and correct the institutional problem they have. They’re demanding that the folks who’ve decided they’re above the organization get disciplined for abusing the organization, and thereby abusing the entirety of that organization: its people.
kirk: Your comment was completely out of line about what people can get at a Baptist service.
Where, Gobear, in any post I have written, have I claimed that only “one priest” has done this? I have said, if you choose to open your eyes and read, that one child molesting priest is unacceptible. So is five. So is five hundred. Any number of child molesting anything is unaceptible. As you chose to read your own meaning into this instead of concentrating on the words on the page, I have to make things clear.
There are bad people. I know to some this may come as a shock, but there are. They cross all boundaries, ethnic, religeous, financial, whatever. Tying an entire group of people to the misdeeds of any of their number is wrong. You owe those people, and the good catholics on this board, an apology.
If however you are incapable of understanding that holding Scylla, Guinistasia, etc. responsible for the actions of a child-molesting priest is wrong, I suggest you go clean out your own closet. Or do you really expect us to believe you have nothing whatsoever to do with any organization that includes any child molesters? Could you really be that naive and one dimensional? it’s starting to look that way. Child molestation occurs in a cross section of population. It’s heinous and wrong. It’s more heinous and wrong when it’s a priest because of the nature of his work, but being a child molester is not mitigated if you are not a priest. Whatever the case, odds are, you work with a child molester. Or you supply one. Or your church has one. Or your local political party has one. Or the bar where you stop on your way home. Or the gym where you work out. You don’t know, because they look like everyone else.
I’m sorry that you are this closed minded and judgemental. I’m truly sorry that you can’t get past whatever issues you personally have to understand the error of your position on this matter; you have seemed an otherwise reasoned person.
At any time I welcome you with open arms into my church. There you will meet a group of christians. No, I know it sounds odd, but CATHOLICS REALLY ARE CHRISTIANS!. These people I have come to know and love. They include engineers and cooks. Asians and blacks. Gays and lesbians. All decent people. All there to hear the word of The Lord. All pleased to sit in front of a couple of the more inspired homilists it has ever been my pleasure to hear. We’d love to have you.
b.
And Kirk, that was kinda mean spirited. Baptists have as much right to their chosen form of worship as do Catholics. Jesus himself did say ‘wherever two or more are gathered in his name, there I am also’ (pardon the paraphrasing)
I understand, (or I think I do) that you mean that to a Catholic, it would seem odd and not fulfill their sense of community, but be clear that that’s what you mean, if it is what you mean.
b.
I wonder if anyone here would even consider joining (let alone defending) any other organization that was as proudly homophobic, openly misogynistic, and cavalier about epidemic child molestation amongst it’s members as the Catholic Church. I wonder if they’d be as willing to let people who did join such an organization slide for having such an association. And, assuming the answers to the first two questions are “no,” I wonder why Catholicism gets a free pass.
Oh, right. Because God said so.
Miller: Number one) The organization’s not homophobic.
It’s not? The Catholic church allows openly gay men to serve as priests? Gay sex isn’t a sin in Rome? Well, that’s all news to me. I guess that’s what I get for not going to Church since ever.
That’s a fantastic band name if ever there was one.
gobear, would you mind explaining why you opened a new thread that’s basically a continuation of a thread that was explicitly closed by a moderator?
I’m sure my Pit colleagues would be very interested to hear your explanation.
I’m not sure wether they’ll leave this one open, though.
Huh.
Well, I’d have to say that the Mormon Church is just as homophobic, is even more misogynist than the Catholics1, and certainly has been accused of child sexual abuse2 …yet I would defend the bulk of the Mormons as being good people.
1 Under Mormon doctrine, women can’t be priests and a woman’s station in the afterlife is dependent on the conduct of her husband, not herself. And she is required to have a husband to rise above the most minimal level of heaven, IIRC. But I’m not Mormon so don’t take my word as gospel on this.
2 The child molestation issues for Mormons usually involve marriage of young (meaning underage) girls to much older men, and is also wrapped up with the polygamist versions. Even though it’s a fringe group, the whole are tarred by the actions of a few.
I don’t see it as the Catholics getting a “free pass”.
But then, I live in the Chicago area and the Catholics around here started a clean up about 20 years ago, under Cardinal Bernadin, and priest-pedophiles DID go to jail around here. The upper levels in the Chicago diocese (despite accusations) did not engage in cover-up, they did clean house. Then again, Bernadin was an extraordinary man by any measure, and had a lot of respect outside the church as well as within it.
The fact that there WAS a Cardinal (Law, I believe) who did engage in cover-up and put more children at risk does not mean that ALL cardinals and bishops are lying, scheming assholes.
Gobear, it’s clear you have a prejudice against Catholics as a whole. Well, you are free to think what you want. But as long as you continue to express such views others of differing views will counter you.
I thought
I was opening an original thread contrasting the legalist view of Christianity as emphasized by Javert with the more open attitude of love and forgiveness of Valjean, and the parallell to the contrasting views held by different folks here. Instead, it has devolved into a pointless thread about the Catholic church and is in no way a continuation of any other thread. Close it by all means.
b]Coldfire** if you look at the time signatures. My thread which was inspired by a comment from Kirk’s thread but is not a continuation, was opened at 8:31 p.m, 2 hours before Lynn closed Kirk’s thread at 10:48 pm. When H4E’s comment inspired this thread, the other thread was still live, so your accusation that I opened a dead thread is false. But yeah, close this, it’s pointless.
Becuae Billy Rubin has no e-mail listed, I will give this one reoply.
Yes, I have nothing to do with any organization that knowingly puts child molesters in contact with children. That’s not “naive and 1 dimensional,” that’s the truth.
Ahem. If the acts of child molestation had been committed by priests, who were then removed from the clergy and imprisoned, then I wouild agree with you that the Catholic Church as a whole could not be blamed. But when bishops all across the USA (and in foreign countries, it is coming to light) shuffle priests from parish to parish, letting them be with children over and over again, then the church officilas who did this (and it wasn’t limited to Boston and Cardianl Law) should be held responsible and people who maintain loyalty to that institution should at least ask hard questions of their leaders.
It’s so much easier to dismiss criticisms as bigotry. Like I said, you might as well have called Martin Luther a bigot and then we would have been spared that pesky Reformation.
Truth be told, I forgot to check the time stamps on both threads. Apologies to gobear for suggesting he neglected a moderator decision by opening a new thread - this is obviously not the case.
The question still stands, however, why the remark -clever as it is- could not have been made in the other thread.
Normally, I’d wait for my Pit colleagues to close a thread in this forum, but I see no reason to ignore the direct request of the OP to close this.