Hey - if that belief-o-matic is to trusted, apparently you can distance yourself pretty far from your church of upbringing.
My childhood church - RC - finished dead last, with even such systems as scientology more closely reflecting my views!
I really don’t understand why people care all that much if some organization wants to keep their name on a roster of members. I would complain only if they sent me junk mail.
I was taken into the membership of the Methodist Church many, many, many, many years ago and I assume that somewhere in some dusty archive my name still appears. So what?
I sort of understand it. To sort of play Devil’s advocate, and to make what admittedly is a bit of a weak analogy, lets say that when you were a kid, your parents, who were members of the Ku Klux Klan, signed you up in the Klan. So, as an adult, now believing that the Klan is wrong and evil in their racist, hateful beliefs, you might be horrified that you’re still listed as a member and associated with such evil people.
For some of the people who make such a big deal about this, they see the Catholic church, or the LDS church, or the Methodist church, or whatever, as just as bad as the Klan, and they’re horrified that they’re still considered members and associated with such evil people.
I’m going to address three issues in this posting:
(1) Those articles can only be one side of the story, and there’s no way the reader, unless he happened to be sitting on the church court, would know if the article is true or not. The Church does not publish confidential information and the grounds for the church trial are confidential between the member and the appropriate members of the Priesthood. And since that article is all personal anecdote anyway, here’s a personal anecdote: some years ago in a church meeting in Germany, the Bishop informed the congregation that he was saddened to tell us that a particular member had been excommunicated; however, he “counseled [us] to pray for and help the member return to the Church.”
(2) I have the same opinion, I think, as David Simmons. What possible difference does it make to you if a group with which you formerly associated yourself counts you as a member? Well, I disagree with David’s attitude towards the junk mail–if it’s e-mail, I’m against it; if it’s snail mail, send me more 'cause I shed it and use that instead of those packing peanuts.
(3) Tokyo Player: Seriously, what are you on about? It really looks like you’re thrashing blindly against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. IMHO (and evidently one other poster’s), you’ve already stepped out of the realm of accuacy. It’s a short step, perhaps, into BBQ Pit material. Why not go there and start a thread instead of trashing this one?
I’m not a fan of any church, but I think those who would even marginally equate either the Catholic Church or The LDS with the Klan need counseling more than they need help in getting dropped from the rolls.
Let’s see. The Catholic Church is on record as torturing and burning tens of thousands of witches and heretics in dozens of countries throughout Europe and even in the New World (Latin America also hd an Inquisition under Spanish Rule).
They threatened Gallileo with torture and death unless he lied and said the sun rototates around the Earth. They supported the crimes and agression of Francisco Franco and Benito Mussollini against their people as well as supporting Naziism by the back door. They said not a word when these regimes murdered Jews, leftists, and gays in concentration camps.
In every country today, the Catholic Church uses its enormous wealth and power to oppose gay rights and gay couples rights. They will not even accept civil marriage or “civil unions” for same-sex couples, even though they do not recognize civil marriage. Pope Benedict said so clearly in a recent address to European lawmakers.
At international meetings on women’s rights, the Vatican has joined with reactionay Muslim regimes that stone women to death and do not allow them to drive or vote, in order to oppose universal declarations of the rights of women. At an Internationa congress on Women in Peking in the 1990s, Cathlics who were meeting in a room where the lesbian caucus had just met held an exorcism to clear the evil from the room.
The Governor of Massacusetts, who is a Mormon, has sworn he will annul every gay marriage that has taken place in that State as soon as he can. Mormons excluded blacks from priesthood in their Church until just about 20 years ago when God suddenly told them that He had forgotten to tell them it was OK (He’s a busy guy and sometimes things slip his mind.)
Many Mormons take literally the injunction in the Old Testament that homosexuality should be punishable by death. Say, do you suppose they could get a deal on left-overZyklon-B gas from Dachau?
You are right, comparisons between the Catholic Church, the Mormons and the KKK are inaccurate. I just wonder in what sense? Maybe because the KKK are far more modest in their accomplishments?
I only Skimmed the thread so I’m sorry if this is a repeat.
What cracked me up when my kids were little is the idea that they were Catholic simply because their grandmother was. My wife considered herself catholic even though she never went to mass anymore. When my son started asking questions at around 7, he was told he was Catholic. I promptly said that was ridiculous in a less than tactful way. He’s not Catholic by heritage, his religion is something he will choose when he’s ready.
