Reply to Catholic Confirmed, but non-believer

Forum Index » Religion

Reply to "Catholic Confirmed, but non-believer"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm Catholic, went to Catholic school, got all the sacraments. We married in a Catholic ceremony and got the kids baptized in the church. We are both sort of agnostic. I believe in God in a general sense and I think Jesus had a great message that isn't really reflected in any version of Christianity that I've encountered. I don't know that that makes me from a religious standpoint but I'm comfortable with this. We don't force religion on our kids and I encourage them to explore their own views and feelings.

I think being Catholic is a strong identity and there's a lot to enjoy in it, apart from actual religious beliefs. Don't worry about whether your beliefs actually jive with the church-- polling of Catholics indicates that most of us don't believe what we are "supposed" to. Still, it is [b]a strong cultural tradition to pass to our kids[/b]. Just go with it. You're actually doing what most Catholics do. [/quote]

like centuries of covering up pedophilia.

Seriously, all the traditions can be found in the episcopal church, without the evil at the core.[/quote]

This sounds like an episcopalian to me.  Perfectly politically correct about certain matters (e.g., would never dare say anything bad about Islamn) but willing to cheerfully call the church founded by St. Peter on Christ's instruction "evil at the core."

[/quote]

One would think that men of god raping kids as young as three - all OVER the world - would be evil to the core.

But go on and praise god!

- ex-catholic[/quote]

Even the super-liberal Washington Post disagrees with you:  [url] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/16/AR2010041602026.html [/url]
[/quote]

This article does nothing to refute the crimes of the Catholic church[/quote]

The Catholic church is a 2,000 year old institution that has had literally billions of members and has survived the rise and fall of numerous empires.  Some of those billions of people have been terrible.  Some of those billions of people have be wonderful (one might even say saints).

Plenty of other institutions have had the same problems in recent decades -- other religious denominations, the boy scouts, camps, public schools, foster care, you name it.  There's no evidence that child abuse was more frequent in the Catholic church than in other institutions -- if you can find some evidence, feel free to share it.  Because the the Catholic church is enormous and such a prominent institution, the scale creates headlines.  (I'd also argue that certain people in the media had an axe to grind given the church's stance on other highly controversial political issues, but that's just my opinion.)  Child abuse is simply and sadly much more common than most people ever expected.

When looking back at the decisions of individual bishops to move priests around, though, please keep in mind that back in the 70s and even 80s, secular psychologists frequently advised that child abusers could be cured with counseling and therapy, and people believed and acted on that advice.  The child abusers themselves were obviously despicable -- this is true both of the 90% plus who abused teenagers and the extremely small number who abused younger children -- as were the bishops who continued with failing policies when it was obvious they were putting children in danger.  Those bishops should have been forced out long ago, and should have apologized for the church's gross negligence long before they actually did.

That being said, the vast majority of Catholic priests are NOT child abusers and [b]there is NO evidence that a Catholic priest is more likely to abuse your kid than any other male authority figure[/b] (camp counselor, teacher, rabbi, travel team soccer coach, boy scout headmaster, etc...).  To claim the church is "evil at its core" is simply bigotry.

But there's plenty of evidence that the Catholic church is more likely to cover it up and continue victimizing children.  Shame on you for wasting so many words defending the indefensible.

[/quote][/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics