RicOlie_2

I think Pope Francis is doing less, not more than Pope Benedict. I’m not overly impressed with his handling of the situation.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/source-pope-blocked-investigation-of-abuse-allegations-against-cardinal-who

Warbler said:

RicOlie_2 said:

“Married only once” doesn’t necessarily mean they have to have married at all. There is nothing to intrinsically prevent a married man being ordained, but the Church has grown considerably since that letter was written. The role of a priest or bishop involves a lot more. Not to mention that at the time, most people would have been converts, and most converts would have been married, so to prohibit married men from being ordained simply wouldn’t have worked.

But that passage doesn’t it make clear that it is ok for “Bishops” to marry?

It makes it clear that there’s no moral reason why they can’t, yes. But that doesn’t mean that the Church can’t impose laws for the good of the Church. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with eating meat on Friday, but the Church thought it fitting to set aside Friday as a mandatory day for the commemeration of Jesus’ crucifixion and death. And with celibacy, the Church has realized that celibacy “for the sake of the kingdom,” as Jesus and Paul recommend, is of great value for the Church.

Theoretically, in the future, married men could become priests and bishops outside of the Eastern Churches or extraordinary circumstances. There are good reasons for maintaining the Church’s current discipline (i.e. policy), however, and I don’t think it will change anytime soon, unless there is a big push for it from the clergy.

Nothing that I’m aware of that says it like that. Although that’s pretty much the case anyway. No congregation answers to another congregation, they answer to an individual leader. St. Paul obviously had authority over many different churches, so there doesn’t seem to be anything in the Bible that is opposed to that.

No, my mom told me not to eat that. The chocolate snow makes for a more substantial meal though.

“Married only once” doesn’t necessarily mean they have to have married at all. There is nothing to intrinsically prevent a married man being ordained, but the Church has grown considerably since that letter was written. The role of a priest or bishop involves a lot more. Not to mention that at the time, most people would have been converts, and most converts would have been married, so to prohibit married men from being ordained simply wouldn’t have worked.

Christ’s bride is the Church (and in a sense, our souls), and it would have been a bit weird if Jesus had fathered children. Would they be some sort of demigod? I don’t think you’re wrong that there were practical reasons for it, but I think it goes much deeper than that.

Warbler said:

But, if I am not mistaken, marriage wasn’t always denied to Catholic Priests. I think hundreds of years ago Catholic Priests were allowed to marry, were they not?

Yes, they were. It was more rigorously enforced in the 11th century when priests were creating dynastic parishes (passing the parish on from father to son), which was causing problems. Celibacy has always been encouraged, though, and was quite common before that as well. Eastern Catholic priests still don’t have to be celibate. From what I know from speaking with them and hearing about their situations, however, many of them do run into conflicts between their family and parish, and it’s clear that there’s a lot of practical wisdom in celibacy.

All the seminarians I’ve talked to about this agree, by the way. They all think that making celibacy optional would be a bad idea, and would create more problems than it would solve. We want to be as free as possible to serve the Church and God. Being a married priest is a bit like a having two wives. Sure, people have made it work, but it’s really hard to balance the two.

I’m usually good after 1 lunch of snow.

3 inches of snow again today.

Warbler said:

RicOlie_2 said:

Warbler said:

RicOlie_2 said:

I am quite prepared to commit to celibacy, and would very much not want to marry and be a priest (waaay too much work, and the stress of having to devote oneself to both a family and a parish would be unbelievable).

The Pastor of my church seems to manage ok with both a family and the church to take care of.

Being a Protestant pastor is a job.

I assure you being a Protestant Pastor is more than just a job.

A (decent) priest doesn’t have set working hours.

Neither does my Pastor.

He should be free to go to the hospital in an emergency in the middle of the night.

My Pastor does this.

He should be free to run ministries in the evenings with his parishioners and do house visits.

My Pastor does this too.

He says Mass at least once a day and is always available to hear confessions.

That my Pastor of course does not do.

He devotes himself entirely to his parishioners.

My Pastor is very devoted to the church and its congregation.

There is simply no comparison between the job description of a Protestant pastor and a Catholic priest.

I am not certain you really understand the job description of a Protestant Pastor.

You may be right. I admit, I made a pretty broad generalization and it might apply to Evangelical Christians and less to other denominations (or it might not apply to either. I found an interesting article that compares the typical workload of Catholic priests and Protestant ministers. As far as I can tell, though, this is an average, and there are a lot of priests that don’t really work as hard as they should. Many of the better priests work 70-80 hours a week, or as many as 90 hours (and I suppose the same may be true of the better Protestant pastors).