Has anyone else had this type of experience? I’m familiar with Jewish by heritage but until this incident didn’t realize it happened in other religions as well.
Actually, I don’t shed it at all. In fact, I shred it.
Thanks for the information. I hadn’t known about all this. Now I need a barfie. I feel tempted to take back what I said about respect. There can be no talk of “respect” in the face of such bigotry.
Frankly, the church that Robert F. Kennedy belonged to, that I believed in during a more optimistic era when the Church looked like it could be a force for progressive change, is long dead and buried. What goes by the name Catholic these days is nothing I can recognize as the Church I used to have hope in.
And long, long ago doctors used to bleed people in order to cure them. So today’s doctors are no better that tribal shamans?
Yes these are legitimate complaints for which those organizations deserve criticism.
Many members of most churches go over the line on their interpretation of church or Biblical injunctions. That doesn’t mean that the church itself agrees with their interpretation.
I agree with you in one respect. I think churches in general adopt to modern thinking in how society should work at a glacial pace. However, they do change over time and all of the medieval activities you speak of aren’t a reasonable claim as to activities that churches now propose and promote.
I’ll let the rest of the complaints pass as a hijack, but I will point out that the following is pure bullshit:
Tom, is that the only thing you’ll point out as pure bullshit? When I read that post, my first reaction was, “Tom’s going to shred this nonsense.” Please, no pass.
The witch-hunts were for the most part localized outbreaks of hysteria. The actual inquisitorial trials, at least in the Middle Ages, were often carried out by zealous Dominicans. But you should keep in mind the context: a trial by inquisition was often fairer than criminal trials by secular tribunals, and the accused stood a better chance of getting an innocent verdict. While torture was used in many cases, inquisitors were restricted in that they couldn’t shed blood or cause any fatal injuries. Admittedly, this restriction lead to such charming devices as the strappado, but then again, criminal trials permitted much more violent forms of torture. Burnings at the stake were not as common as you seem to think, and when executions were carried out, they were conducted by the local, secular law officials–not by the inquisitors. A fine point, perhaps, but one that’s worth making.
The Spanish Inquisition was responsible for many horrors, especially directed at conversos. However, the Spanish monarchy was the guiding force behind it, not the Vatican–which frequently condemned the Spanish Inquisition’s abuses. The infamous inquisitor Torquemada was appointed by Ferdinand and Isabella–not by the pope. It’s misleading to consider the Spanish Inquisition as representing universal Church policy, because it wasn’t–it’s more of an example of one particular totalitarian state, under a series of fanatical rulers who operated in religious arenas without much regard for the religious authorities.
tomndebb can answer this point better than I can, and has done so in previous threads (I’d provide a link, but I was only lurking in those threads, and I can’t do a search since I haven’t decided if I want to officially join the boards). Suffice it to say, the typical account of the trial as the Bad, Superstitious Catholic Church versus the Heroic, Rational Galileo is an extremely simplified version of a much more complex story.
I’ll agree that many of the Church’s actions, or lack of actions during the lead-up to the Second World War were shameful. Many of the Church leaders were so zealous in the hatred and fear of communism that they took up sides with truly despicable figures, including Franco (although one could make the argument that the Spanish Church’s support for Franco in many ways continued the historical relationship between Spanish kings of the past and the Inquisition). But it’s not accurate to say that “they” did not speak up against Nazi persecutions. Some high-ranking Church officials, like Pietro Palazzini, actively strove to protect Jews and provided hiding places. The archbishop of Utrecht protested against Nazi persecution of Jews in Holland; many French bishops strongly denounced the Nazi deportation of French Jews from Vichy France. I think that the Church as a whole should have realized what Hitler was like much sooner than they did (the same could go for many Western governments), and Pope Pius XII in particular should have been more vocal in denouncing the Nazi regime (instead of trying to maintain a neutral stance). But in any case, it’s incorrect to say that nobody in the Catholic hierarchy ever protested against Nazi persecutions and deportations.
I disagree with the Church’s stances on homosexuality and, well, about sexuality in general. But I don’t think the Catholic Church is any more intolerant than most mainstream Christian churches (or other religions, for that matter) when it comes to gay rights. For me, this doesn’t justify the Church’s teachings on sexuality, but it doesn’t make the Church’s position an extremist one.
