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SirThomasMore
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no, “just men” are not false prophets who mislead people from the true God
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Marc_Anthony
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You know, the real story isn’t really LDS racism. I’m sure there were racist Popes and racist Catholics too. The problem is that the LDS prophets were teaching this as divine revelation…that blacks are inferior. Catholics NEVER, ever did that. It was never a Catholic teaching, and even if it was, it was certainly not stated as an infallible teaching.
So while I don’t doubt that nowadays the LDS Church is far less racist than it was, that’s really irrelevant. What’s relevant is that racism was taught as a revealed truth of God, and then contradicted and hushed up. So what is it? Is LDS racist, or is it simply unsure over exactly what God is telling them? And if this teaching has changed, doesn’t that tell you that it’s probably not the true Church?
So while I don’t doubt that nowadays the LDS Church is far less racist than it was, that’s really irrelevant. What’s relevant is that racism was taught as a revealed truth of God, and then contradicted and hushed up. So what is it? Is LDS racist, or is it simply unsure over exactly what God is telling them? And if this teaching has changed, doesn’t that tell you that it’s probably not the true Church?
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CatholicGuyNY
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Thank you, this is also my view.
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FidesSpesCarita
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Mine as well, despite my poor attempt to voice it.
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TikiTokiguy
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Well, yeah. I was going to say that too.
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dianaiad
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Yes you have.
Tell me: which is more telling: 150 of a racist policy (that did not leave people in slavery, by the way) that was pulled up short through revelation and instantly fixed…
Or the incredible hypocrisy evident in a church that CLAIMS that all men are equal, and CLAIMS that God denies blessings to nobody–but which spent over fifteen hundred years making certain that blacks not only did not enter the priesthood in any large numbers (and evidently still does not) but that enslaved, devalued, conquered and destroyed entire peoples?
Just…don’t give me this argument.
From where I sit it looks like this: Catholics have been guilty of murder and racism in a wholesale and endemic fashion; Popes have issued instructions to enslave entire peoples–and given blanket indulgences to those who participated in it. They have threatened (and enforced) eclesiastical punishments up to interdiction and excommunication (not to mention imprisonment, torture and death) against those who protested. When the leader of a church makes a statement that not only is official, but enforced physically AND spiritually, that’s…pretty darned official. To claim that 'but he was just human and that’s not what God wanted…" is actually to admit a wholesale apostasy, wouldn’t you say? Wasn’t God supposed to keep that sort of thing from HAPPENING?
Except of course that you haven’t done that. You STILL don’t do that. The facts simply do not support your claim that Catholicism believes that black people are equal to white people, because the percentage of black to white in the priesthood isn’t anywhere close to the percentage of black to white in the general membership, anywhere in the world.
For instance…were you aware that in 2004, less than 1% of the new priests ordained was of black African descent? 68% were white European. Now given that ‘people of color’ (Black African) represent 25% of the Catholic world population, that should bother you.
I dare you to give me a different reason that makes any sort of sense.
What, do you think that blacks of African descent are not as smart as the white guys? Less 'called to serve?" less educated, more sinful…what IS it, my friend, that keeps the numbers so low, comparatively? Why don’t black Catholics want to become priests…or if they do, what is keeping them from doing so?
I DARE you to come up with any reason at all that doesn’t scream 'RACIST!!"
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Marc_Anthony
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Irrelevant. Racism is not taught as divine revelation, it is recognized as human failure.
I’ve met several black Priests BTW. If you go to a seminary and get the required grades, you will be ordained so long as you do nothing illegal or horribly immoral really. I’m not sure what racism has to do with it.
EDIT: Besides, there are less black Catholics than the rest of the nationalities. So mathematically there WOULD be less Priests, wouldn’t there?
Also, you’re confusing the divine call to serve with the humans ordaining those who serve. You can think you’re being called to be a Priest, get ordained, then realize you were wrong. Also, you can be called to be a Priest, but if humans don’t ordain you for whatever reason (let’s say it’s race for the sake of arguement) that’s human error, not God’s error. LDS were teaching as a matter of divine revelation that blacks were inferior. Catholics teach that all human beings are equal but that the humans who make up the Church may sin and be racist. Apples and oranges.