Now, I should also note that the primary reason for celibacy isn’t the workload, although it’s certainly one of the main reasons why I personally would not want to be married. Priests are representatives of Christ, and thus the primary goal of celibacy is to configure oneself more closely to Christ. Not to mention that priests are in a certain sense “married” to the Church already.

moviefreakedmind said:

RicOlie_2 said:

moviefreakedmind said:

It involves a minority of Catholics, but a majority of the Church’s most powerful officials are complicit at least.

Citation? I highly doubt that’s the case. I’m not sure how much you know about the way the Church works, but bishops are pretty autonomous, so the way they deal with issues is pretty localized.

They all know about it and most are choosing to do nothing. The current pope and his immediate predecessors know or knew about it and there’s direct evidence that Benedict XVI was directly involved in coverups before he became pope. The sex-abuse and their coverups are common knowledge. Ask anyone on the street and they’re familiar with it. Are you going to tell me, with a straight face, that the majority of officials in the Catholic Church are blissfully unaware of the mass child abuse that happens in its institution?

Again, this is just ignorance about the way the Church works. A bishop has no authority over another bishop’s affairs. It’s not like the bishops can just get together and vote the bad bishops out of office (although they can get together and agree on policies). It’s true that the popes and the higher up bishops who do have some authority haven’t done enough, but that by no means indicates that most bishops are complacent/apathetic. I know my bishop sure isn’t.

Also, Benedict XVI laicized at least 400 guilty priests in the course of two years. That’s not doing nothing.

It’s official policy to handle them internally rather than approaching the police, and by “handle” I mean relocate the offender to a new, unsuspecting parish. In the United States, and most civilized countries, abetting a felon is also a crime. I’m arguing for the religious institutions to be dismantled because of their crimes. If it turned out that JCPenney’s was doing this, then there’d be no debate over shutting down the corporation and arresting those responsible.

Where is this official policy? The reports that are coming out address incidents that have happened over the last 70-or-so years. Things have changed quite a bit in the last two or three decades. In most of Canada, I believe it has been official policy since the '80s to report things to the police.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pennsylvania-report-catholic-clergy-sex-abuse-scandal_us_5b2d4062e4b00295f15c56db

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/world/europe/german-church-sex-abuse-children.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fworld

https://nypost.com/2018/08/14/australia-archbishop-gets-house-detention-for-abuse-cover-up/

Also, happening over the last 70-or-so years is meaningless. “The last 70-or-so years” includes yesterday and today. I find it weird that you think “the church has done this throughout history” is a valid excuse. It actually plays more into my argument that the Church be viewed as a crime ring.

Those are certain local churches. Their failures don’t represent the Church as a whole. Furthermore, it’s simply wrong to say the Church has done nothing. In addition to laicizing guilty priests and removing guilty bishops from office: “by 2008 the U.S. church had trained 5.8 million children to recognize and report abuse. It had run criminal checks on 1.53 million volunteers and employees, 162,700 educators, 51,000 clerics and 4,955 candidates for ordination. It had trained 1.8 million clergy, employees and volunteers in creating a safe environment for children.” And “In June 2002, the [US Conference of Catholic Bishops] unanimously promulgated a Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People [adopting] a “zero tolerance” policy for sexual abuse. The USCCB instituted reforms to prevent future abuse by requiring background checks for Church employees. They now require dioceses faced with an allegation to alert the authorities, conduct an investigation and remove the accused from duty.” (Quotes from Wikipedia.)

The same applies for Canada, which has similar policies in place.

As for repression vs. integration or whatever, that just sounds like Newspeak to me.

Well it’s not. We get professional psychologists to come in and talk to us about this stuff. It’s science. And I can personally attest, and can attest for many other seminarians and priests, that we are not even remotely repressed. I am quite prepared to commit to celibacy, and would very much not want to marry and be a priest (waaay too much work, and the stress of having to devote oneself to both a family and a parish would be unbelievable). There is an incredible freedom that comes from proper sexual integration and self-mastery, and it is possible to do.

Use all the Newspeak that you want, but being taught that your urges and lust are sinful crimes against the Almighty (who has the power to consign you to hell, mind you) is repression. You may be content with it, but you are repressing your desires. And also, the repression in Christianity and Islam, and many other religions too, goes beyond the clergy.

