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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A Pope who endorsed the admission of women to Holy Orders and/or procured abortion and/or sacramental marriage between persons of the same sex would by that act become a material heretic and ipsofacto cease to be Pope.

The pope can modify celibacy requirements for secular priests (those not a part of a religious order with a separate vow of chastity) at any time. Celibacy is a discipline, not an ontological part of the priestly state. [/quote]

This is not technically true. All of these issues are debated and some have been different within the Church at different times in history. [/quote]

The Pope’s ability to modify the discipline of celibacy is debated?  I think not.

The gravely sinful nature of abortion debated?  Hardly.

The ontological inability to confer Holy Orders on a woman debated?  No. That has been firmly settled long before it was definitively (and one can argue based on phrasing infallibly) rejected by John Paul II.

The impossibility to confect the sacrament of matrimony between persons of the same sex debated?  Certainly not.

There are people who would like to debate these matters now, and who hope to obscure the longstanding clarity of doctrine in these areas, but the questions are closed and more or less always have been. There is room for discussion as to how such matters should be approached pastorally, which is what Pope Francis is doing.[/quote]

This "black and white" absolute thinking peppered with language marketed by a hypocritical patriarchy fearful of losing its power is precisely what's causing droves of people to leave the RCC for other more inclusive denominations or to become unchurched entirely.[/quote]

I think that the vast majority of people who abandon the practice of their Catholic Faith and/or apostatize to other denominations do so without a meaningful understanding of the teachings they claim to reject, or of the reasons why the Church teaches as it does.  People often are attached to behaviors that go against Church teaching and feel like hypocrites if they stay, never considering the availability of Divine Mercy or the role of a well-formed conscience in making individual moral decisions. People leave because they’re dissatisfied with externals, get their feelings hurt or because of the sins and shortcomings of Church personnel, acting on a human and emotional level and losing sight of how God operates in and through the Church despite human frailty.

[b]Relativism, the refusal to acknowledge that truth is objective, knowable and absolute, is probably the greatest modern heresies.[/b] Church teaching is “black and white” because beliefs in some matters are either true or not, with no middle ground, and the Church is obliged to seek and teach the truth.

Blaming “patriarchy” for the perceived shortcomings of the Church and its doctrines is a puerile, disingenuous and ill-informed dodge that focuses on the superficialities of what is perceived as worldly “power,” and ignores the servant nature of leadership in the Church, especially today. It likewise casts aside the example of centuries of highly influential women in the Church, such as Catherine of Siena, Joan of Arc, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux,  Mother Teresa, and centuries of Abbesses, nuns, teaching sisters, to name only a few.  The Bible records that Jesus first appearance after his resurrection was to a woman; it is a pious belief that he appeared even before that to another woman, his mother. 
[/quote]

Of course the Roman Catholic Church is going to say “relativism” is a great heresy! It represents a clear and present danger to the power that Catholic clergy have exercised over the masses for two thousand years.

Gotta keep the sheep dumb and stupid. Don’t want them to open their eyes, perk up their ears, start looking around, start looking at the sky, and begin to ponder the vastness of God’s creation while asking: “God’s absolute truth can only be found in one belief system (among hundreds) on one planet (among trillions) in one galaxy (among billions)?” No. No. No. Gotta tell them that line of thinking leads straight to the Devil! Keep your eyes shut, keep your ears closed, and do whatever His Holiness, His Excellency, or Father tells you because only the Roman Catholic Church has access to the fullness of God…[/quote]

Where are you getting this experience of Catholic church from? Mine always encourages respect for other Christian denominations (they’ll say something like the Catholic church has the “fullness” of the faith but that others have much good as well) and other religions (respect for the “sacred” texts of other religion) and particularly Jews (“our elders in faith”). I can remember a funny joke we were told in a homily about all the non-Catholics in heaven. [/quote]

NP. Yeah, the Catholic Church can “respect” other faiths all it wants. [b]But you just said it yourself. The Catholic Church alone has the “fullness of the faith.”[/b] It views other religions, other denominations, and other belief systems as inherently inferior.

I agree with the PP. Universe is too big for one church on one planet in one solar system in one galaxy to claim that it alone has the direct dial to the fullness of God.

I grew up Catholic. Guess Catholics can brand me a heretic because I now think there are many paths to God. That makes me a “relativist?” I don’t care. I still strive to live by the central tenets of the Gospel and I see others from multiple faiths doing the same thing — many of them much better than me. Personally, I don’t need a bunch of male clerics telling me there’s [b]only one[/b] path to the fullness of God. That only smacks of pigheadedness, close-mindedness, ignorance, and insecurity.[/quote]

How is this different than any religion or ideology or position on pretty much any disagreement? You seem to reserve unique spite for Catholicism.[/quote]

This thread is about Catholicism — not about other religions. I happen to disagree with any faith that proclaims it owns the only path to the fullness of God.[/quote]

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