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redrosetea
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I am so sorry that you had to suffer that…I care and so do many people who are working hard to see it never happens again
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Cathdefender
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No attorney has made more money than Jeff Anderson. A few years ago it was estimated by the Associated Press that he’d won 60 million in settlements from Catholic Dioceses.
www.reformation.com will show you hundreds of thousands of Protestant pastors who have molested children. Much much more than any priest who was accused.
Furthermore, it happens in every religion. In 2005 there were 5 cases of sexual misconduct among 42,000 priests.
January 10, 2005, a Brooklyn Yeshuva being slapped with it’s 4th sex lawsuit, the latest involving a “highly regarded Rabbi”.
So on and so on and so on…
JUST REMEMBER THIS:
WHEREVER GOD ERECTS A HOUSE OF PRAYER,
THE DEVIL ALWAYS BUILDS A CHAPEL THERE,
AND WHAT CAN BE FOUND UPON EXAMINATION,
THE LATTER HAS THE LARGEST CONGREGATION.
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vocatio
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I try to refrain from whining about this. It’s hard. I managed to avoid the feeling while I was away for so many years justifying that “this can’t be the true Church for allowing all of this and covering it up”. But when I cam back I had to just learn to deal with it again. It was like opening up an old wound.
SIA and others like him use the scandals to justify their positions. I understand why they are angry too. I believe he also went to the seminary based on something he said on a different post. My way of dealing with this is to defend what I can. Sometime I just get a little over angry about it. That’s why I try to pray a lot…Liturgical prayer…LOTH. It seems to calm me. The rosary also calms me and I really try hard to pray it daily.
But thanks for showing concern. I appreciate the gesture.
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Contarini
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I’m not sure Rwanda is a good example for you to bring up. Yes, all Christian churches were involved. But that includes the Catholic Church. And this article claims that unlike the Protestant churches, the Catholic Church has not taken responsibility for the actions of its leaders in Rwanda during the genocide. This is exactly the pattern that people find disturbing in the abuse scandal in the U.S. It’s not that Catholicism was uniquely guilty, but that the close identification of the institutional structure with the mystical body allows (even mandates) a sort of reverse catch-22: on the one hand the leaders get cut a lot of slack because they are identified with the Church, but on the other the Church is never held responsible for what its officials do. This is not something I like to emphasize, because it’s a nasty business and I don’t want to give the impression of claiming that any Christian communion is without serious sin. But it is one reason why I find the Catholic Church’s claims about itself less than convincing. Those claims seem to foster a kind of “hardness of heart” when it comes to the sins committed by leaders of the institutional Church acting in the name of the Church. It’s a pattern that seems to be repeated over and over and over again.
In the Rwandan case, for instance, the Anglican leaders implicated were removed from their positions and punished, and the Anglican Communion worldwide made no attempt to shield them from justice as far as I know. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, appears to have attempted repeatedly to minimize the guilt of its clergy and religious, to explain away their actions, and to bargain for the best possible deals for them if they were found guilty. This is, in my opinion, the dark side of one of the Catholic Church’s most attractive features–its ability to speak as one throughout the world and to stand against the powers of the world. It’s when I look at things like the Rwandan genocide that I’m forced to conclude that perhaps the division of Christians (however regrettable) may be necessary for the present, given the sinfulness that plagues all of us. Perhaps God sees that a united Church would have no accountability and would be far more prone to self-righteousness and hardness of heart than the divided churches are at present. And that would be a very bad thing.