Lust and sexual attraction are not the same. I don’t know if you’ve heard of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, but one of the primary teachings is an affirmation of the inherent goodness of sexual desire, lust being a distortion of this.

I feel immense freedom, not repression, in gaining control over my sexual drive and in not feeling the need to masturbate or have sex. That isn’t to say that I don’t feel sexually attracted to women, but I am able to control those sexual desires. I know from speaking with priests and seminarians that this is their experience as well. If you consider an intense sense of freedom to be repression, then that’s kind of sad for you, but it doesn’t change the reality of my experience.

Warbler said:

RicOlie_2 said:

I am quite prepared to commit to celibacy, and would very much not want to marry and be a priest (waaay too much work, and the stress of having to devote oneself to both a family and a parish would be unbelievable).

The Pastor of my church seems to manage ok with both a family and the church to take care of.

Being a Protestant pastor is a job. Being a priest is a vocation. A (decent) priest doesn’t have set working hours. He should be free to go to the hospital in an emergency in the middle of the night. He should be free to run ministries in the evenings with his parishioners and do house visits. He says Mass at least once a day and is always available to hear confessions. He devotes himself entirely to his parishioners. There is simply no comparison between the job description of a Protestant pastor and a Catholic priest.

I was blown away by how ridiculously expensive those gas prices were until I realized you guys pay by the gallon down there, not the litre, LOL. Up here it’s often been going up to $3.82 USD per gallon ($1.30 CAD/litre)…

I should also ask for some (scientific) evidence that there is a relation to celibacy and child abuse. There are many sex abusers that are married or have some other access to sexual pleasure besides their criminal behaviour, and there are many, many people who have been happily celibate throughout history. I’d be willing to accept that forced celibacy might be an issue, but it’s frankly ridiculous to say that celibacy is “forced” on Catholic priests. No one’s making them become priests…

Possessed said:

I still don’t even understand it, the Bible doesn’t call for it being necessary so why torture yourself when God doesn’t require or expect you to. Clearly it does more harm than good. In fact I don’t even see what the benefit would be.

I must admit, the word “torture” made me snicker a little. I certainly don’t feel tortured! Nor do I get the impression that any of the priests I know feel that way.

But see my response to MFM. And if you have any further questions, feel free to ask. As someone who is (willingly and gladly) preparing for lifelong celibacy, I couldn’t disagree more with you, and have plenty to say on the benefits of celibacy (and trust me, I haven’t been brainwashed, LOL).

moviefreakedmind said:

It involves a minority of Catholics, but a majority of the Church’s most powerful officials are complicit at least.

Citation? I highly doubt that’s the case. I’m not sure how much you know about the way the Church works, but bishops are pretty autonomous, so the way they deal with issues is pretty localized.

It’s official policy to handle them internally rather than approaching the police, and by “handle” I mean relocate the offender to a new, unsuspecting parish. In the United States, and most civilized countries, abetting a felon is also a crime. I’m arguing for the religious institutions to be dismantled because of their crimes. If it turned out that JCPenney’s was doing this, then there’d be no debate over shutting down the corporation and arresting those responsible.

Where is this official policy? The reports that are coming out address incidents that have happened over the last 70-or-so years. Things have changed quite a bit in the last two or three decades. In most of Canada, I believe it has been official policy since the '80s to report things to the police.

As for repression vs. integration or whatever, that just sounds like Newspeak to me.

Well it’s not. We get professional psychologists to come in and talk to us about this stuff. It’s science. And I can personally attest, and can attest for many other seminarians and priests, that we are not even remotely repressed. I am quite prepared to commit to celibacy, and would very much not want to marry and be a priest (waaay too much work, and the stress of having to devote oneself to both a family and a parish would be unbelievable). There is an incredible freedom that comes from proper sexual integration and self-mastery, and it is possible to do.

moviefreakedmind said:

All four of those causes seem like reason enough to me to shut down the Catholic Church. They also don’t account for the systematic cover ups.

Your #5 point confuses me. Them unhealthily repressing their urges is in accordance with the Catholic religion. How is that not, at least in part, the fault of the Church?

That’s ridiculous, because (a) most of these problems aren’t nearly as present or relevant anymore, and (b) they don’t represent flaws in the religion, they represent flaws in policy. Reform is needed, not the dismantling of a religion. Furthermore, although a significant minority was involved, it was only a minority.

