Mormon missionaries vandalize and desecrate Catholic Shrine

[Samoana]

They were obviously not filled with the Holy Spirit when they performed that act of idocracy. Even though I disagree with just about every single inch of Mormon Theology I don’t think this act reflects the religion or the people of it.

 

[why_me]

i don’t know a single one, not a single Catholic who left the Catholic faith over the priest abuse scandal, and guess what, one of my dear friends son was one of the abused, yet he is as faithful a Catholic as you would want to meet.

whyme you say things as if they were true. i wonder if you have verifiable figures on the number of “good” Catholics who deserted the Church because of this, scandal.

i think not likely, because the numbers are small, unverifiable, and those who “left” almost surely were on the fringes of faith anyway, sort of like the effigy of yourself taht you set up here, as one who believes in “something” but isn’t real claer on what that “something” is. we maintain that no true Christian would desert Christ Jesus because someone, even a periest, had sinned against him. if youdon’t agree with that then your understanding of faith in Jesus must be stunted.

Here is one such story:

bishop-accountability.org/news2005_01_06/2005_04_18_Regan_WhyI.htm

What I tried to say to xulu is that a person cannot put his or her faith in human beings because human beings can disappoint. Xulu was posting as if these missionary stories had affected his testimony of the lds church. But human beings are human beings.

 

[why_me]

. Even though I disagree with just about every single inch of Mormon Theology I don’t think this act reflects the religion or the people of it.

Good point! Now if only more can follow your line of thinking, this thread would have died ages ago.

 

[why_me]

The more the Mormons post, the more apparent it becomes, that the LDS is NOT a Christian sect. That should soon become very clear to any lurkers.

So keep it up, Mormons! Good job!

Really? Have you seen the catholic posts on this thread? This thread should have died on page 5. But it seems as if it is an eternal thread.

 

[majick275]

I was waiting to see if whyme would say anything about zerinus atrocious attacks against the eucaharist here. I didn’t think so but wanted to give it a shot.

We do NOT sacrifice Jesus. He sacrificed himself. For US!!! this is the heart of catholic liturgy and zerinus disgusting comments on it are no ddifferent than the despicable actions of teh colorado missionaries. his attitude as demonstrated by whyme is all to common among mormons. they think it’s funny and get upset if anyone criticizes them for these antics.

Mormons have an extensive liturgy with very extensive set prayers. zrinus doesn’t realize this because he hasn’t been through the temple yet. whyme has.

 

[majick275]

Here is one such story:

bishop-accountability.org/news2005_01_06/2005_04_18_Regan_WhyI.htm

What I tried to say to xulu is that a person cannot put his or her faith in human beings because human beings can disappoint. Xulu was posting as if these missionary stories had affected his testimony of the lds church. But human beings are human beings.

did you even read that story? they make it clear that their biggest factor was about ordaining women. the person feels that women should be able to priests.

We don’t put our faith in human beings. however we don’t have human beings who claim to be speaking for God is if their words came from his own mouth.

 

[Indyann]

did you even read that story? they make it clear that their biggest factor was about ordaining women. the person feels that women should be able to priests.

We don’t put our faith in human beings. however we don’t have human beings who claim to be speaking for God is if their words came from his own mouth.

The story also makes it clear that his decision was based on “feelings”. Just as Mormons base their belief on feelings.

God gave us faith and REASON.

I see no reasoning in the LDS.

 

[xulu]

What if they haven’t caused any damage? Should they pay conpensation just to satisfy you? How arrogant can you get.

“What If” statements are usually the last resort of a lost argument.

 

[xulu]

You deserve such a smack…

This is a disgraceful, irreverent, and blasphemous attitude. I have no doubt that more intelligent and respectful members of your church would be more than disgusted by your attitude. It’s disgraceful that you see fit to mock the holy sites of other faiths. What a true display of your genuinely hateful, unchristian nature…

Take a number and get in line…I’m with you. How disgusting!

 

[xulu]

We think you misunderstand. We think it was a blueprint, not to be repeated verbatim.

zerinus

What about our prayer for the passing of the sacrament? That is read verbatim.

 

[xulu]

The more the Mormons post, the more apparent it becomes, that the LDS is NOT a Christian sect. That should soon become very clear to any lurkers.

So keep it up, Mormons! Good job!

If they are Mormons like they claim to be, they don’t represent me. However, sadly I have seen this nasty attitude filtering in for some time to our congregations, which is partly why I no longer attend on a regular basis.

 

[xulu]

But human beings are human beings.

Yet when they keep messing you over, there is a fundamental attitude adjustment needed in the seat of the pants.

