Catholic meltdown

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/mora/

I am not denying that those who are guilty need to be brought to justice, but the culture of blame needs to stop.

Popes are easy because they seem to be in control of everything, when in reality they are not.

 

Only the church is in a position to end it, by taking firm action. It must identify much more with the victims, and much less with the perpetrators. The public demands this, out of an innate sense of justice and fairness.

This is what makes public speaking so tricky. You know what these groups are going to try to do, so you have to make sure that you don't give them anything to work with. It's more of an art than a science; quite demanding.

It's that stubborn old paradox: responsibility vs. control

 

Do you have this document?

 

The truth works wonders and is easy to accomplish, people just don't have faith in reality, too caught up in following rumors.

 

I don't put so much blame on the people. Most are too busy working to read all the raw, unfiltered information for themselves.

 

I do not blame the troubled and incompetent. I am suggesting that the truth is neglected too often for politic because of the fear of rumor.

 

This thread was recommended to me by one who knows of my opinions about the Catholic Church. It ain’t pretty.

Before launching into my discussion, let me explain my background. I was raised Catholic, was baptized Catholic, made my First Communion, made my Confirmation, completed 12 years (grades 1-12) of education in Catholic schools, went to public schools for undergrad college and grad school, and then went back to a Catholic University to get an MBA. My first marriage was in the Catholic Church. In other words, I’ve been through the system.

As far as the Catholic Church and the sex scandals, what else would you expect? For those of you not familiar with the church, those in the religious community (priests, nuns, and brothers) are not allowed to marry. Sexual drives are among the strongest urges a person has, maybe not from an acute perspective (i.e., “I’ve gotta do it now”), but definitely from a chronic perspective (i.e., “I’ve gotta do it sometime”). I believe it’s very unnatural to cage healthy, virile men and women in a society in which they’re expected to remain celibate for the remainder of their lives. While I cannot and will not defend the actions of Catholic religious figures preying on children and adolescents, I think demanding them to ignore and not act upon their sexual urges is grossly unrealistic and creates a frustration that can lead to acting in ways a “free” person would never be tempted to do.

It’s argued that celibacy is a dictate of the church. That may be true, but it’s a human-created requirement, not one that came from God. Nowhere in the Bible does it say those involved in religious ministry must be abstinent. In fact, there’s conjecture that Jesus himself may have been married or at least had relationships. Mary Magdalene is considered a likely candidate to have been a partner/wife of Jesus, and her portrayal as a prostitute may be an act of jealousy by those envious of the closeness she shared with him. In any event, whether Jesus was sexually active or not is beside the point; the bottom line is that the Bible does not put the burden of celibacy on the religious community.

It’s been well documented that the Catholic Church is suffering from declining numbers of priests in recent decades. That’s not surprising. In past generations, it was considered an honor to have a son or daughter answer a religious calling. As society has become more open, young men and women realize the personal sacrifice it would be to answer a religious calling and are less likely to pursue that direction. As a result, there are fewer men and women entering Catholic religious life. I don’t have data to support the following statement, but I strongly suspect that other religions aren’t suffering dwindling religious commitments, at least not to the same extent.

In the interest of increasing religious vocations, it’s reasonable to expect the Catholic Church to loosen its demands for celibacy and consider allowing priests and nuns to marry. The Catholic response to this is that it’s not God’s will to allow such commitments. I’ve already addressed that the celibacy requirement is a mad-made dictate and not one from God. I further contend that the celibacy requirement is a matter of archaic tradition, and not a healthy one at that. Just like the crusty old professor who puts his/her students through hell with the justification that “if I had to suffer through it, my students have to suffer through it,” the leaders of the Catholic Church are not about to ease the requirements for the younger people following a religious calling. “Why should he/she be able to get laid when all I could do was think about it and then go to confession because the mere thought of ‘fornication’ was a sin”? In other words, the Catholic Church, its archaic policies, and its refusal to embrace errors in its human-dictated policies are responsible for fostering an environment conducive to sexual misconduct.

I’ve examined and questioned a lot of things with the Catholic Church over the years and know of some of the damage it’s caused. When I was in elementary school we had a parish priest who later was found responsible for numerous sexual transgressions against boys and young men in our parish. Later, our 7th grade class was taught the “facts of life” by a priest who was exposed as having been moved to our archdiocese because he was on the verge of being arrested for sexual misconduct in Chicago.

My issues with the Catholic Church go far beyond the sexual misconduct of its religious community. My first marriage was horrible and ended in divorce after four years. It would have ended much sooner, but I had a fear of being chastised by my family for choosing divorce so I hung in. When it finally became too unbearable, I chose to get out. Surprisingly, my parents were supportive, but I’ll never forget my dad giving me the zinger “Let this be a lesson of what happens to those who don’t go to church”! Son of a fuckin’ bitch! It could be argued that my dad’s statement was a flaw in his character, but the Catholic Church has long been staunch in its posture against divorce. My dad’s words were only echoing the teachings of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church does allow for marriage annulments. A few years after getting divorced, I had remarried. Getting divorced and remarried didn’t bother me, but I knew it bothered my parents. In the eyes of the Catholic Church I was still married to my first wife, so I decided to see what it would take to get an annulment. I contacted a priest and explained my situation. His first question was whether “my wife” (the one from whom I was divorced) still lived in the area. Yes, she did. The priest then said the first thing would be for the church to bring “my wife” and me into counseling to see if our marriage could be saved!! No fuckin’ way! The priest never acknowledged the existence of the woman I’d since married. That was the end of my pursuit of an annulment.

