Bishop of Liverpool is Fallible

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Are we in denial here? When has the Church ever approved publically of this? Never and the Church never will. On the other hand, Anglicans continually support the ordinations of gay clergy and allowing more inclusivity of varying doctrines than ever before.

To blame a whole Church on the faults of a few is ignorant.

Which is a very good reason not to throw mud at the Church of England.​

To do so, merely succeeds in giving a thoroughly unpleasant & unChristian impression of what we Catholics are like. Publicising the sins of other Christians is never a good idea - devilish, possibly (see Rev. 12.9); but not a good idea. Not if we want people to imagine that the CC is Christian

The Anglican Church has approved of allowing openly gay clergy. It’s pretty much a dogmatic thing.

That is the sort of impreciseness that draws complaints from Catholics, who are for ever pointing out that item X is not an objection to Catholicism, because it was never really taught, or was not official, or was not infallible; or on account of some other such excuse. The C of E is more honest - it does not claim to be all-holy, perfect, or infallible.​

I denounce the actions of those priests who committed those atrocities and I will never justify them. As soon as they consciously made the decision to be abusers, they cut themselves off from Christ’s Church.

By what authority, doctrinal, canonical or theological, do you know they did ?​

That is not what Rome says; paedophilia doesn’t stop priests offering Mass. If they are rendered ex-Catholic by such a thing, then their bishops are breaking the law by communicating the sacraments to ex-Catholics. Paedophile cardinals would by your argument have no right to vote in a conclave; what would be the state of the Papacy if one were elected ? Would his teaching be Papal ?

Declaring paedophiles & child-molesters not to be Catholics completely overturns the visibility of the Church - which is heretical; undermining a dogma so as to avoid a scandal is not a good idea. The trouble with being ashamed of others, is that it lays one wide open to being found shameful by one’s own critics. The moment we pronounce those we find revolting to us not to be Catholics, by no authority but our own, we destroy the unity of the Church; because our pronouncement can be copied by those who do not care for our behaviour or some other thing in us. And that reduces the Church to a bunch of competing & mutually antagonistic egotisms. IOW, to something not unlike Hell.

The sinfulness of the minister does not hinder the effect of the sacrament. The offering will still be the Eucharistic Sacrifice, & it will still be a source of grace to others, even if not to the human offerer. This is something the Church insisted on very firmly when the current scandal was simony; in the 11th century.

What they did was horrible, but it does not reflect on the beliefs of the Catholic Church, because the Church has never ever taught that this sort of thing was orthodox, because it isn’t.

It hasn’t: which is true, & irrelevant. There is a problem of behaviour - how we behave is an index of what we really believe. All the doctrine in the world is no good if we behave like brutes.​

However, I’m waiting for those Anglican clergy that will mandate NAMBLA type inclusivity. It’s only a matter of time.

Delighting in the falls of others is not a good idea…​

And for your information, it isn’t Catholic clergy that have been plagued by this sort of thing. See the following link.

Alaha minokhoun
Andrew

Harm to the Church anywhere harms the whole of the Church; so it’s pointless (& unattractive) to point to the sins of others. How are we helped by the scandals among others ? Do our sins promote their good ?​

As for NAMBLA - we have more than enough filth to clean up in our own backyard without itemising the sins of anyone else. It won’t do us any good on the Day of Judgement to point to the sins of others when we are being judged. Why should it do us any good now ? How do the sins of others make us any less sinful ourselves ? If we itemise the sins of others, we are tempting them to point to our sins. Can’t we leave temptation to the devil ? Charity, OTOH, covers a multitude of sins. And is far more attractive.