 

[Memaw]

As I said, nobody ahould ever desecrate the place or items of worship of another. Shame on them. I am LDS and I have met missionaries that really should never have gone on a mission…they were way to immature and really did not care about the church. Shame on these guys. There are many many missionaries out there that would NEVER do anything like this. You will find the “bad apples” in EVERY group, church etc.

Annie

Its funny you should say, “You will find “bad apples” in every group.” According to Media, its mostly the Catholics that fall from grace. We are all born under the effects of “Original Sin.” Thank God for repentance and the Sacrament of Confession.

 

[ABalch]

Agreeing to a prayer is not saying a prayer.

A blueprint - by definition - is structured. Even if the prayer isn’t said verabtim, a particular structure and order has to be followed for it to qualify as the Lord’s Prayer. Otherwise, there’s absolutely no distinction between the Lord’s Prayer and any other prayer to the Father.

Dauphin,

I feel you may want to reconsider what you said here regarding public prayer. For, with your statement that the formula of one person saying a prayer, and a group of others respnding with “amen” or a similar response, you attempt to invalidate the formula of the intercessory prayers that are said at every Catholic mass. The common formula is a lector, deacon, or priest standing at the ambo will state a prayer, such as “We pray for our Pope, Benedict the sixteenth, and our Bishop, (in my case, Archbishop Velazny), and all the clergy and religious throughout the world…”, and, the congregation will respond with something usually along the lines of a sung “Lord hear our prayers”

Now, if you don’t pay any attention to the prayers of the faithful, and you are responding out of rote, yes, I would say that you are not publicly praying. But, if you are also focused on the prayer that is being read, aggree with it, and give your support of it with your response, I would say you participated in a public prayer, without saying the entire prayer audibly with the leader of the prayer.

The Lord’s prayer is only one of many prayers in a mass. I would say that outside of the homily, and the readings from scriptures, which are their own prayers, returning God’s word in praise, most of the mass is prayers, and a fair number of them are in the form of one person saying it, and the congregation responding with support of it.

To everyone on this forum; we all should all work toward frank discussion without the constant, blatant attack on each other. I don’t aggree with much of the doctirnes of the LDS, since I am unabashably Catholic, but I don’t deny that a Mormon can have the same disaggreement about matters of my faith.

My all of you find peace in Our Lord
Albert

 

[Jerusha]

Its funny you should say, “You will find “bad apples” in every group.” According to Media, its mostly the Catholics that fall from grace. We are all born under the effects of “Original Sin.” Thank God for repentance and the Sacrament of Confession.

Yeah, we are more sinful because we define sin more broadly. :blushing: :yup: Therefore we need more graces. :angel1:

Which makes this thread pointless since we are comparing two very different cultures

 

[ABalch]

another note on spontaneous prayer, public recitatory prayer, and public responsorial prayer.

Recited prayers, such as a whole congregation reciting the Lord’s Prayer together, can be a very uplifting experience. It also can be an occassion for people to “doze off” so to speak in church.

My brother-in-law, who only a few months back started coming to mass at my parish, the first time he has regularly attended any church since his childhood, was commenting last weekend on how “borg-like” some of the prayers can sound. He wasn’t doing this to be insulting, and I understood what he was saying. He has nothing against the recited prayers we do in mass, such as a the Gloria, and the Our Father. He only was commenting on how a lot of the people around him in the pews didn’t seem to really even be aware of what they were saying, and that it was a montonous drone.

Like I said, it is difficult to make a group of people, all with different pitches and timbers sound anything less than a montonous drone, but I just ask everyone in any denomination you happen to be, to think about those responsorials and recited prayers that your church might have, and think about how excited and connected you yourself sound during them.

And, now I know I have taken this totally off topic to the discussion. I will try to contribute something directly to the topic of this thread in my next post.

In Peace
Albert

 

[peary]

another note on spontaneous prayer, public recitatory prayer, and public responsorial prayer.

Recited prayers, such as a whole congregation reciting the Lord’s Prayer together, can be a very uplifting experience. It also can be an occassion for people to “doze off” so to speak in church.

My brother-in-law, who only a few months back started coming to mass at my parish, the first time he has regularly attended any church since his childhood, was commenting last weekend on how “borg-like” some of the prayers can sound. He wasn’t doing this to be insulting, and I understood what he was saying. He has nothing against the recited prayers we do in mass, such as a the Gloria, and the Our Father. He only was commenting on how a lot of the people around him in the pews didn’t seem to really even be aware of what they were saying, and that it was a montonous drone.

