So why do you think we have so many scandals in the Catholic Church?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bill_Pick
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
B

Bill_Pick

Guest
Simply because Holy Scripture tells us that there will be scandals within the only Church which Jesus Christ founded. If there were no scandals, then Holy Scripture would be in error, would it not? So how can anyone become upset when scandals do arise within the Church?

“Woe to the world because of scandals! For it must needs be that scandals come, but woe to the man through whom scandal does come!”
Matthew 18:7
And He said to His disciples, “It is impossible that scandals should not come; but woe to him through whom they come.”
Luke 17:1"

In the time that Jesus walked the earth, there was the greatest human scandalizer of all time, Judas. Judas was one of twelve chosen by Jesus Christ Himself, so what was the scandal rate among Christ’s closest disciples? It was about 8 1/2 %.

“From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force.”
Matthew 11:12

“Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”
Luke 6:26"

“Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Matthew 5:11-12 Cathkoic treasure chest
 
I think that Satan is using the scandals to try and get rid of the Church or at least divide it. Think of how many people leave the Church when they hear of these scandals and cover-ups. Then think of how the media is blowing all of this up, to the glee of the atheists and certain non-Catholic sects.

We will always have some type of scandals within the Church, but in this day and time Satan is trying to do everything he can do destroy the Church and faithful. Look at the example are “so called” Catholic leaders in our government are giving fellow Catholics?

I think it is time to invoke St. Michael’s help, especially after the Masses which used to be always said before Vatican 11. I shudder to think of how much the Pope must be suffering through this. Please let us pray extra hard for him and our fellow priests and Bishops who are also probably undergoing temptations of some sort.
 
I don’t think the Catholic Church necessarily has “more” scandals than any other church. I think they are just more publicized, so it appears that way.
 
I don’t think religious reasons have anything to do with the current scandal in the RCC.

It is due to several years of bad psychologists evaluating seminarians, coupled with a (sometimes justified) mistrust of civil government and authorities. It’s the secrecy though that bothers people. The RCC should take this opportunity to clean house.

As far as celibacy not being the issue, how come I’m hearing (relatively) plenty about Priests, but not about Married Deacons? Again Celibacy not being bad per se, but a better psychological examination, along with preparation for this type of lifestyle would of helped.

Again most Priests are good men, and all the ones I know, I trust completely and fully.
 
It’s a leadership structure that makes it easy for scandals to happen, and promotes intentionally or not, the covering up of scandals to prevent embarrassment of the Church.
 
DorianGregorian said:
most Priests are good men, and all the ones I know, I trust completely and fully.
Click to expand...
True but the latter is what many victims unfortunately did as well.

There are many many reasons for scandal. But I actually think one is some priests and bishops took advantage of that trust and allowed their authority or control over the flock to go to their heads. In the case of bishops, a thinking of they could get away with cover up.

And some did. Laity right here on CAF defending them under the umbrella of sin. Of course they can sin. But we can know better yet true teachers in Christ’s one and only true Church who speak constantly on the sanctity of life, don’t know better than not to willingly cover up child abuse.

I don’t know if they fear their faith will crumble if they admit false bad apples among the apostolic successors or what. But if our faith is in Jesus and not these men, it will remain strong as a rock.

And then take Cardinal Law for instance Trotted off to the Vatican by JP2 for a new role in the Church.

“Move to Rome
After his resignation, John Paul appointed Law to a post in Rome, putting him in charge of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, with the title of Archpriest. He is also a member of the Congregations for the Oriental Churches, the Clergy, Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, Evangelisation of Peoples, Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Catholic Education, Bishops as well as the Pontifical Council for the Family.”

In charge of a basillica instead of in jail. 🤷

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Francis_Law
 
Lutheranteach said:
It’s a leadership structure that makes it easy for scandals to happen, and promotes intentionally or not, the covering up of scandals to prevent embarrassment of the Church.
Click to expand...
Yes. It is a systemic problem.

The church hierarchy is quite insular and elevations to the episcopate are too often based upon someone in the curia knowing of ‘suitable’ candidates, and vice verse. The chance to study in Rome is the chance to make important connections, to be known. When there is a vacancy at the cathedral in some city the public will wait to see who will be sent to them. This new bishop is normally not familiar to the local community (as in the early church), and his most highly promotable qualities will relate more toward practical institutional management than personal holiness.

The priests, who for the most part are bypassed for any hope of promotional opportunities (or even recognition), are working under a lot of stress and pressure often without adequate emotional support. These are by and large good men whose reputations have been sullied by a few. The choice for the bishops was either to put those few men back into circulation or close parishes for lack of priests, and more often than was wise, they chose to keep the parishes as fully staffed as possible.

BTW, scandals are a problem in every organization, from police departments to schools (and many churches). I think the CC has a handle on it for the present, it is no longer newsworthy.
 
Lutheranteach said:
It’s a leadership structure that makes it easy for scandals to happen, and promotes intentionally or not, the covering up of scandals to prevent embarrassment of the Church.
Click to expand...
Yes. It is a systemic problem.

The church hierarchy is quite insular and elevations to the episcopate are too often based upon someone in the curia knowing of ‘suitable’ candidates, and vice verse. The chance to study in Rome is the chance to make important connections, to be known. When there is a vacancy at the cathedral in some city the public will wait to see who will be sent to them. This new bishop is normally not familiar to the local community (as in the early church), and his most highly promotable qualities will relate more toward practical institutional management than personal holiness.

The priests, who for the most part are bypassed for any hope of promotional opportunities (or even recognition), are working under a lot of stress and pressure often without adequate emotional support. These are by and large good men whose reputations have been sullied by a few. The choice for the bishops was either to put those few men back into circulation or close parishes for lack of priests, and more often than was wise, they chose to keep the parishes as fully staffed as possible.