Unhealthily repressing urges is not part of the Catholic religion. We are told over and over again in the seminary that repressing our sexuality is extremely unhealthy, and living a celibate life requires integrating our sexuality* into our lives in a psychologically healthy manner. It might sound like repression, but it is far from it.

• Sexuality is much broader than sexual drive, so we also aren’t being told in the least to give in to sexual urges.

I think there are a few things to consider:

1. Looking at the Church globally, there are comparable rates of abuse in many cases in other institutions, and just in general. Huge numbers of people have been sexually abused (in the States, statistics suggest one in every five girls and one in twenty boys, and 28% of youth by the age of 17: see link).

2. In certain regions, the rate of abuse in the Church seems higher than average. There were groups of priests who would systematically abuse children, and bishops were sometimes part of these groups. So there is/was definitely a real and extraordinary problem in some areas of the world.

3. There was often an attitude in the Catholic Church that such sins were the result of a one-time temptation and that once the perpetrator of the crime had reconciled with God and the Church, promising to reform himself, there was no reason to disbelieve him, and he could continue his ministry.

4. It used to be a lot easier than it is now to get through seminary and become a priest. Rigorous screening and psychological examinations were not required of seminarians.

5. Gay Catholic men would often become priests rather than reject their faith or marry a woman they were not attracted to. Seminary formation did not include lessons on the dangers of sexual repression, so many gay men made it into the priesthood with little ability to master their sexual urges. Priests were well respected, and thus many straight men also became priests for the wrong reasons, and were not always able to control their sexual instinct after a while. This accounts in large part for the 50% of abuse cases in which the victims had reached or finished puberty. The abusers were men who broke down under pressure after a while and gave into temptation, since they unhealthily repressed their sexual desires.

6. In the other 50% of cases in which the victims were pre-pubescent, the explanation that most readily comes to mind is that pedophiles would naturally have been attracted to the priesthood. After all, who would have been among the most trusted members of any community before the sex scandals? The parish priest. Becoming a priest gave ready and frequent access to children, and put one in a position of authority over them, making it unlikely for one to get caught.

Thus, the abuse scandals in the Church seem to me to be the result of (a) poor seminary formation, (b) poor screening of potential priests, © misguided mercy and forgiveness, and (d) already evil men entering the priesthood with the intent of abusing the accompanying privileges.

It snowed all day again. 😦 Canada sucks sometimes. I don’t remember September ever being this cold before. It seems winter starts earlier and earlier every year…

“The Church hierarchy” is a bit of a generalization. There are plenty of places in the world (such as where I live) where calling the police is and has been the official policy for some time. It’s currently also the policy to immediately remove a priest from ministry if he’s been accused of abuse. So it isn’t as if the entire hierarchy of the Church has decided to pretend everything’s OK and brush sexual abuse under the rug. The reality is that in some regions, corruption is very widespread and pervasive, and in others, it’s almost nonexistent. No one’s praising the non-corrupt members of the hierarchy in the media, however, because they’re expected to not be corrupt and evil. Every priest and cleric I know is deeply wounded by and angry at the sexual abuse that is rife in the Church.

moviefreakedmind said:

“Oh, that’s just typical of any institution. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along… Please?”

In seriousness, I think there’s a solid argument for the Catholic Church being federally dismantled. I think it can be considered a crime ring at this point.

The Catholic Church is primarily made up of lay people, not priests. And I have a lot of hope in the quality of modern seminaries (the 60s to 90s produced countless unbelievably terrible priests). You’re right though, the Church has a serious problem. If any of those priests can’t be prosecuted civilly for some reason, a bread and water fast and solitary confinement in a monastery somewhere should be imposed on them for the rest of their lives. That’s more like how the Church used to deal with them.

oojason said:

‘German Catholic priests ‘abused thousands of children’’…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45500072
 

It’s just sick. The fact that the Catholic Church has lasted so long with so many evil people (if they can be called that) in the ranks of its clergy is a miracle (and I mean that quite literally). I hope they think hell is worth it.

It snowed all day. 😦

TV’s Frink said:

moviefreakedmind said:

I was thinking the other day about how this year is the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.

Dang, would have never thought of that.

Amazing how time flies though. 😉

Did any of your children fight in the war, Frink?

If you do, I will gladly take them. If you don’t, I’ll eveeentually download them from band camp. 😛

When I’m finished going through the 14,000 new songs someone gave me, I’ll check them out…