Reply to Another massive sexual abuse scandal

Forum Index » Religion

Reply to "Another massive sexual abuse scandal"

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]The Catholic Church is a cult that systematically abuses children and pays to cover it up.

Shame on all practicing Catholics. Shame on you.[/quote]

DH was raised Catholic, and he calls it a cult. Loathes it, and thinks all should quit the church because of it's association with and history of child abuse. A sick, sick underbelly to that religion. [/quote]

There are more than 1.3 billion (with a “b”) Catholics in the world. You think they’re responsible for the predations of a comparatively few perverts and the acts and/or omissions of bad administrators?  That’s like saying the Chinese people are responsible for the evils of Communism, or the Cambodians for the evils of Pol Pot. The vast majority of those 1.3 billion people, although sinners, are doing their best to find their way through this life and into what they hope will be eternal life according to a belief system in which they find solace and hope. Those 1.3 billion people perform untold hidden works of charity.  The “Church” isn’t the administrative entity — that entity exists to serve (sometimes very poorly) the needs of those 1.3 billion people.

How dare PP “shame” 1.3 billion fellow people doing the best they can!  How dare the other PP deride as a “cult” a two-millennia old belief system the fundamental tenets of which are love and self-giving!  Neither PP would dare criticize other belief systems that treat child rape, particularly of girls, as normal. At least the Catholics admit it is a sin. Complain all you want about the management, but you have no right to attack the 1.3 billion regular believers who are as much victims as anyone else of these scandals. [/quote]

What’s a few million destroyed children because of all the other stuff we did and BTW this was covered up AT THE VERY TOP OF THE CHURCH! Pope after Pope allowed this! Your local priest knew this was a thing but shrugged his shoulders and arranged the pancake dinner. In any other org the “good” ones would have gathered and protested and called for a stop to it but they just let it go. Do all the mental gymnastics you want but it is wrong to support the Catholic Church in any way. It ‘ain’t the only church. [/quote]

And again, you fail or refuse to recognize the distinction between the body of believers, who have been harmed financially, morally and otherwise, and the perverts and bad managers who allowed the harm to occur. Your “knowledge” of ecclesiology is obviously pitiful, but not as pitiful as your understanding of Catholic theology. For Catholics, the Catholic Church in fact IS the “only church.”  Their belief system obliges them to accept a hierarchical structure, but it certainly does not render them responsible for the misdeeds of a few who manifestly acted in violation of Church moral teaching, and more than the Iraqis were responsible for Saddam, the Chinese people for Mao or the Cambodian people for Pol Pot.  The “VERY TOP OF THE CHURCH” is a rarified zone that is supposed to serve the believers; its sins are not theirs. You haven’t got the slightest idea what any priest knew or didn’t know about any case of alleged abuse. [b]The ones I’ve known were as scandalized as any layman[/b].[/quote]

but they devoutly stayed.

Meanwhile, many Catholics have left in disgust -- according to your reasoning, they would be the bad guys.[/quote]

Good, bad or indifferent, apostasy is never spiritually advantageous for the individual. Whatever those people think they are “disgusted with,” it is not the Catholic Church, which Catholics believe is founded on Christ himself. There are people who abandon the Church because their own feelings are hurt or something bad happened to them. That’s understandable but unfortunate. It is the spiritual equivalent of suffocating oneself to avoid something that smells bad. Many more people who purport to leave the Church “in disgust” actually are reacting to their own self-hatred at their inability to live according to Church teaching, which they frequently misunderstand and/or deny instead of seeking pardon and trying again when they fail.

No Catholic can ever “leave in disgust” in any event. They can become inactive, they can become apostate, they can embrace heresy, but fundamental Catholic teaching remains that once an individual is incorporated into the Church by baptism they cannot be removed. People who posit that Church “membership” is no more than a preference akin to liking one fast food restaurant over another are fundamentally ignorant and promoting indifferentism, which is no faith at all. [/quote]

The Catholic church will take back apostates at any time.  Actually, though you may not know it, you never actually left the church, you just stopped going to mass and tithing.  According to the Church, it doesn't matter what you do, you are part of the Church FOREVER - from the day your parents had you baptized as a infant.  You've been Catholic since before you could speak or control your bowels.

What differs is your destination in the afterlife. If you disavow the Church or stop attending, you will go to hell.  If you make your Easter duty every year, attend mass and go to confession you will go to heaven, as long as you are in a state of grace when you die. It's a pretty good deal, because between confessions, you can sin as much as you want.[/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