BTW, scandals are a problem in every organization, from police departments to schools (and many churches). I think the CC has a handle on it for the present (at least in the USA), it is no longer newsworthy.
 
Bill_Pick said:
Simply because Holy Scripture tells us that there will be scandals within the only Church which Jesus Christ founded. If there were no scandals, then Holy Scripture would be in error, would it not? So how can anyone become upset when scandals do arise within the Church?

“Woe to the world because of scandals! For it must needs be that scandals come, but woe to the man through whom scandal does come!”
Matthew 18:7
And He said to His disciples, “It is impossible that scandals should not come; but woe to him through whom they come.”
Luke 17:1"

In the time that Jesus walked the earth, there was the greatest human scandalizer of all time, Judas. Judas was one of twelve chosen by Jesus Christ Himself, so what was the scandal rate among Christ’s closest disciples? It was about 8 1/2 %.

“From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force.”
Matthew 11:12

“Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”
Luke 6:26"

“Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Matthew 5:11-12 Cathkoic treasure chest
Click to expand...
Thanks for those reminders…
I was upset recently by what I’ve heard in the media.
 
twopekinguys said:
I don’t think the Catholic Church necessarily has “more” scandals than any other church. I think they are just more publicized, so it appears that way.
Click to expand...
Oh please… When are you just going to face reality??? Over half of the diocese in Germany now have complaints lodged fro child sexual abuse. The longer you folks keep your head in the sand, more and more attacks of this horrible nature are going to happen to children. You are so pro-life when it comes to abortions, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is in all facets of it.
 
It is really sad that our church has been on the news lately because of sexual abuse charges. A lot of believers have left our church, because of that. I certainly believe the devil is behind all those cases. It must be very hard for a priest to keep celibacy through all his life. I can not say much about their life, but, i can certainly thing that it must be a great struggle for a lot of them. I am not sure, but i do believe that the catholic church is one of the few religions that demands their priests to be celibated and therefore the pressure is very great on our priests. I am not condeming them either consoling them, because certainly these kind of sexual abuses should not happen at all. We should continue praying for our church and for our priests that they reject temptations made by satan. The life of a priest is very hard, they leave behind everything, almost renouncing to any kind of love attachment, even from their own families, they leave everything for the sake of our Lord, which is not an easy life. I also feel for the poor children that had been abused. Let’s pray together than instead of having less believers and having more sexual scandals, our beloved church, with the intercession of our Lord, bring us just the opposite, more fervient believers and more reliable priests. I am not claiming that i am a person without sin, not at all, but, like so many things that are happening in this world, we must look inside of our ourselves and keep focus in the ways God has teached us to be and to live by. Let’s pray for our beloved Pope to have the strenght and guidance of our Lord in such difficult times in history.
 
Proallen said:
Oh please… When are you just going to face reality??? Over half of the diocese in Germany now have complaints lodged fro child sexual abuse. The longer you folks keep your head in the sand, more and more attacks of this horrible nature are going to happen to children. You are so pro-life when it comes to abortions, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is in all facets of it.
Click to expand...
👍👍
 
CMatt25 said:
True but the latter is what many victims unfortunately did as well.

There are many many reasons for scandal. But I actually think one is some priests and bishops took advantage of that trust and allowed their authority or control over the flock to go to their heads. In the case of bishops, a thinking of they could get away with cover up.

And some did. Laity right here on CAF defending them under the umbrella of sin. Of course they can sin. But we can know better yet true teachers in Christ’s one and only true Church who speak constantly on the sanctity of life, don’t know better than not to willingly cover up child abuse.

I don’t know if they fear their faith will crumble if they admit false bad apples among the apostolic successors or what. But if our faith is in Jesus and not these men, it will remain strong as a rock.

And then take Cardinal Law for instance Trotted off to the Vatican by JP2 for a new role in the Church.

“Move to Rome
After his resignation, John Paul appointed Law to a post in Rome, putting him in charge of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, with the title of Archpriest. He is also a member of the Congregations for the Oriental Churches, the Clergy, Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, Evangelisation of Peoples, Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Catholic Education, Bishops as well as the Pontifical Council for the Family.”

In charge of a basillica instead of in jail. 🤷

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Francis_Law
Click to expand...
Good post Matt. Question: The CC is suppose to be a picture of Jesus, What picture do most people unfortunally see when all this is happening?
 
tweetymom said:
Good post Matt. Question: The CC is suppose to be a picture of Jesus, What picture do most people unfortunally see when all this is happening?
Click to expand...
Most people still see a picture of Jesus, despised, scourged, mocked and spat on, but this picture of Jesus will always remain loving and obedient to the will of the Father, until the end of time.

:blessyou:
 
Proallen said:
Oh please… When are you just going to face reality??? Over half of the diocese in Germany now have complaints lodged fro child sexual abuse. The longer you folks keep your head in the sand, more and more attacks of this horrible nature are going to happen to children. You are so pro-life when it comes to abortions, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is in all facets of it.
Click to expand...
Proallen, Have you been a bigot all you life or did you just learn to be one,have a great day
 
twopekinguys said:
I don’t think the Catholic Church necessarily has “more” scandals than any other church. I think they are just more publicized, so it appears that way.
Click to expand...
No, there are probably more scandals in the Catholic Church, but we have a billion members. No other Christian Church comes close. That many people, that many Priests, there are going to be problems. Even though it is an incredibly small percentage of Priests who are involved, a small percentage of a very large number will still be a large number.

And yes, Catholic bad stuff is always over publicized and Catholic good stuff is rarely publicized
 
Bill,

I suspect that, because there are so many more Catholics, there are more opportunities for scandal to arise. I doubt that Catholics are any more inclined to scandalous behavior than other Christians.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top