I am looking for common problems you have when challenged to defend the Church. Maybe some roadblocks you have experienced and how you overcame them.
For example I need help on being called to the carpet about the priest abuse scandal. I just don’t know how to speak to non-catholics about it. Maybe someone can give me some pointers?
We don’t have to limit it to my question if you need some assistance on something bring it up too maybe someone can help.
You’d be pleasantly shocked at the local Evangelicals and Fundies who drag themselves into the Church because they can no longer deny it is the one Jesus founded, warts and all.
I am looking for common problems you have when challenged to defend the Church. Maybe some roadblocks you have experienced and how you overcame them.
For example I need help on being called to the carpet about the priest abuse scandal. I just don’t know how to speak to non-catholics about it. Maybe someone can give me some pointers?
We don’t have to limit it to my question if you need some assistance on something bring it up too maybe someone can help.
They have Cd’s on this subject. Go into any Catholic Book store and on line. Lighthouse Catholic media is a great resource. Don’t forgot we are a church full of sinners, priests are men, not God and they like to point out a tiny fraction of priest out of over 400,000 priests. Still bad. We have more problems with homosexuality than pedophilia. We are still the safest out of all the other organizations out there, and they have put things in place that this is very hard to do now. They pull them right out for any little thing. It happened before the early 80’s, and I haven’t heard any since. We follow the church, not man and don’t think the other religions aren’t having problems they just don’t report it and they knew the Catholic Church had a lot of money. There is no perfect man except Christ and that is who we follow. We don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Hope this helps.
God Bless.
I am looking for common problems you have when challenged to defend the Church. Maybe some roadblocks you have experienced and how you overcame them.
For example I need help on being called to the carpet about the priest abuse scandal. I just don’t know how to speak to non-catholics about it. Maybe someone can give me some pointers?
We don’t have to limit it to my question if you need some assistance on something bring it up too maybe someone can help.
Admit the fault. Say yes, some priests did horrible things and any priests that does that should be stripped of all clerical duties and put in prison. It’s sick and evil and should never happened and it should have been dealt with better.
However this problem IS NOT unique to the Catholic Church whatsoever, it’s part of the human condition. Human beings do terrible things to each other, whether they are Catholic, Protestant, atheist, Muslim, etc… Sadly, public school teachers have one of the highest percentages of abuse, (and cover-ups as well) but this does not make public schools evil, or mean that being a teacher means your going to abuse a kid.
Point out all the reforms going on. The Church has strict rules and no tolerance policies now. If a man joins a seminary, he goes through intense psychological evaluation. If you even want to volunteer with kids you have to jump through all kinds of hoops and fingerprinting and all that. I know because I volunteer with youth ministry at my parish. All these have tremendously helped fix the problem, to where it’s almost nonexistent nowadays.
Make a point that the vast majority of priests are good, holy, brave men. They give up all they have to serve The Lord. Don’t judge an entire group based on the actions of a few. For a stereotype to work there has to be a vast majority of people in that group who do it. Like women drivers, most of us are bad at it. (I’m a woman, I’ll admit it! ) But the “pedophile priest” one just doesn’t.
Finally, the Church is made up of sinners, always has, always will. Shes always in need of a renewal. But the fact is, we don’t put our faith in men, we put our faith in Christ. And Christ told us he would build his Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail. The fact the Church is even still around after two thousand years testifies to this. There’s no human reason whatsoever for her survival, she should have collapsed fifteen minutes after the Ascension! But she is still here, and that can only be from God.
Sorry for such a long post, hope that’ll help get you started though.
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) But the “pedophile priest” one just doesn’t.