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why_me
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I kinda want to giggle and chuckle when I read sirtoms false prophet and true god statements. But it is sad to read. If you would now ask many belgium catholics about the catholic true god, they would look rather puzzled considering the police just raided a catholic church looking for child molestation evidence. How can the catholic true god allow so many priests to molest innocent children is beyond me. And yet, here is sirtom constantly talking about the catholic true god.
If the true god allows priests to molest children, I would not want anything to do with him. But…I know why things happen and it has nothing to do with who has the true god.
Enough tom with the catholic god being the true god…it is insulting to all catholics who have been victims of child molestatiion and their relatives. Not to mention to catholics the world over.
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FidesSpesCarita
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What is it that keeps numbers low? I dont know. Why are the majority of soldiers in the US armed forces from the southeast with an incredibly low percentage coming from the most populated state (CA)? Its one of those things that happen, whether we force it or not, whether we control it or not. The fact remains that your DOCTRINE stated the inferiority of a race of men, while simultaneously (since you DO consider the Bible, albeit adulterated, Holy) calling all men equal.
If you have the exact same percentage of black priests as the normal population, how do you maintain that? And does that percentage correlate through all levels of priesthood, Aaronic, Melchizedek, and elders? Is there a quota? Essentially how are your perfect percentages maintained?
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Marc_Anthony
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Irreleavant again. That is human failing. Nobody’s denying that Catholics sin or that Catholic Priests sin. What we’re denying is that we ever taught racism or child molestation as divine revelation, then later recanted the teaching for not being politically correct.I kinda giggle and chuckle when I read sirtoms false prophet and true god statements. If you would now ask many belgium catholics about the catholic true god, they would look rather puzzled considering the police just raided a catholic church looking for child molestation evidence. How can the catholic true god allow so many priests to molest innocent children is beyond me. And yet, here is sirtom constantly talking about the catholic true god.
If the true god allows priests to molest children, I would not want anything to do with him. But…I know why things happen and it has nothing to do with who has the true god.
Enough tom with the catholic god being the true god…it is insulting to all catholics who have been victims of child molestatiion and their relatives. Not to mention to catholics the world over.
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FidesSpesCarita
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Careful with that. Do not presume to say what is insulting to those of us who have survived molestation. Unless you are one, you cannot, will not, know what it is. DONT bring that into this. Its not something I will abide.I kinda want to giggle and chuckle when I read sirtoms false prophet and true god statements. But it is sad to read. If you would now ask many belgium catholics about the catholic true god, they would look rather puzzled considering the police just raided a catholic church looking for child molestation evidence. How can the catholic true god allow so many priests to molest innocent children is beyond me. And yet, here is sirtom constantly talking about the catholic true god.
If the true god allows priests to molest children, I would not want anything to do with him. But…I know why things happen and it has nothing to do with who has the true god.
Enough tom with the catholic god being the true god…it is insulting to all catholics who have been victims of child molestatiion and their relatives. Not to mention to catholics the world over.
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SirThomasMore
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Sorry…there is never enough of the TRUE God…of course, since you foloow false prophets, you would not know what I am talking aboutI kinda giggle and chuckle when I read sirtoms false prophet and true god statements. If you would now ask many belgium catholics about the catholic true god, they would look rather puzzled considering the police just raided a catholic church looking for child molestation evidence. How can the catholic true god allow so many priests to molest innocent children is beyond me. And yet, here is sirtom constantly talking about the catholic true god.
Giggle and chuckle all you want…it just sounds like embarrassed guffaws from here…
If the true god allows priests to molest children, I would not want anything to do with him. But…I know why things happen and it has nothing to do with who has the true god.
Ah…there you go again with your silly comparisons…comparing priests who do not claim to be prophets with racist men who DO claim to be prophets…geez you amuse me
Enough tom with the catholic god being the true god…it is insulting to all catholics who have been victims of child molestatiion and their relatives. Not to mention to catholics the world over.
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dianaiad
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…and here it is, a complete an utter lack of communication and total living in denial.Irrelevant. Racism is not taught as divine revelation, it is recognized as human failure.