Edwin
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Gottle_of_Geer
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Two minor points - disobedience =/= treason…
**…and, that is not quite correct either: Reginald Pole survived, though his mother, whom you go on to mention, did not. The Plantagenets intermarried with the nobility a good deal - their descendants, on both sides of the Channel, would have been exterminated, if “every living descendent from the Plantagenet line of English Kings” had got the chop. That isn’t what happened. **
**Or possibly, not “ruthlessness”, so much as “reasons of state”: a reason for acting which was anything but peculiar to him. That does not rectify wrong, but does make the point that he was not unique in doing unpleasant things. A comparison of the (comparable) stats - if these exist - from the reigns of his contemporaries might go a long way to putting his less lovely doings ****into clearer focus. **
What is cruel about what happened to the Countess of Salisbury ? You’re judging her death by the less inhumane standards of a milder age, I think - which is just what apologists for the Spanish Inquisition chide its critics for doing. If it’s OK to BBQ living heretics, some of them of very advanced age, it is not wrong to decapitate an aged Countess. Pius V burned a man who was about 70 - that did not stop that Pope being canonised. If Pius V can burn alive the humanist & Reformer Aionio Paleario in 1570/71, despite the age of the person to be burned, & can be canonised rather than execrated as monster of cruelty, it is not self-evident that an English king cannot decapitate a Countess almost as old**. ****That is how far 16th-century Catholicism was from thinking severe or cruel penalties (as they seem by humaner standards) incompatible with Christian virtue & even holiness. So why judge Henry VIII more rigorously ? If he was wrong to eviscerate those men who were not members of the nobility & who were found guilty of treason, then so were his Catholic predecessors for the preceding 250 years. He didn’t invent what happened to the Carthusians in 1535 - Edward I did, in 1283; & he was never anything but a Catholic in religion. **
Thanks for the info though
- that gives one a firm footing, as it were, because statements without a source do not really confidence. (The priest whom the OP quoted gave the figure, but no source for it.)The OP & that priest now have a source for the stat of 72,000 executions - but not for a stat of 72,000 executions for being Catholic, which is what they said that stat stood for. Maybe they will correct the error…
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estesbob
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Yes it was a deplorable scandal. Youve made your point. So what else do you have to add to the discussion? There are a lot of us working very hard to make sure this never happens again. On the other hand it seems you have decided your role is to stand on the sdielines an toss barbs at everyone else You left-you voted with your feet. So why the constant harrassment of those who stayed and are trying to right the wrongs? Are you afraid as the scandal fades away you will look foolish for leaving?Im not taking shots here-just trying to understand your motivation .
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redrosetea
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I certainly don’t agree about the church having hardness of heart about past sins
Pope John PaulII has very publically asked for pardon for the sins some of the church members have committed… It was done with great humility
I’ve never seen any other head of a church do this
Pope John PaulII has very publically asked for pardon for the sins some of the church members have committed… It was done with great humility
I’ve never seen any other head of a church do this
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wina
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Dear All,
I think what we should remember that all those priests,bishops…etc are still human who have all the weaknesses. Then because of that, we should pray for them as Virgin Mary told us to do better than pointing our finger to them. And we don’t need to deny it either because it’s happened. All I can say that forgiveness and pray for them.
Peace
I think what we should remember that all those priests,bishops…etc are still human who have all the weaknesses. Then because of that, we should pray for them as Virgin Mary told us to do better than pointing our finger to them. And we don’t need to deny it either because it’s happened. All I can say that forgiveness and pray for them.
Peace
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dosdog
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Bowen points to possible reasons for the Anglican Church’s (and other Calvinistic and evangelical churches’) willful ignorance of the impending genocide and initial denial of its existence as suggested in what he calls a “sympathetic critique of the East African revival” by Max Warren, who says that with such theology, “sin tends to be simplified to the individual … the corporate nature of man is lost to view and the full magnitude of evil most seriously underestimated.” (Page 43)Excellent post
Anglican Complicity in the Genocide in Rwanda
rci.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/dojustice/j245.html
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Contarini
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I think that JPII and Pope Benedict have made valiant efforts to express repentance and regret insofar as Catholic ecclesiology allows them to do so. But the basic claim remains that sins are always to be attributed to individuals (all JPII’s expressions of repentance made this very clear), even as those same individuals can claim the authority of the Church while committing their evil actions. This is what I’m concerned about. At the time of the Rwandan genocide, a Hutu priest or layperson might well think “hey, it’s OK for me to take part in the genocide, because my bishops are either approving or silent.” In the clerical abuse scandals, we are told over and over again that people didn’t want to question abusive priests or complacent bishops because these were representatives of the Church. The holiness ascribed to the Church protects priests and bishops while they are engaging in sinful acts, but when those acts are exposed and condemned the guilt allegedly rests only on the individuals and not on the Church. That is the problem. I know that the Episcopal Church is a sinful institution. I can say this without qualification or hesitation. You can’t say this about your Church–not without qualifications and nuances a mile thick.
Edwin
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Contarini
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Yes, and Catholic complicity had different roots. But its existence is unquestioned.
More than 50% of the population of Rwanda was Catholic. As I said, this is just not a road you want to go down if you are trying to point away from Catholic scandals. You are deliberately selecting sources that speak of Anglican involvement and ignoring those that speak of Catholic involvement.
The individualism spoken of in that website is present in Catholicism as well, though it doesn’t stem from the East African Revival. Look at wina’s post above–it expresses everything in terms of sinful individuals. This is exactly the problem the article from Louie Crew’s website articulated in the case of Anglicanism. It overlooks structural issues altogether.
When members of the Church do horrible things, you have to say more than “people are sinful.” You have to ask what can be done to avoid or at least minimize the chance of such a thing happening in the future. My point is that in practice Catholic ecclesiology makes this hard to do, because the formula is “individuals sin, but the Church doesn’t.”