My shaky relationship with the Catholic Church recently suffered a major, and perhaps final blow. In March, Sacred Heart Church/School in otherwise liberal Boulder, CO, announced it would not allow the son of a lesbian couple to re-enroll in its school (http://cbs4denver.com/local/catholic.church.lesbian.2.1543646.html ). Those fuckin’ assholes!! Sacred Heart said allowing the child of a couple “living in sin” is not consistent with the fundamental teachings of the church. As I remember, Jesus loved everyone, not just those who followed his teachings. He forgave people. The decision of Sacred Heart was solely one of “holier than thou” human “interpretations” of religious doctrine. The Archbishop of Denver, Charles Chaput, has been extremely supportive of Sacred Hearts’ decision. Archbishop Chaput has a created a lot of dissension within the religious community because of his hard-nosed, extremely conservative Catholic doctrine. Fundamentalists are supportive of his stance, but I’ve heard many priests (names not to be revealed) state he’s out of touch and his stance on this and other issues is cruel. Thank you Archbishop Chaput for helping me realize the Catholic Church is an insensitive, archaic, cruel, inhuman, business proposition that is in need of radical reform. That’s exactly what led Martin Luther to post his 95 “writs” or theses against the Catholic Church on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg in 1517!

 

These men in red keep taking it back and using some kind of neuralizer and anal probe, Id rather not talk about it..

 

This is the only part of the post that surprised me. I did not know that they had sunk to the level of punishing children for the supposed sins of their parents. Another new low, in yet another area.

The school actually did the kid a favor, though the parents may not see it that way. It's a parole from indoctrination.

 

It is not the school's policy but the Archdiocesan policy. At least you are not railing against the priest like some misguided protesters were. He was simply being obedient to his bishop. Thanks for at least knowing that much.

Props!

 

It's my understanding the pastor made the initial ruling and later the Archbishop came out in support.

 

My point was that it was not the priest who made up the policy, but the Archdiocese.

 

I think the reason you are seeing more and more of the scandals coming out now is directly related to how this pope is viewed.

With the last pope, he did a lot of good things in his life and was respected even outside the church. The last decade or so would have made it even harder for a lot of people to come forward with something that would badly effect the church because of his medical conditions.

Once this new guy came in, that respect was no longer a direct thing and let's face it, the guy looks evil, and gave a very bad first impression. There was nothing holding people back from telling their stories.

Add into that the fact that it is only recently that it is becoming 'okay' to talk about sexual abuse in the open and you have a perfect recipe for what is going on.

As for if this will lead to us getting to see into the vaults?

Personally I think the vaults should be confiscated and made available for study by everyone. They are literally holding our very histories under lock and key away from everyone. They literally went on crusades in which they confiscated anything that had the slightest value and locked it away.

There are whole cultures that we know almost nothing about precisely because they did these things.

 

Fortunately we can see through into their culture because they did them.

 

No, that is the point, we can't do that, because the things they stole are locked away.

 

I always figured molestation of youngsters was a known priestly perqusite down through the ages. I went to my hometown catholic church long ago with friends and I found it quite spooky seeing people making little motions with their hands and continually bobbing up and down to ringing bells. Part of the conditioning ,I guess. I can see that it would be difficult to break with an institution that had control over ones parents, relatives, friends and ones self even before one could speak.-----My ex and her 3 sisters were all molested in some parish in Long Beach,Cal back in the 50s. A price was paid by all involved. Almost.Not the priest ,of course.

 

Even as a kid I thought the whole set up was a bit wack... take a bunch of men lock them up together for a couple of decades, then give them control over women who also have been locked away (seperately of course) and kids who don't know any better.

Years ago, there used to be a nunnery (don't know if thats the right word, a place where they kept nuns... lol) in a local town that ran a whorehouse out the back of it. When it was shut down (decades ago) and they did renovations on it they found tons of aborted fetuses in the sewers of it.

And people wonder why I have such a dim view of organized religions... lol

 

Their efforts to conceal convinces you they are untrustworthy, you are well informed.

 

Just a little side note=another time I went to the CC with a friend and I was sitting in the balcony with her ,when I heard someone plunking on a ukelele. I looked down and two of my rowdy friends were drunk and actually walking down the aisle toward the --whatever they call the area where the guy in the dress hangs out --and about halfway up the aisle they turned and plunked their way back out. It was weird because nobody said or did anything except watch them come and go. Pretty entertaining,actually. And this: I broke up with a girl I loved very much because she and her family insisted I sign some paper that any children we had would be raised catholic. Nope,Couldn't do it. Not prudent.

 

I think that some light shed on the crimes the church committed is long over due. I only went once when I was about 5 or so and something just seemed very wrong about it, very happy that I never went back.