I’ve met several black Priests BTW. If you go to a seminary and get the required grades, you will be ordained so long as you do nothing illegal or horribly immoral really. I’m not sure what racism has to do with it.
First, the CoJCoLDS did not teach 'racism as divine revelation." No matter what you WANT to declare as divine revelation, if it isn’t in the scriptures, that’s not what it was. Our racist POLICY was reversed by just such revelation, however. In other words, the church was told to stop it and get its act together–at which point. it did. Instantly, completely, and with very little fuss.
Catholics never were. Still haven’t been.
So here we are, the two of us; both of us claiming that our racism was policy but not doctrine, while at the same time accusing the other guy of having it be doctrine, not policy.
Well, since y’all claim that there has BEEN no public revelation since the apostles died, then all your policy was made by imperfect men–with no guidance from God to fix it even when y’all went so completely off the rails as was done in terms of wholesale slavery and racism. As a result, your improvement, though real, has been slow and remains incomplete: fifteen hundred years of racism, slavery and other stuff that every Catholic here paddles like mad to distance him or herself from. The problem is, you can’t do that; your own records are too good.
On the other hand, here we are; we claim continuous divine revelation. If we went off the doctrinal rails by a racist policy, well…God talked to a prophet and told us to fix it. So we did…and one morning an announcement was made and it was fixed. Instantly. World wide. Completely.
…and now we have several black general authorities–with the distinct possibility of a black apostle–and perhaps President…a WHOLE lot faster than y’all managed to get a black American Cardinal. I have been told that there may have been three black Popes…though two of those were probably Semitic, not black African…and it has been considerably over a thousand years since another black Pope has been appointed.
It looks like we will beat you by a good 900 years or so in that one.
Frankly, this issue is a real hot button for me, for many different reasons: first because I am REALLY tired of the ‘Mormons are racist’ clap trap coming from people whose racist history beggars ours, and second, because the very title of the thread breaks every rule in the forum----and unless I report it, nobody minds.
Anyway, I’m done.
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CatholicGuyNY
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You keep asserting this without any evidence. Please demonstrate when the Catholic Church universally restricted the priesthood from a racial group, or universally denied a racial group access to a sacrament, or dogmatized any racial teaching. In reference to the dogma, please reference the applicable Ecumenical Council or instance of Papal Infallibility. This is what you’ve responded “yes you have” to.
What is more telling is that the LDS church has stated that it is by commandment of God that blacks are restricted from the priesthood. The Catholic Church has never made such a claim. That is the real issue here despite your posturing.
Isn’t the LDS church big on “Free agency”? Catholics believe that God does not force anyone to do something they do not want to do. It seems that you are saying that God should have coerced these people into doing what He wanted them to do. If not, then how exactly was “God supposed to keep that sort of thing from HAPPENING?”
Then my college is teaching that blacks are not equal to whites due to similar percentage issues. This is illogical/
Irrelevant. That does not mean that the Catholic Church teaches that blacks are inferior to whites, did something in some other existence to warrant priesthood restriction, or that blacks should not be ordained to the priesthood. Similarly, the fact that my university enrolls a smaller percentage of blacks than the USA population of blacks does not mean that the school teaches that blacks are inferior or not worthy of an education there.
Who knows, but the fact is that you have not demonstrated that racism is the only reason, and it is illogical to think that it is. There are other possible factors to consider, and what we do know is that the Church is not teaching, and has never universally taught, that blacks are unworthy of the priesthood due to their lineage.
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Marc_Anthony
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So one prophet was teaching racism as divine revelation and another prophet was teaching that it was wrong?
I challenge you to find any official teaching of the Catholic Church that is racist. There is none. We never made infallible statements on racist doctrine.
You claim that these prophets weren’t teaching this as divine revelation. Yet they were prophets. And they claimed several times that this racism was God’s will. But this was not divine revelation?
And when another prophet came and said racism was wrong, this was divine revelation?
I will say, right now, that I highly doubt the LDS Church is racist today. That is not the issue, really. The issue is that they were taching racism as divine revelation, but you manage to slide by this thanks to the murky criteria for what constitutes divine revelation in Mormonism.