Like I said, it is difficult to make a group of people, all with different pitches and timbers sound anything less than a montonous drone, but I just ask everyone in any denomination you happen to be, to think about those responsorials and recited prayers that your church might have, and think about how excited and connected you yourself sound during them.

And, now I know I have taken this totally off topic to the discussion. I will try to contribute something directly to the topic of this thread in my next post.

In Peace
Albert

Does your brother-in-law realize that the Borg ‘assimilate’? LOL

 

[ABalch]

To the topic this thread was opened to discuss…

I must state my support of many of the postings from people saying that the most offensive part of this whole event perpatrated by these three young men taking pictures of their acts at this shrine is their disregard for what another faith, my Catholic faith, holds to be sacred; the altar inside the shrine.

I find it very unbelievable that anyone that has the least bit of understanding of religion would not recognize that the best thing to do if you are in a church you don’t belong to, it act in the very best manner you can.

A lot has been said on both sides about whether these young men are guilty or not. This is somehting ultimately that the courst, if they become involved, would decide legally, but I find that with their own self-incrimination at least of the one individual that was captioned in the original posting of these pictures on the internet as having broken the head off, we must say they are at the most generous guilty of something. If they did not in fact break the head off, we have to at least say they are guilty of a very public lie.

I have yet, though, to see any public statement from any of these three saying that the statemtent that one of them broke the head off the statue was untruthful. If, you were accused of doing something you did not, and accused by your own lie, perhaps told you thought in jest, would you not attempt to set the record straight?

Now, as regards the claims of sacrelige when these young men preached fromt the altar, and then pretended to sacrfice one of the men on the altar. I will go as far as to say that while I find it very offensive to me, because I know the significance of an altar in a Catholic church or shrine, I am not going to go as far as to accuse these boys of sacrilege, because I can’t interpret their own hearts. If they knew the significance of the altar, and what it represents, then they were sacrilegious in their behavior around and on that altar. Being that they are Mormon, and possibly never learned a single thing about the Catholic Church (something I strongly doubt would be true, though they may have learned things that aren’t true about the Catholic Church), I will not accuse them of sacrilege. Similar to the prerequisites that something be a mortal sin, I feel that sacrilege requires the full knowledge and cooperatioin with the sacrilegious act. If they had not the knowledge that the altar is a sacred object, set aside for everyday use by its consecration to it use as an altar, and they did not have full cooperation with the act they were doing (unlikely, since they did it, and I don’t see how they could have been coerced into it), then what they did is still gravely offensive, but not, in the cirumstance I described, necessarily sacreligious.

I will ask the same thing a numbe of others have asked. Has anyone seen any statement from the other two missionaries involved in this?

May God’s love shine out through your (and my) actions.
Albert

 

[ABalch]

Peary,

His point simply was about it seeming that many people near him weren’t really all that emotionally attached to the prayer they were saying.

My brother-in-law, though he hasn’t been to any church with regularity since childhood, most often experienced some of the more charismatic protestant churches, and so it has been an adjustment for him coming to mass at my parish and seeing a less “lively” bunch. He and I have discussed this a few times. He doesn’t object to the solemnity of mass, we were just disussing how sometimes, no matter where you go to church, a person can fall into complacency and lassitude, and just go, becuase you go, not for any strong feeling of worship.

He an I are both Star Trek fans, so we actually have on occassion spent an entire afternoon discussing how theoretically the Borg grew out a a civilization that were just trying to reach perfection, and the social and religiuos aspects of their growth into the Borg Collective.

May Our Lord’s Peace be with you
Albert

 

[peary]

Peary,

His point simply was about it seeming that many people near him weren’t really all that emotionally attached to the prayer they were saying.

My brother-in-law, though he hasn’t been to any church with regularity since childhood, most often experienced some of the more charismatic protestant churches, and so it has been an adjustment for him coming to mass at my parish and seeing a less “lively” bunch. He and I have discussed this a few times. He doesn’t object to the solemnity of mass, we were just disussing how sometimes, no matter where you go to church, a person can fall into complacency and lassitude, and just go, becuase you go, not for any strong feeling of worship.

He an I are both Star Trek fans, so we actually have on occassion spent an entire afternoon discussing how theoretically the Borg grew out a a civilization that were just trying to reach perfection, and the social and religiuos aspects of their growth into the Borg Collective.

May Our Lord’s Peace be with you
Albert

Good Lord, I didn’t expect an epistle on it LOL I was (tongue in cheek) making an analogy that you can’t pray together as a community without what you are praying getting ‘assimilated’ into the psyche, that’s all. Those who pray together stay together whether a ‘lively’ or ‘dull’ bunch of prayers. In that case, resistance is futile.