This is an enitrely gratuitous claim. No one is saying this about the Catholic priesthood.
It seems to me that discussion is following along the lines that (Catholic view) God has all the power and he can’t share it with the fiflth that we are and he just can’t make us any better. The LDS view being the opposite. Okay, I’m not saying it in an especially favourable way to what I undersrand is the Catholic view, but please correct any misconception I have.
I gladly correct your misconception.
First I want to note that historically several Catholic leaders got caught up seeking and wielding power because they had a lot of secular power. Mormonism, on the smaller scale which it experienced, proved itself no less susceptible to abuse of secular authority, with Joseph Smith’s destruction of the printing press of the Nauvoo Expositor as not even a particularly early example of this. The cover-up of the Mountain Meadows Massacre (America’s other September 11) offers a later example.
Any human beings are susceptible to the corruption of power if they are not careful. What Zaffiroborant refers to is the promises the LDS priesthood makes about the kind of power the holders of it will have. IPArt of this ties in with a belief system which extends Earthly competition into the Celestial realm. In LDS theology
some of us will still benefit from and exploit advantages over others of us in the Celestial Kingdom, as indicated in
Doctrine and Covenants 130
18) Whatever principle of
intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the
resurrection.
19) And if a person gains more
knowledge and intelligence in this life through his
diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the
advantage in the world to come.
I say exploit because of the LDS doctrine that those who achieve the Celestial Kingdom but lack an Eternal companion will have lower status and serve those who do have Eternal Companions.The former are like angels, the latter like Gods.
Regarding your statement, “God has all the power and he can’t share it with the fiflth that we are and he just can’t make us any better.” That must be a foregone conclusion in your case, and aamended by your own biases. It is neither an inherent claim of Cahtolicism, nor reflected in what others have posted on the site. Catholicism teaches that god does share His power with us, but it does not take any special ordiantion. It is called the common preiesthood of the faithful, and anyone who has been validly baptized, Catholic or not, shares in it – but we do not hold the priesthood ourselves. The Bible teaches us that there is one High Priest and we share in His Priesthood.
Christianity does not teach that humans are filth. We are inherently corruptible through original sin, but as a cration we are sanctified simply in that God chose to enter into his own Creation as one of us. It means we inherently have a share of God as he shares in our humanity.
We do not perceive any of us having advantage over others in the next life. The Lord makes it clear in his parables that whether the wrokers came in early ion the mortal day, or late in the mortal day – whether they worked harder and sacrificed more, or worked less and sacriificed little, the reward is the same.
To say that Catholicism teaches that “God just can’t make us any better,” indicates absolutely uninformed understanding of both Christianity and your own version of it. Christians and Catholics in particular recognize that ONLY God can make us better. In the Savior’s words, we cannot by taking though add an inch to our stature. That is the whole purpose of the real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist – to change us where we cannot change ourselves.
This is actually consistent with what the Book of Mormon teaches about the personal process of perfection. 1) Without grace, nothing we do matters. 2) The only perfection is perfection in Christ. The LDS Church itself does not teach this, however, emphasizing instead that we have to do everything we are capable of ourselves before we can count on divine power compensating for our own mortal weakness.
A final note, and I do not usually say this but feel compelled to: In my experience people who rely on the sort of conceited reponses (using conceit in its literal meaning of far-fetched comparison) as do you, who alter terms and take the interpretations to such unjustifed extremes, are fighting the promptings of the Holy Spirit telling them they are wrong, so they must respond forcefully enough to diminish any sense of love that the Holy Spirit needs to keep it up. Diminishing that love only hurts such individuals themselves, as they cannot benefit from other graces of the Lord. In other words, you only hurt yourself fighting against the goads, or in LDS version, “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”
