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Likewise, when people feel the Church is demanding that society adopt unjust laws, Wait a minute. The Church is not demanding that society adopt unjust laws–the Church is lobbying against society changing current law and adopting positions that the church feels are detrimental to society as well as immoral. their personal sense of justice is aroused. For example, many if not most people today know (and know they know) a gay or lesbian person. They may even be a relative. So when the Church opposes rights for gays and lesbians, Please enumerate the rights the Church is arguing should be denied to gay and lesbian people–as I am unware of what those are? The Church argues against allowing marriage laws to be turned on their head–but marriage is not a right (in the sense that say free speach or voting is)–and the state has always seen fit to regulate who it allows to marry–hence age restrictions, restrictions against marrying your cousin, requiring blood tests,. you can’t marry your dog, pedophiles can’t marry children, etc. And when one remembers the Constitution is supposed to protect us from religious inspired law, Where do you find this in the constitution? Please cite article or amendment. The Constitution prohibits a state established church–like the Church of England. Not murdering–is a religious inspired law and I do not see anyone arguing that it is unconstitutional. The constitution helps protect us from the tyranny of the majority not religious inspired law. it is not surprising that some people would say, “Who are they to talk about right and wrong? Who are they to tell me what to do?” The fact that so many bishops were complicit in the child abuse scandal is what really made it a scandal. In reading the paperwork I see a lot of bishops trusting the word of psychologists who used to claim people could be rehabilitated. Many Bishops trusted these reports. There is no justification for what was done once it became clear that there is no rehablitation–and none of those priests should have been put in contact with children ever but the reporting was often not fair nor truthful regarding what occurred.-- and that is when people get defensive–right or wrong.
That said–where is all the uproar and hate for our schools and our teachers? Several stories have shown rampant abuse in our schools–the Oregonian did a 3 day series–and I believe the AP also did an investigation and ran a series–hardly a ripple–never saw it on the nightly news. Yet it appears abuse in our schools is as bad or worse than it was in the Church and it is still going on. They ship teachers from district to district and state to state and even have a name for it – it’s called “passing the trash”. Teachers unions fight tooth and nail any disclosure of this info and make it difficult for a district hiring a teacher to find out if a teacher coming to them left because of child abuse. No one is suing the teachers union or there local school. There is no survivors network for those abused by teachers. There is no public outcry --why is that? Why isn’t this as big a story? Lots of people complicit here.
Most child abuse occurs in the family home–by mom, dad or a close relative and most of the family is complicit in the abuse–by allowing it to go on.
Our priests and bishops should be held to a higher standard but that they often fall short should be of know surprise–one would hope that they do better–but it has no impact on the truth of what the Church proclaims afterall no one would argue that 2 + 2 is not 4 simply because a local math teacher abused a child.
And when the people advocating for the position the Church supports use deceptions and falsehoods to advance their cause, when opposition becomes villification, and when violence results, with no contrition …When any group of people gets carried away to the point where anyone who is not with them entirely is characterized as evil, This sounds more like opponents of the Church than those advocating for the Church. My daughter has been yelled at, and spit at and called all sorts of foul names–for simply standing with a protest sign in front of a Planned Parenthood abortion mill. It is not the Church that is carried away–it is those who hate the Church and what it teaches and will do anything to tear it down. I think you’ve got it backwards.
it has had difficulty adjusting to a world of liberal democracy and religious tolerance. The Church supports liberty and tolerance but I sense that you confuse tolerance with acceptance and fail yourself to tolerate the Churches unchanging moral teachings. The Church has not really had difficulty adjusting to a world of liberal democracy but liberal democracy has a difficult time accepting the fact that the Church will not change its moral teachings to fall in line with secular society and its desires–so much for tolerance. And in a good portion of this world there is no such thing as religious tolerance–try visiting the middle east or china for instance.
All the Christians, and most others too, know that Christ admonished us to love our neighbors as ourselves. If Catholics, who have benefited the most from religious freedom in the US, are not seen to respect the religious freedom of others, Would you please provide examples fo this? Its was not protestants who were shuned, who were turned out of families, cut off, denied employment or club membership in the US–it was Catholics. Who’s not respecting whos religious freedom? It was the fact that JFK was Catholic that had many americans thinking he should be disqualifed from being president. Just how are Catholics not respecting others religious freedom?
and have my own opinions