Edwin
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dosdog
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Contarini
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What lesson? That it’s OK to sling mud at each other selectively, while ignoring the guilt of our own side? I’m afraid Protestants already know how to do that quite well enough. We don’t need any lessons in it from you.
Edwin
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dosdog
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Contarini
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Who says this? And why would any decent person (not to say Christian) listen to such people?
Edwin
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dosdog
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United States Marine Corps
printfection.com/militaryshirts/USMC-Jihad-Works-BOTH-Ways-Sleeveless-T-Shirt/_p_1139668
So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression—an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.
Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way.
Whether we admire the Crusaders or not, it is a fact that the world we know today would not exist without their efforts. The ancient faith of Christianity, with its respect for women and antipathy toward slavery, not only survived but flourished. Without the Crusades, it might well have followed Zoroastrianism, another of Islam’s rivals, into extinction.
The Real History of the Crusades
thearma.org/essays/Crusades.htm
The Thirty Years war began when two Catholic members of the Prague Diet were thrown out of the window by Protestants.
multied.com/WH1400-1900/Europe/Europe/ThirtyYrsWar.html
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dosdog
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Gorbachev Warns of History Whitewash
MOSCOW (AP) - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned Wednesday against whitewashing the crimes of dictator Josef Stalin, stressing that Russia cannot move forward without facing the truth about its bloody past. In words that appeared aimed at President Vladimir Putin, Gorbachev also emphasized the need to pursue democracy. His remarks, less guarded than usual, came amid growing concern among Russia’s marginalized liberals that Putin’s government is recasting Stalin’s legacy to justify its own increasingly tight control.
The Stalin era is being portrayed as a “golden age,” said Gorbachev, whose 1980s “glasnost” campaign as the last Soviet president prompted stunning revelations about Stalin’s murderous policies. “We must remember those who suffered, because it is a lesson for all of us—a lesson that many have not learned,” Gorbachev said at a discussion marking the 70th anniversary of the bloodiest year of Stalin’s Great Terror.
More than 1.7 million people were arrested in 1937-38 by the Soviet security services alone, and at least 818,000 of them were shot, Roginsky said.
breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RTBLH00&show_article=1
MOSCOW (AP) - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned Wednesday against whitewashing the crimes of dictator Josef Stalin, stressing that Russia cannot move forward without facing the truth about its bloody past. In words that appeared aimed at President Vladimir Putin, Gorbachev also emphasized the need to pursue democracy. His remarks, less guarded than usual, came amid growing concern among Russia’s marginalized liberals that Putin’s government is recasting Stalin’s legacy to justify its own increasingly tight control.
The Stalin era is being portrayed as a “golden age,” said Gorbachev, whose 1980s “glasnost” campaign as the last Soviet president prompted stunning revelations about Stalin’s murderous policies. “We must remember those who suffered, because it is a lesson for all of us—a lesson that many have not learned,” Gorbachev said at a discussion marking the 70th anniversary of the bloodiest year of Stalin’s Great Terror.
More than 1.7 million people were arrested in 1937-38 by the Soviet security services alone, and at least 818,000 of them were shot, Roginsky said.
breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RTBLH00&show_article=1
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dosdog
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Sharansky, the former Prisoner of Zion who currently chairs the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, told The Jerusalem Post Thursday: "I have to give Bush credit, because he brought back the agenda of linking security and democracy, which was abandoned by the free world after the defeat of the Soviet Union
“Many politicians and institutions that should be promoting democracy and freedom are cynically reluctant to do it, because Bush raised the agenda,” Sharansky went on. "That’s why I give Bush an “A” for raising the idea, a “C” for implementation and I give his opponents, who abandoned the idea, an “F,” because they are attacking Bush not for inconsistency in implementing the agenda but for raising it.
jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1188392502847&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
“Many politicians and institutions that should be promoting democracy and freedom are cynically reluctant to do it, because Bush raised the agenda,” Sharansky went on. "That’s why I give Bush an “A” for raising the idea, a “C” for implementation and I give his opponents, who abandoned the idea, an “F,” because they are attacking Bush not for inconsistency in implementing the agenda but for raising it.
jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1188392502847&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
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emeraldcoast
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Dog,
Go easy on slinging around the Corps’ good name - obviously that is not official USMC policy nor is it a view endorsed by the many Marines I know - I am a wife of a long-time member of the larger Naval Service. Painting the Marine Corps with such a broad brush of throughtless intolerance leaves the impression that they really believe what the bumper sticker says and can give an unknowing public a false impression.
Go Navy, Semper Fi!
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