IMHO the bottom line is that Mormon Prophets claimed several times that racism was taught by God. And then another Prophet came and said they were wrong, and people listened. But why are they believing one Prophet over another? Why was this Prophets’ teaching more official than the others?
As for Catholics, I’m sure there were and are many racist Catholics. But racism was never defined as divine revelation. It simply wasn’t. You won’t find an infallible teaching of the Church that defines racism.
So no, I don’t think the LDS Church today is racist. But that’s besides my point.
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CatholicGuyNY
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This is illogical. The “Catholic true God” allows free will, and will not coerce anyone into doing something they do not want to do.I kinda want to giggle and chuckle when I read sirtoms false prophet and true god statements. But it is sad to read. If you would now ask many belgium catholics about the catholic true god, they would look rather puzzled considering the police just raided a catholic church looking for child molestation evidence. How can the catholic true god allow so many priests to molest innocent children is beyond me. And yet, here is sirtom constantly talking about the catholic true god.
If the true god allows priests to molest children, I would not want anything to do with him. But…I know why things happen and it has nothing to do with who has the true god.
Enough tom with the catholic god being the true god…it is insulting to all catholics who have been victims of child molestatiion and their relatives. Not to mention to catholics the world over.
You seem to be advocating the “Catholic true God” force people into doing things, which reminds me of Satan’s plan in LDS pre-existence theology.
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CatholicGuyNY
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Why would your church be told to “stop it and get it’s act together” when it has taught that the ban was due to a commandment of God? Was it or was it not due to a commandment of God? If it was, then why would God say to stop doing what He commanded and get its act together (focusing on the “get its act together” part)?
The real issue here is something that Catholics have already mentioned multiple times in this thread, which you do not want to see: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has had a “policy” in place where a group of people, in the entirety of the church, were restricted from holding the priesthood (as well as participating in certain other ordinances related to it, as well as black females being restricted from Endowment), because of their lineage. The LDS church has taught in the past that this was due to a commandment of the Lord.
In contrast, the Catholic Church, despite your assertions without substantiation, has never taught that blacks are restricted from holding the priesthood or receive other sacraments/blessings from God. There certainly have been racist Catholics and racial issues related to ordination in the USA (which no Catholic in this thread has denied!), however we know that this was not due to a belief that this was a commandment of God. If it was, then please cite the Ecumenical Council or instance of Papal Infallibility, or statement by the Pope or Magisterium saying that blacks are not to be ordained to the priesthood because of their lineage. While we can point to LDS authorities making such statements, you can’t point to equivalent Catholic authorities making those statements.
LDS racial history is clearly different from Catholic racial history. Mormons apostles and prophets have taught that God cursed these people and that God commanded the restriction of the priesthood. Catholic Popes and Cardinals have never done this, and have never universally restricted the priesthood by race. WE know that our issues were due to human issues. From reading statements by Mormon prophets and apostles, including the First Presidency, we are told that it is God that started the Mormon priesthood ban. That is the real difference here.
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why_me
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Nonsense. It has to do with tom posting that the mormon god is false and the catholic god true. It is an insult to all victims of child molestation by priests to say that catholics have the true god. That is my point. God is god, period.
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why_me
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Not will I. But as long as tom keeps posting how the catholics have the true god and the mormons the false god, well…it is not irrelevant. Enough is enough with true god posts. Enough is enough with true god posts. And as I said, I would not want anything to do with a ‘true’ god that allows priests to molest children. That is my point. If we accept human failings in the catholic church then, we must accept human failings in all churches, including the mormon church.
No one has the true god. We just have god.
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Marc_Anthony
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Irrelevant again. Nobody denies that Catholic Priests sin. That is not the issue. The issue is that God supposedly taught at one point that blacks are racist, then changed its teaching.
If Catholics claimed that their Priests were perfect and never made mistakes, you would have a point. But we have not and will not. One thing the Catholics have NEVER done is make an infallible proclamation and then later contradict with a different “more” infallible proclamation. That is what Mormons are doing here. They’re saying that the Prophets who claimed that God is telling you that blacks are inferior are wrong and that the Prophets who claimed that blacks are all equals are correct. But how can you judge which Prophets are more correct?
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