Wow..... I can only hope this isn’t true

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catholic03 said:
the number of bishops who dissent from Church doctrine is pretty miniscule - outside Germany they are almost non-existent.
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This is also my impression.

Yet we have to hear about every bishop from Germany like he’s somehow setting the pace for the whole church. Most bishops in my experience don’t want to be like the radical bishops from Germany.
 
I agree -

But it is clear that many of the bishops in that country are doing problematic things.

But outside Germany, dissenting bishops are hard to find, luckily.

Even the Vatican has warned the German bishops and will take action if they go too far.

Which is why I will probably never have to worry about disobeying my bishop - dissent outside of Germany among the hierarchy is very rare among priests and essentially doesn’t exist among bishops.

I also agree about hearing from the German bishops all the time.

There are around 3500 dioceses/archdioceses and only around 30 are in Germany.
 
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It’s also my understanding that some of the German bishops are pretty orthodox. It’s just a handful that one always hears about pushing boundaries. I always suspect a lot of their motivation is the “church tax” business over there, so they try to be very broad in order to get as many people as possible to join, since lots of them are reluctant about paying the tax. It makes me wonder how many people in USA would still be Catholic if they had to pay tax to be one.
 
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Yes. Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki is very orthodox, as an example, as are others.

Pope Benedict is German - and Archbishop Ganswein - both champions of orthodoxy.

I completely agree about Church tax. This whole synodal thing seems to be motivated by it.

Germany as a society is no more liberal than many countries with conservative hierarchies - the motivation seems to be the tax - if they lose the people then they lose a lot of money.

I trust in the Holy Father and the great Cardinal Woelki - if and when some of the German bishops start implementing their “new doctrines”, then the conservative German bishops and Rome will have none of it and will stop it.

It is always valuable to maintain filial obedience to the Holy Father and bishops.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I always suspect a lot of their motivation is the “church tax” business over there, so they try to be very broad in order to get as many people as possible to join, since lots of them are reluctant about paying the tax.
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But isn’t the tax one that people can choose whether it goes to the church administered social programs, OR the one administered by the government? So that shouldn’t really be an issue for people.
 
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Crocus said:
But isn’t the tax one that people can choose whether it goes to the church administered social programs, OR the one administered by the government? So that shouldn’t matter really.
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No, the tax as I understand it is one that you don’t have to pay at all if you make a formal declaration of leaving the Church.
So you save a lot of money.

The downside is if you formally leave the church, they won’t give you any sacraments there. No exceptions. Corrected: I just looked it up again and you CAN get Last rites before death, but that’s it. They say you can’t even go to confession, though I’m not sure how they would keep you out as it’s supposed to be anonymous, so if you didn’t go face to face how would the priest know that you were a person who didn’t pay tax?
 
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As I age, I am striving to become more Franciscan. Saint Francis of Assisi swore absolute obedience to his Bishop in all things - save for sin. I cannot think of a better example than him.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
Having the eyes of many heterosexual married men on the clergy in general, working beside them, could have acted as a strong disinfectant.
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I just wanted to comment on that. My experience in Reformed church circles, unfortunately, is that neither married men on the clergy, neither (since Reformed churches allow it) married women on the clergy are a protection against abuse. I can even think of cases where it had exactly the opposite effect, because people wanted to protect the innocent family of the guilty minister. And then you have the just as complex situations where abuse is committed by the close family member of a minister (son, wife…).

I would not be opposed to the idea of married priests. I just think we should be careful about promoting them as a solution to abuse. I don’t believe they are.
 
YourNameHere said:
Francis is the Pope. Thank God for his leadership.
Until this thread, I had never heard of LifeSiteNews.
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Given the last few posts I could go without ever hearing of it.
As for the claim being made: no, Pope Francis is not going to abolish priestly celibacy. @ConcernedConvert you need not worry. It won’t happen.
 
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Many people have already said it, but reading alarmist media is bad for your mental and spiritual health. If you have an ingrained habit of going to sites like this, I’d recommend a web blocker to block it. The quality of your life will improve.
 
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My take away from the article and from the concerns of others isn’t that Pope Francis is going to just come right out and abolish priestly celibacy within a few weeks or months.

The concern is that the document could leave the door open for such a change down the road. Which unfortunately has been the growing trend. Just look at the changes that have taken place over a period of years and decades, communion in the hand, altar girls, Eucharistic ministers; these changes slowly unfolded over a long period of time.

And usually it’s been because of a present day interpretation of some ambiguous passage or document from years prior, that just happens to fit their ideology.
 
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Limankaro said:
Why is it so scary?

Don’t read any underlying hostile intent to this question, im just genuinely curious to discover what people are ultimately worried about.

I don’t think anyone truly worries about girls helping out at the altar or recieving communion in the hand. There must be something in the back of peoples mind that triggers them. Some endgame vision they feel is materializing.
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We contend with fallen angels. Immortal horribly evil creatures determined to bring down the Church and drag as many souls as possible to perdition.
Thing like communion in the hand, having other people distribute the Eucharist instead of the priest, getting people to advocate or adopt liturgical abuses—these are a way to chip away at the truth. To introduce corruption by little and little.

Also the Slippery Slope isn’t always a fallacy. It’s possible to go tiny step by tiny step from very minor offences to disastrous buses. Tell one lie a day and in a year you’ve utterly ruined some innocent person’s reputation.
 
Jumping from changes in Church discipline which are not a sin to lying which is is quite a leap.
 
While I understand what you are getting at. There are many many married men who have had ‘sexual misbehavior’, rather that is an affair or worse something with a minor. There are many many Priest who have remained truly celibate. The actual number of Priest who have had inappropriate sexual behavior is very small compared to all the good Priest, percentage-wise. I understand your fears, but we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater based on the actual small numbers. I mean one Priest who has committed a sexual crime is one too many, but there are so many good ones out there, who are celibate that we need to support. Allowing Priest to marry won’t fix what is obviously a psychological issue and not a marriage issue.
 
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Zaccheus said:
We contend with fallen angels. Immortal horribly evil creatures determined to bring down the Church and drag as many souls as possible to perdition.
Thing like communion in the hand, having other people distribute the Eucharist instead of the priest, ………… To introduce corruption by little and little.
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Wait, so you are claiming that practices allowed by the Pope are introducing corruption? Are introducing evil into the church? That the Pope and the bishops are in effect, doing the work of ‘fallen angels immortal horribly evil creatures’?
 
Tis_Bearself said:
No, the tax as I understand it is one that you don’t have to pay at all if you make a formal declaration of leaving the Church.
So you save a lot of money.
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You’re right. I remembered it wrong; it was the non religiously affiliated people who voluntarily pay the tax, cuz they appreciate the value of the social contribution of churches, not that everyone pays, but may choose a secular option.
Tis_Bearself said:
It makes me wonder how many people in USA would still be Catholic if they had to pay tax to be one.
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Numbers actually show a lot of support for the tax, which wouldn’t go over the same in USA due to totally different history. Interestingly it is the countries that do not have a church tax, that report the least Christian identification.


As for saving a lot of money, (my memory could be off, I didn’t go to the web calculator again) I estimated it to be maybe half of what a person would put in the collection plate.
 
He has an associate (or two), a good staff and a group of dedicated volunteers.

We have always had married Latin Rite Diocesean priests in our parish, so, we are used to it. Married priests are more expensive to the parish to support, but, God is good and provides for the parish.
 
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