Could you provide some cites for these points? I suspect that the Vatican’s opposition to these declarations that you mention have to do with issues of reproductive freedom–i.e., abortion and contraceptives. These are other issues where I personally disagree with the Church. However, I don’t think it’s fair to imply that the Church opposes women’s freedom in the same way as those reactionary Muslim regimes (I assume you’re referring to the Saudis in particular). The Church certainly isn’t opposed to women driving or voting, and certainly is opposed to stoning anyone to death. I’d have to see the particular drafts, but I suspect the sticking points have to do with abortion and contraceptives.
I’d also like to see a cite about the exorcism ceremony. It sounds really unlikely.
Most stories are more complex than the popular accounts. However, I don’t see why the church had any justification in threatening Galileo with death, and actually killing Giordono Bruno, for a scientific claim. Expulsion? Sure. But death? That the trial was conducted according to strict rules doesn’t count for much when I don’t think that kind of trial should have been held at all.
Yes, they can cause pulic embarrassment. As per Monty’s post, they annouce from the pulput of the local church that the person is excommunicated. This is usually for only offenses of the most sever catagories, such as murder, repeated adultry or homosexuality, so even if they say that this is being done out of love, everyone knows that this person has been a bad little boy or girl.
The way that I read this article is that he wrote a letter requesting his name being removed and didn’t take it public until after the church went down the excommunication route rather than simply grant him his request to resign.
This is an option and does not need to involve excommunication. If fact, the Supreme Court has ruled that people have a right to quit churches and churches do not have a right to excommunicate people after they have resigned.
Is there evidence that he went public before they refused him his rights under the law, which takes precidence, at least in America, over theology and internal rules?
The display of the instruments of torture that occurred in the Galileo trial were a formality that were never intended to actually threaten him. Such haters of the church as Thomas Huxley have pointed out that Galileo was never in danger of being tortured and that the minutes of the trial show Galileo being treated politely, even with courtesy, by the inquisitors.
Bruno was burned for theological issues (and, possibly, internecine politics). His actual “crime” was that as a priest he had denied the divinity of Jesus. No scientific speculation by Bruno was even included in his trial.
I think burning heretics was stupid and wrong. I think that attributing the death of Bruno to an opposition to science displays either ignorance or deceipt on the part of the published sources that promote it.
This statement, of course, is false.
It is entirely possible to condemn the Vatican and Pius XII for doing too little too late. However, claims that the church “said not a word” are simply not true:
From the Jewish Virtual Library, four views of the Holocaust and the papacy:
A Question of Judgment: Pius XII & the Jews
How to Manufacture a Legend: The Controversy over the Alleged Silence of Pope Pius XII in World War II
860,000 Lives Saved - The Truth About Pius XII and the Jews
Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust
I certainly wish that Pisu XI had lived into the period of WWII, but even the odd story of his successor is not a tale of simply ignoring the horrors of the genocide in Europe.
I still think that this is a hijack of this thread, however.
Galileo had good reason to doubt that the intentions of the church officials were harmless. I’m going to take the liberty to doubt that he would have recanted his support of the Copernican model of the solar system had he not been in great fear of his life.
Yes, Bruno was burned at the stake over theology, and the theology was that the earth is the center of the universe. Whether or not the earth is the center of the universe is a question of science. The claim that it was strictly theological seems like splitting hairs.
In which Supreme Court case was that, exactly?
I know of no historian who accepts that version of Galileo’s situation. His second trial was based on a letter found in the paperwork of the first trial that ordered him not to publish on the topic of heliocentrism. He claimed (probably correctly) that he had never seen that letter (which may have been a later forgery). While it is popular in some circles to portray Galileo fearing for his life, those circles do not appear to include actual historians who have reviewed the matter.
As to Bruno, there is no truth in the claim that heliocentrism had anything to do with his trial or execution. It was not even a topic under consideration. The charge against him was docetism: the belief that Jesus was never human. Whatever he may have said regarding Copernican thought at some time in his life, it does not appear to have been an issue at his trial.
One problem with historians in this case is that they rely on original sources, and the original sources are apologists for the church. There was no disinterested media observer